They Influenced Me
The internet coined a new word ‘influencer.’ Before then, people who influenced us were close by. We lived with them, they came to visit our parents and grandparents or they were strangers who enriched us mentally.
Britain invaded the world, stole forests, people, art, gold and diamonds but America controlled it through Hollywood, magazines, television and radio. Not all the information reached Africans because apartheid South Africa filtered it.
Black magazines like Essence, Jet and Ebony were banned. You could only buy them in Swaziland, Lesotho and Botswana which were called ‘British Protectorates.’
My friend who lived in Swaziland is one of my most cherished influencers because he bought them for me. That is how we learned about African Americans, their success and on-going struggle.
Another influencer exposed me to the blues, which I did not like very much because the lyrics sound like our dehumanization, tears and scars in South Africa. I’ll be forever grateful to Tyler Perry for using A Change is Gonna Come, sung by Sam Cooke in his film Daddy’s Little Girls. I can relate to the symbolism about the river.
At home, my greatest influencer was my uncle who was a newspaper editor. We lived with him and my grandparents because mama lived with white people where she was a maid. There were always newspapers around because my ‘mkhulu’ (grandfather) was an avid reader. People laughed at us because they called him the man with a newspaper under his arm.
I write because Uncle Duke was an editor. I monitor Felix Auger-Aliassime because my cousin Phumzile taught me how to play tennis and chess. Mama took me to the movies. Dad taught me how to saw wood and make window coverings he called pelmets. My grandmother taught me how to brew isi-Zulu, beer for the ancestors. I’m still bad at it.
I’m the lucky one. I had influencers close by. I didn’t have to press a phone to see one.
By: Nonqaba waka Msimang.
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