Kalamazoo Mokone

Title: Kalamazoo Mokone
Medium: Four colour lithograph
Size: 52.2 x 40.2 cm
Edition size: 22

A suite of prints based on Drum, the famous magazine that started in 1951 and which captured the zeitgeist of the 1950s and 1960s. Drum was instrumental in pioneering investigative journalism in apartheid South Africa as well as celebrating life in Black communities. Underlying the images is the narrative of identity and citizenship articulated through dynamic ideas on belonging, equality and universality. The editions consist of 22 prints each, 2016 being the 22nd year of democracy in South Africa. With these prints, Nhlengethwa hopes to educate and remind the youth of where they come from.

Kalamazoo Stephen Mokone (1932 – 2015) was a South African soccer star who was the first black South African player to play in a professional European league in the early 1960s. He was also the first foreign professional player in Dutch football. He went on to play soccer internationally and settled in the USA when he stopped playing. He was convicted of various assault cases against his wife and her lawyer and spent time in jail. His other nickname was The Black Meteor.

Sam Nhlengethwa Print Archive