Koleka Putuma Gives a Voice to the Women Inhabiting Society’s Margins | by Amaka Admin

Koleka Putuma has managed to pull those residing in the interstices of society to the centre, where they are worthy of celebration. In their internationally lauded debut anthology, Collective Amnesia which was originally published in 2017, Putuma explores themes that are prevalent to Black life in South Africa. She further pushes against erasure and silencing by bringing language as well as eyes to the lived experience of South African queer persons. These issues include the tensions between religion and sexuality, poverty and growing into adulthood.

In a poem titled “Hand Me Downs”, Putuma says, ”I have inherited a lineage of hand-me-downs/ It has made me a mechanic and magician.” These lines speak to the complicated histories of South Africa and how younger generations are swaddled with trauma while attempting to negotiate intersectional identity in an intolerant society. Divided into three chapters, Collective Amnesia is an extraction of memory and a witness to the legacy of a displaced people. In Hullo, Bu-Bye, Koko, Come In, which was published in 2021, Putuma once again provides language and acts as a mouthpiece to women who have transgressed societal expectations, both in the private realm and in their artistry. On her website, Putuma says, “In writing Hullo, Bu-Bye, Koko, Come in, I wanted to reflect on my personal experiences of travelling and performing outside of South Africa and more specifically, Europe. I wanted to understand different aesthetics and forms of memory, documentation, performance, hyper-visibility and erasure. I wanted to look at how those things frame our understanding of women in the archive, legacies of archiving, celebration, fame, culture and Black women on and off the stage.”

The title is borrowed from the South African musician Brenda Fassie’s song “Istraight Lendaba”. Fassie was a rebellious figure who was incredibly popular with the older generation and her legacy persists today as a woman who took a hold of her agency. How did she do this? She was an internationally renowned pop singer who dominated newspaper headlines for her record-breaking sales and her controversial nature. Her first record “Weekend Special” is the sort of classic which cuts through generations ensuring that a South African convening in the form of weddings and birthdays is incomplete without her discography. In her later years, Fassie acknowledged that her love of the attention she received from the press was a double-edged sword that hypersexualised her and also presented her as a “bad girl” of sorts. In the last few years of her life, Fassie was visibly battling with media attention and drug abuse while surprising her fans by being in a hypervisible relationship with a woman and receiving backlash for the relationship. Fassie died from a drug overdose in 2004. Her cultural impact has changed the trajectory of South African Music as her music transcended genres and her influence was visible with artists such as the late Lebo Mathosa of the Kwaito group “Boom Shaka.”

In recalling her importance to the majority of Black South Africans, an article in the Mail and Guardian describes Fassie as follows, “With that voice — big enough to fill the FNB Stadium in Soweto on its own — she soothed, reassured and roused poor, Black South Africans. As someone with working-class roots, Fassie knew about their pain and aspirations. Even though her songs weren’t always overtly political, she tapped into the militancy of the 1980s.” Hullo, Bu Bye, Koko, Come In is a corrective device that addresses epistemicide and the danger of a singular narrative from a white and androcentric gaze. This is done through addressing the inhumanity that artists such as Brenda Fassie, Miriam Makeba and even Putuma herself face while existing as Black women and performers both in South Africa and internationally. In conversation with Lindokuhle Nkosi, Putuma states, “If I share a poem with people, I’m always asking why. Why am I sharing this? Why am I standing in front of people reading a poem about an ex? How is it going to shift things if I put this out in the world? What effect can it have on the person listening? I want to put poems out there that shift and move. I want to spark a conversation.” In their work as a theatre maker, poet and performer, Putuma provides us with a fluent language sometimes glistening with blood or writhing in unrequited love or contending with the ugliness of truth.

Erasure is a pervasive theme in both of the anthologies. While Collective Amnesia is a visceral account that evokes nostalgia, Hullo, Bu-Bye, Koko, Come In utilises the backspace function as a device for censorship and hesitation. The book pushes through silence and screams for the recognition of iconic figures such as Miriam Makeba and Brenda Fassie. Putuma places her experience close to Makeba’s and draws a picture of the present which is eerily familiar to those who have come before her. She does this through her recognition of the public figures as women and not merely icons existing for public consumption. In this way, Putuma brings a perspective that is not removed but invokes feelings of empathy and relatability to these women. She also shows to the reader that the experience of Black women is not new but a systemic problem that continues to ail every generation.

In her latest offering, Putuma has pulled attention to Black women and posthumous celebration. Hullo, Bu-Bye, Koko, Come In shines a light on the harsh reality of artists in South Africa, who often die as paupers while the world’s applause falls on dead ears. Putuma does this by writing about people and not just names that were adjacent to a scandal. She resurrects the artists whose music continues to ring through Black South African households while the stories of the artists remain untold. This is also a confrontation with South Africa’s government to heed the call of artists to receive royalties and ensure they do not die penniless after being exploited by record companies and agencies.

In celebrating icons such as Miriam Makeba and Brenda Fassie, Putuma pedestals the stories of Black women whose hypervisibility was parallel to erasure. This is demonstrated through accolades received overseas that do not exist in their home countries. The lives of artists are those burdened with the responsibility of preserving their legacy while trying to navigate the exploitative nature of the art industry. In Hullo Bu-Bye Koko Come In, Putuma names women fictional and real who have been split open and remade for a white and male gaze. Although Fassie was always open about her sexuality, she was hypersexualised to her discomfort and for sensationalisation. Within this list, she calls upon Toni Morrison’s Pecola from The Bluest Eye, Winnie Mandela, Kwezi, Venus and Meg the Stallion, to name a few. These are figures who have felt the brunt of their Black womanhood through abuse, exhibitionism, and assault. These are a band of characters who in their fictional and real-life existence were the antithesis of womanhood and not worthy of celebration. On Brenda Fassie, Putuma pedestals a character often labelled as the bad girl of the South African music industry, with the media designing a narrative that presented her as troubled, a drug user and sexually deviant. The anthology humanises Fassie and presents her as a vulnerable person, who had agency and who also had to grapple with the ever-present albatross of the press ready to crucify her with every scandal published. The hands of the media, the public and opportunistic relatives often clawed and grabbed at Fassie, each wanting to leave with a chunk to sate their cannibalistic appetites.

Collective Amnesia was also an act of holding, recognition and support. Maneo Mohale, writing for Mail and Guardian, poignantly discusses the poem “Lifeline”: “But what is grounding and powerful about Putuma’s rage is how closely she pairs it with tenderness. In Lifeline, a poem made almost entirely of the names of Black women (a poem she revealed to be her favourite), Putuma stitches a spine of support that amplifies the voices and work of the people who hold her up, the people who chant “Black girl /Live!” and the people who are also committed to the work of joy and justice.”

In Hullo Bu-Bye Koko Come In, Putuma continues her mission of providing representation that is not superficial but rather a representation that is pivoted by intersectionality and vulnerability. She manages to highlight the non-belonging of women who are considered sexually deviant and how that affects Black women as they move through a patriarchal world. The collection deeply resonates with the lived experiences of Black South African women and those beyond. The complexities of race, gender and sexual orientation determine the treatment of women as public figures and how they exist as objects of voyeurism. Additionally, Putuma draws from her own experience as an academic and theatre-maker on self-editing and conforming to Western standards of writing which add to the disappearance of Black women, their work and their legacies. Writing about their latest contribution for Okay Africa, Rufaro Samanga says, "Putuma begins by interrogating how the work of Black women writers, feminists and scholars has been whitewashed and credited to white women. The draft begins with a citation written by a Black woman, credited to a feminist white woman." Putuma is committed to truth-telling and allowing a gaze on their terms and not one which satisfies the voyeuristic desire of whiteness and patriarchy. Putuma also writes into history the lives of women in her own life that are worthy of recognition as well as demonstrates the role they played in carving her to be the performer she is. This is an act of recognition and the archiving of untold stories. Putuma’s work is a brilliant exercise of unearthing Black women as figures as well as the importance of archiving and documenting an honest narrative.

Koleka Putuma has managed to pull those residing in the interstices of society to the centre, where they are worthy of celebration. In their internationally lauded debut anthology, Collective Amnesia which was originally published in 2017, Putuma explores themes that are prevalent to Black life in South Africa. She further pushes against erasure and silencing by bringing language as well as eyes to the lived experience of South African queer persons. These issues include the tensions between religion and sexuality, poverty and growing into adulthood.