Over a year ago Kameraad Mhambi wrote about the cool Afro-electro of Gazelle from Cape Town. Well, good news is that Gazelle is now releasing his first proper album titled Chick Afrique.
Gazelle – The King of Kaapstad
If your lucky enough to be there the launch party is on the 30th of January in Cape Town, see the Facebook event details here.
And look at the album cover. Way cool.
The Kameraad sees the creative hand of artist and graphic designer Peet Pienaar in this.
Yes, the Peet that’s allegedly got “Boer” tatood on his stomach, and whose one contribution to art exhibition included dressing up as a Springbok rugby player and standing in shopping malls and the National Gallery as an exhibit.
Peet – who also designed Gazelle’s EP sleeve, is at the cutting edge of ironic African design.
The King of Benin
Peet introduced Mhambi to this book – tilted African Kings. It’s packed full of the incredible photos of photographer Daniel Laine.
The Amazon blurb says:
From 1988 to 1991, Laine photographed 70 African monarchs “whose dynasties marked the history of Africa until the middle of the twentieth century.” With hundreds of monarchs to choose from, Laine focused on those who continued to “retain a traditional and spiritual authority that is difficult for the Western mind to comprehend.”
And now you can see where the inspiration for this album cover came from. Listen to some Gazelle tracks here.
Related deployments:
I’m not so interested in the music, but I’d love to get hold of the book and Daniel Laine’s photographs.
[...] bets his two front teeth that he was the first blogger on the planet to write about Gazelle (and here) (I was the second to write about Die Antwoord), but I missed the release of his neat little music [...]