The latest Vanity Fair cover is an annual event where the most talked-about stars in movies grace the cover, and one of them is Gugu Mbatha-Raw, whose father is South African and whose name is actually short for Gugulethu. Mbatha-Raw was born in Witney, a rural and typically quaint Oxfordshire town, of a South African doctor […]

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It was one of South Africa’s many dark moments. Fifty years ago, on 11 February in 1966, the neighbourhood of District Six on the fringe of Cape Town’s centre was declared for “Whites Only”. More than half a century later the area has (lamentably, after many hold-ups) still not been built on, and it remains a very visible […]

In an interview with The New York Times, South African photographer Chris Saunders says his love of the pantsula dance culture stems from its spontaneous and makeshift energy and the positive message the dance’s champions are trying to spread. Pantsula originated in the townships of South Africa during apartheid. Modern pantsula dance moves have turned into a […]

The innovate site 10and5.com have launched a free Web show that highlights lots of creative things going on in South Africa you might not have heard about. Hidden galleries, music gigs, shops and loads of things to do. “This is our first episode and we’re super excited to share it with you – it’s full of […]

Perfectly timed to make a repeat appearance on social media while “Sugarman” singer Rodriguez is in South Africa for his sixth tour is the cartoon “Nkandla Man”. “Nkandla Man” was created in 2013 by former Cape Argus cartoonist John Curtis and cartoonist Jerm, who collaborated on it for a related article in an edition of Rolling Stone. “It is obviously a parody […]

Looking for deeper insight into South Africa – or just a good read? Here are snap reviews of classic South African books, covering everything from non-fiction to fiction to poetry, and featuring a range of the country’s greatest novelists, poets, journalists and historians. (Thanks to South African Book Fair for the main pic.) Non-fiction 1. Long Walk […]

It’s been almost 10 years since J.K. Rowling brought out “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows”, the last in the popular series, but she keeps fans updated in myriad ways. Most recently she has identified four more wizardry schools around the world, and the biggest is in Africa, called Uagadou (pronounced Wagadoo). At a Harry Potter celebration […]

U.S. talk show host Ellen de Generes has long been known as a supporter of animal causes, and now it’s African animal causes too. Two of her most recent guests were Dereck and Beverly Joubert, the South African conservationists and award-winning photographers. The South African couple, who have lived in the Botswana wilderness for some […]

The France-based chef Jan Hendrik van der Westhuizen has become the first South African to win a coveted Michelin star for his restaurant JAN in Nice on the Riviera, it was announced on Monday. It was one of more than 50 new stars awarded in 2016, Michelin said. For restaurants in France a Michelin star is […]

Certain cities around the world get a name for great coffee. San Francisco, Seattle, London, Tokyo, Taipei. Now add Cape Town to the pack, especially over the last year or two as specialty coffee shops have exploded all over the Mother City. We sniffed out the best brew to be found. 1. The best coffee shop for over-the-top […]

In the first of a series of sold-out concerts around the country, British Grammy-award-winning rock band Mumford & Sons played to a crowd of thousands on the Grand Parade in Cape Town on Friday night. The band will play another concert in Cape Town, one in Durban and two in Pretoria. Watch the crowd join […]

JOHANNESBURG – The first wide-ranging show of the artist Henri Matisse in South Africa will be presented in Johannesburg later this year, the French Embassy in South Africa said on Monday. The show, “Rhythm and Meaning”, will run at the Standard Bank Gallery from 13 July to 17 September. It will be the fourth major exhibition […]

For anyone who hasn’t seen a South African theatre production recently, “Singin’ in the Rain” will astound you. The famous musical – which is actually seeing a revival on Broadway this year – gets nothing but praise, praise and more praise. After a wildly successful run in Cape Town – with audiences in the first three rows getting ponchos […]

If you are upset that South Africa’s Charlize Theron didn’t get nominated by the Academy Awards for her brilliant performance in ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’, that’s nothing compared to the racial furore that’s been caused by people of colour having been overlooked, with two well-known movie industry members saying they won’t attend the 2016 Oscar awards in […]

Philani Dladla’s story is well known to those who know him as the Pavement Bookworm and have bought books from him on Empire Road in Johannesburg, South Africa. But now he has added author to his résumé, with his newly published book titled, of course, “The Pavement Bookworm”. Dladla – whom we wrote about in […]

Three years ago this weekend, small-town Mpumulanga schoolgirl Pretty Yende made her debut at the world-famous Metropolitan Opera House in New York. More astonishing than her voice was that it had been only a decade since Yende had learned what the word “opera” meant. This weekend Yende posted a message on Instagram from Paris, where she is soon to […]

Arts and Culture Minister Nathi Mthethwa has paid tribute to late musician David Bowie for championing the struggle for equality. “He spoke out and pointed out uncomfortable truths to those around him about racism. In so doing, he was an agent of change and a trailblazer in many different ways,” Minister Mthethwa said. Bowie passed […]

Watch one of the best cover versions of Toto’s Africa ever performed… Using a unique intro – the kind that will make you want to rub your hands together! – the Angel City Chorale, from Los Angeles. recorded this video at least two years ago…but it has recently gone viral again on social media. If you haven’t […]

The successful U.S. streaming entertainment company Netflix has broadened its global outreach to South Africa, where it launched this week and goes up against local streaming company ShowMax, which began in 2015. South Africa is one of 130 countries that will get Netflix from Wednesday. The latest move means that Netflix is now available in […]

How does a municipal structure in place for decades get broken with abandon? Is it a process? What breaks first that is deemed not important enough to fix? The abysmal current state of Pretoria Art Museum is a crying shame to its proud, polished history. It feels as though the best solution is to shut […]

The singer Beyoncé wants to make a movie playing Saartjie Baartman, the Khoi woman who was sent to Europe in the 19th century and spent the rest of her short life as an oddity gawked at by Europeans, according to news reports. The Grammy winner who has acted in movies like “Dreamgirls” has apparently requested countless books on […]

Cape Town city was flooded with tens of thousands of people on Saturday, as the Cape Minstrels – or the Kaapse Klopse – took to the streets in one of the best and, surprisingly, least-known carnivals around. Tweede Nuwe Jaar, or Second New Year, is held on 2 January every year and was started by […]

There may be a new player on the entertainment block in 2016, with numerous reports saying that the well-known U.S. streaming company Netflix will enter the South African market as early as January. Streaming provider Netflix, which shows movies and TV series, some of them originally made, said in January 2015 that it was planning to enter South […]