To know your heritage is an important step in knowing yourself

It's been an interesting year so far, not only at the Khulisani offices but in the country as well. The challenge or rather the disappointment for me has been the organised effort to prevent and deter the African child from knowing about him or herself. As part of our Identity Presentation, we ask learners what the meaning of their African name is and about 35% of them have no idea. When asked the meaning of the surname, this figure dwindles to about 85%.

Institutionally, the African child has been driven to an all time low; a point of ignorance. We no longer crave food for thought, so much so that we do not enquire the definition of our names and surnames by which we have been addressed since birth. It is therefore our responsibility to salvage the youth's integrity by stimulating the mind once again. We must find a balance between old and new, between modern and ancient ways so that the smart phone does not outsmart the person whose palm it is in.

I would like to briefly share a new presentation we have added to the Khulisani program called Hip Hop. My motivation for introducing the Hip Hop talk came from an unlikely source.

I was helping my father with research for a book he has since completed. A book on a 2 000 year history of my family, the Masina. During that process, I learnt how my great grandfather had played a pivotal role in assisting the great Chief Bhambatha KaMancinza, with troops and weapons for his 1906 rebellion against the British.

Being a Hip Hop pioneer in this country, I was then further motivated to trace the source from which the American founder of Hip Hop, Afrika Bambaataa drew inspiration. I learnt that the little known history of the culture prior to 1973 linked 2 of the 3 things I love the most, namely Family and Hip Hop. The revelation came to be the fact that not only my family history but the History of Hip Hop is deeply rooted in South Africa.

The 3rd of the things I love dearly; which is Youth Development, was roped in as a request by a Head Master at one of our adopted schools in Mangaung. He asked me to intervene by giving a talk to the boys in his Grade 12 D class and I thought what better talk to have than the one which instilled a sense of pride and solidarity in me when I first discovered it. This set the ball rolling and from that first presentation in early 2014, I have been invited to give the lecture nationally by schools, private and public sector alike. I am currently having discussions with The Nelson Mandela Foundation, Brand South Africa, The City of Joburg, NFVF and  Constitution Hill amongst other organisations, to see how we can own this rich piece of our history by formalising it into a cultural movement called Hip Hop Heritage.

- Mphakamisi Ramesh Masina

"Institutionally, the African child has been driven to an all time low; a point of ignorance. We no longer crave food for thought, so much so that we do not enquire the definition of our names and surnames by which we have been addressed since birth."