Arts, Culture + Society – Articles, Analysis, Comment – The Conversation

The age-old question of whether musicians should be writing for themselves or for their audiences has no easy answer. Reuters/Kim Hong-Ji

New music composers face the age-old question: do they write for themselves or for mass appeal?

Matildie Thom Wium, University of the Free State; Douglas Scott, University of the Free State, and Lance Phillip, University of the Free State

While the debate seems not to be solvable, three academics look at the question of whether artists should provide entertainment or write for their own pleasure.

In a track called Bring it Back Home, Hugh Masekela bemoans the tendency by politicians, who after ascending to power, discard the people who helped them get there. Andrea De Silva/Reuters

South African musicians in the eye of party political storm

Geoff Mapaya, University of Venda

Concert organisers began to compete for government contracts. Often these contracts came with conditions as to who, among musicians, was desirable at government events.

South Africa’s Oppikoppi music festival in the town of Northam, Limpopo has come to represent the aspirations of a generation which embraces the diversity of the country’s peoples and their respective music. Nikita Ramkissoon/The Conversation

Over 21 years the Oppikoppi music festival has come to embrace South Africa’s diversity

Lee Watkins, Rhodes University

The Oppikoppi Music Festival, one of the biggest and most popular in South Africa, holds on to the musical memories of the past and provides a musical map to the future.

Canned lion hunting is the focus of the 2015 film ‘Blood Lions’, which calls for the end of being ‘bred for the bullet’. Shutterstock

‘Blood lions’ sheds a harsh light on the canned hunting industry

Nkabeng Maruping-Mzileni, Tshwane University of Technology

The film ‘Blood Lions’ is contributing to the debate over canned hunting by delving into a sensationalised yet comprehensive true story.

A scene from the film ‘The Vow’, which is being shown at the Africa World Documentary Film Festival that aims to depict African stories through documentary. Photo supplied

Experiences of African people across the world brought to life through film

Roger Field, University of the Western Cape

Cape Town’s screening of the Africa World Documentary Film Festival provides a platform for debate, and shows how documentary films clarify and complicate the answers.