Blurb
In Mr Entertainment, we hear the voices of the people who knew Petersen best: his family, friends and collaborators. Their stories bring to life the spaces he inhabited, vividly recounting scenes from his childhood, his rise to fame from the Cape Coon Carnival stage to the West End, his artistic collaborations, most notably with David Kramer, his family life, and his tragic death and its aftermath. In this pioneering biography of one of Cape Townâs most beloved entertainers, we encounter Petersen as a complex and many-sided personality whose influence continues to reverberate in national life.
Mr Entertainment evokes not just Taliepâs life, but also the music and entertainment worlds of the 1950s to 2000s and their diverse and irrepressible cultural traditions. Along the way, it brings us to the front row of South Africaâs difficult history.
Drawing on the musicianâs personal archive and on more than fifty interviews conducted over a decade, Paula Fourie has pieced together a fascinating portrait of Taliep Petersen, acutely observed and poignantly captured.
About the author
Paula Fourie is a writer who holds fellowships at the Bern university of the Arts and the Africa Open Institute at Stellenbosch University. She is also an occasional theatre director and the co- author (with Athol Fugard) of Concerning the Life of Babyboy Kleintjies. Her published work includes academic articles, essays, interviews, dramatic texts and poetry.
Extract
âIf you could say one thing to your father today, what would it be?â
In my interviews and email exchanges with Taliepâs six children, Natasha, Jawaahier, Aâeesha, Ashur, Fatiema and Zaynab, I ask them all the same question.
âObviously, thereâs a gazillion things that I would have wanted to tell my dad,â Natasha begins.
âBut I must be honest, when you posed that question to me, the first thing that came to mind was, âYou should have listened to me.â This speaks to discussions that I had with my dad about Najwa and me feeling that she is, simply put, evil. And that sheâs playing him, and that heâs not looking at this whole situation clearly. It was as if he was blinded when he came to her. I told him that. And the funny thing is, just before his passing, we had had another discussion. I donât want to call it an argument, but thatâs always what it ended up being. But I had said to him that â and this will stay with me forever, because it became quite heated â and I had said to him, âAre you gonna decide to listen to me when youâre six foot under?â
And itâs one of the things that I wish didnât come out. You know, my belief is that your time is your time and God decides when that time is, because he gives life. But at the same time, on the human side of me, Iâm like, if my dad had only listened to me, he would still be here.â
Jawaahier, meanwhile, has a very simple and disarming reply: âDad, youâd be proud of us.â When I press her to elaborate, she, too, points out, âTo expand on that one sentence would be tricky because thereâs so much I would want to say. I would say, âI told you about that woman!â Iâd maybe add: âYou definitely taught us how to live with you as such a significant part of it, but you failed in preparing us to live without you. But, boy, did we have to learn on the job!ââ
Aâeeshaâs answer is much longer. She remembers that one Sunday following a week at their motherâs house, she and her siblings hadnât felt like moving back in with their father. So they decided to stay put. When Taliep called at five minutes past six, Aâeesha told him that they were not coming home that week. He asked to speak to Jawaahier but, when she started crying, spoke to their mother instead. Angry words and cusses were exchanged. The next thing they knew, Taliep showed up at the door with the police.
âAnd then we all had to tell him, to his face, that we donât want to come home. And then he said to us, âIf ever there is a time where you hurt me, you have hurt me deeply now.â And, like, I never got the chance to apologise to him for that,â Aâeesha says. âSo, when I meet him, one day, Inshallah, thatâs the first thing. Iâm going to apologise, deeply, sincerely, for hurting him so badly that day.â
Ashur responds with a simple âthank youâ. âBecause of him, I am who I am,â he says. âUltimately because of God, but, I mean, DNA and genes, scientifically speaking,I am who I am because of him. Yeah. I donât see myself being anyone other than what I am, or who I am. I donât see myself working on someoneâs body as a doctor or defending someone in a court of law. I donât. I wake up, and itâs music. I sleep, itâs music. I dream, itâs music.â
Fatiema joins her eldest sister in asking, âLike, âCouldnât you see it coming?â Itâs the truth. And for a lot of years I was angry at him because, âYou made yourself seem so perfect, but you couldnât see the imperfections. You couldnât see your children were damaged. You couldnât see your wife was mentally unstable. You couldnât see that she was gonna murder you. Even after she stabbed you, you didnât go, âOh, hell, no. Iâm not doing it.ââ He was more or less, like, âNo, but Zaynab.â And I understand, like, he didnât want Zaynab to come from a broken home, but I mean, my goodness, if sheâs gonna, if she attempted to kill you, Iâm sorry. Fight or flight, Iâm fighting for me. Because Zaynab is now without a daddy.â
My interview with Zaynab is one of my very last. In 2011, at the start of my research, she was a minor, only twelve years old. I never thought I would be able to speak with her. Seven years later, I am trying to find the address of her home in Athlone where she lives with her older half-brother. It is only now, minutes before we are due to meet, that I register its address: 101 Grasmere Street. It feels very unreal to drive inside the houseâs high walls, to park in its generous front yard and to be met by the nineteen-year-old Zaynab. She leads me upstairs to a little landing. She brings me a cup of milky tea andsettles down in a chair next to me.
Not long into the interview, I murmur, âThis is the house where it happened âŠ?â
Zaynab nods. She clears her throat. Gesturing to the top of the stairs a few metres away from us, she says in a barely audible voice, âOver there.â
âOn the landing?â
âJa,â she says, indicating a spot even closer to where we are sitting.
âOh.â
âBut they changed the tiling.â
âThey changed the tiles?â
âUh-hm.â She whispers, âItâs supposed to make a difference.â
When I finally ask her if there is anything she wishes she could tell her father, she is silent again, for a long time. Then Zaynab speaks her two words: âCome back.â
Mr Entertainment is published by Penguin Random House publishers and retails at R360.