300 hand numbered copies with added insert. On the 17th of June 1976, a large crowd of young South Africans marched through the streets of downtown Johannesburg. The protest was an outpouring of public disgust at the recent actions of the Apartheid government and its racist police force who, just the day before, had violently quashed an uprising of black school children in Soweto who were protesting the humiliating enforcement of Afrikaans in their schools. In the process, they shot dead a boy called Hector Pieterson. He was 12 years old. The harrowing photo of Umbiswa Makhubo carrying Hector s body through the dusty streets of Soweto, taken by a local journalist that day, spelt the beginning of the end of Apartheid. The world now had a view into what was really happening under the racist National Party.
Amongst the protestors on June 17th, with a camera grasped firmly in his hands, was my father Herman Schey. Decades later, he unearthed the negatives from that day and we looked through them together when I was back home in London. Looking at the images, and hearing my father speak about that day, I knew that I wanted to do something with them. I felt inspired by the small difference my father made in taking photos and marching alongside black South Africans — an illegal act in itself at the time. For myself, making music is the art form through which I'm trying to reach people, and so it is through this that I saw an opportunity to try and do the same.
Using his original photos as artwork, and bringing together artists from South Africa and the rest of the world, I am creating a label where people can come together and exchange ideas, both musical and social. Through events and exhibitions, I will raise money for the Ubuntu Pathways in Port Elizabeth with whom I plan to work alongside.
This first record comprises of three of my original tracks with Thomas Edwards and Matthew Benyayer from Dark Sky featuring on "Bree Street Corner." I hope that you enjoy the music.
