WeeklySA_AdminEPIPHANY: Veteran journalist Adams speaks about how a personal desire to purge his personal demons motivated him to pen his latest book, Dark White Light Black…
By Malvory “MeZZo” Adams
I bumped into a long-lost friend and he said: “Ou Mella, when are you going to write that book? We are getting old now?”
“Book? That’s a tall order, my bra!” I retorted.
However, he planted the seed. This seed soon morphed into a seedling and it led to my debut Afrikaans memoir, ‘Als is nie net swart en wit nie’.
Readers wanted more because the book documented the untold stories of our fractious country.
As a musically inclined person, the Barbara Streisand classic, “The Way We Were” played over and over in my mind.” The days when nature used to be our playground, simplicity our daily bread, and the river our lifeblood.
When Black and Coloured played sport together, laughed together, sang together, cried together, danced together, admired our boxing prince Nkosana “Happy Boy” Mgxaji together, and chased skirts together – from Zwelitsha to Dikeni to Mdantsane – the sports (boxing, rugby and soccer holy) grail.
When our hearts bled in unison and playwright Gibson Kente’s tearjerker play How Long? voiced our collective pain. “Why kick on me, Lord?”
Now we are like strangers in a crowd.
On this torturous trek out of the darkness into the light, many of us fell by the wayside. Thank God for second and third chances.
Unremembering, stigmatisation, ‘othering’ and erasure now the order of the day.
Dark White Light Black implores the individual not to get even but to look inside their hearts and our collective souls. Cos, like The O’Jays sings: We All in this thing Together (like in the 70s, 80s and 90s). We gotta work it out.
How? Personal development, believing in a being greater than ourselves and a heart to heart with ourselves, and sharing/telling stories about the halcyon days when humanity reigned supreme on the “Black” side of the rail line.
Forgiveness is not a one-way street. Full repentance for the past is long overdue – even from those in the advantaged group who were not there but are still reaping the benefits of oppression. How else are we going to heal?
Modern leaders, the cookie jar is running empty. So, before it’s too late, let’s put it back together – like in the 80s and early 90s.
Like our parents taught us, if you don’t listen you must feel. Spiritually, if someone works on your nerves, there’s something wrong with you too. But if you change your attitude towards people who peeve you, it will seem as if those people changed.
I fell deep into the mire in 2010 and after the World Cup, because of a life of extremes. Balance, a swear word in my vocabulary. And the Bible, a fairy-tale.
Dark White Light Black documents my torturous journey from self-destruction, a perilous path to restoration and redemption.
Ultimately, a life of bliss. On this thorn-strewn path, I discovered that life, in its essence, actually resides in the grey.
To transcribe Tony Evans’ seminal adage: I used to be a messed-up man contributing to a messed-up family resulting in a messed-up church causing a messed-up neighbourhood that resides in a messed-up city that’s part of a messed-up municipality, that’s contributing to a messed-up province, that’s contributing to a messed-up country, and your country’s part of the world. Well, now, your messed-up country is gonna make its contribution to a messed-up world.
Now, I’m free, free from myself, free from those cobwebs around my mind. Most of all, rid of that monster in the mirror that was me.
The ultimate freedom!
MALVORY “MeZZo” ADAMS BRIEF BIOGRAPHY
A British music reviewer once described Malvory Adams, a.k.a. MeZZo, as a writer who teaches through song. MeZZo’s musical career started in small-town halls and private homes in his hometown Breidbach, King William’s Town, in the Eastern Cape in the 70s.
He works at the SABC, as a News Bulletin Writer for Afrikaanse TV Nuus on SABC2.
His media career started in 1983 at Die Burger in Cape Town. He occupied senior editorial positions at numerous mainstream newspapers – in 38 years – as an editorial executive at City Press, Sowetan, Beeld and Son. He now plies his trade as a News Bulletin Writer at Afrikaanse TV-Nuus on SABC2.
At Die Burger, he coined the phrase ‘Santos Jou Lekke Ding’; when the ‘People’s Team’ still enjoyed PSL status, and, in 1996 at City Press, the phrase ‘Xhosanostra’ about the then sports rulers who hailed from one region, the Eastern Cape. Western Province Rugby adopted the same slogan: “WP, Jou Lekke Ding”.
He is also the singer-songwriter MeZZo, who released a 16-track album No Color.
He also received accolades, such as a Commended Award in the category Analysis and Commentary at the prestigious 2007 South African Mondi Shanduka Newspaper Awards for a 3-part series on transformation in sport.
Between 2004 and 2007, he co-owned and edited a multi-award-winning Western Cape community newspaper, West Xpress. Xpress scooped three national awards – including Best Emerging Publication at the Sanlam Community Press Awards. He is also a Clive Menell Fellow for senior journalists at Duke University (2001) in North Carolina, USA (2001).In 2021, he penned a memoir titled Als is nie net swart en wit nie.
Published on the 52th Edition. Get E-Copy
