From Africa`s Eden

ROOTS

Kwena Peu is from Africa’s Eden (Limpopo). I am from a small town called Mokopane and that is where I spent my first days on earth.

The years before Bloemfontein were just filled with nothing but a yearn, and that yearn pushed me to build a foundation on what was gonna come through wherever I’d end up, as long as it's ARTy (for obvious reasons). When I got to this city I knew that I was going to hunt ART down and that was a gradual process but from then, it was a snowball rolling effect typa thing.

POETRY

It’s so hard to pinpoint the exact time that it started because I have always been an ARTy person. Before I even started writing, I used to draw a lot and that in itself embodies a whole lot of layers of poetry because you have to meet a certain threshold of imagination in order for you to draw. It was probably late primary school when I started to jot down my thoughts, and it’s crazy because it seemed like it was lurking at me from afar because all my friends were writers too and those are the same people who have been with me throughout all this entire ART thing. It was a calling, so to speak but then with regards to Spoken Word, specifically, I honestly noticed in High School that I can do spoken poetry. I’ve always been someone who was super cocooned which was why a lot of people were surprised by my ability. I told myself in grade 8 that this shy thing needs to end and I got accustomed to the person that I am now with all these traits that I possess right now.

INSPIRATION

I’m inspired by moments, everything and everyone. There isn’t really somewhat of a specific source of inspiration. Even with my pieces, there isn’t a lineage or commonness and I realised that the best way for them to manifest themselves fully is when I allow them to come out the way they want to come out, and that could literally happen at any angle, figure, time and anywhere. This is a very cool thing to embody because it makes you more curious about things because the more you notice that everything is one, the lesser you see to separate things from things.

A KWENA DAY

I think I’m a very lazy person because even though I get things done, I don’t do them to the certain extent that I want them. Even with regards to reading, I’m not reading at the pace that I would like to see myself reading at right now but I always make sure that all the objectives that I have for the day are met. The first thing I do when I wake up, is play music and everything else unfolds from there. I am not a planner but I have objectives because I feel like when you plan things you deprive yourself of moments.

GOALS

There are a lot of things lined up for me and my team. By “my team” I mean a mini poetry band, but we still need to add more layers to our work to make it what we really want it to be. I have two violinists, they’re in matric and they’re twins which is hella awesome. I have a pianist, he’s also schooling at UFS and two vocalists, Jojo, she’s from Namibia and Hlompho who is also a guitarist and another poet, my friend Peter. So far it’s just individual gigs that I’m booked for; I’m performing at a book launch on 31 March and other gigs that I haven’t confirmed dates and venues for. In June I will be releasing an EP of 6-7 pieces and at the latter end of the year we will have our second annual showcase, but we will put a bit of a twist to it this year. We wanna have a mini tour and it has already been finalised that it will be on campus (UFS) and in Kimberley.

CHALLENGES

That is one thing that makes life exciting, everything that pokes something in you; be it discomfort, be it comfort but everything that pokes something in you and basically provokes you to react and do things that you haven’t done, that for me is insanely exciting. I mean what is life if we are not gonna do something new? Challenges are very important, especially for artists, they’re crucial for growth. There are a lot of artist who stick within a certain route or frame of comfort because that is what their audience like, so they keep serving them that same dish. If you’re someone who really wants to explore the extent of this rabbit hole, this whole spectrum of ART, then there shouldn’t be such a thing as a “challenge”, it should just be another layer that you add onto yourself.

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