Langspeel

Four nights in Mamelodi with a band that has never recorded

Cover story · Issue 14

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Started in a shared document, still mostly four people

Langspeel began in 2019 as a document four of us dumped gig notes into after Friday nights in Braamfontein, because the papers had stopped sending anybody and the blogs only wrote up whatever was already sold out. It is still mostly the four of us: Sibusiso Radebe on jazz and the Sunday sessions, Micaela Roux on club and dance floors, Karabo Mmutle doing the interviews nobody else will sit through, and me, Ryan Petersen, who books the room and carries the cables. Freelancers are paid inside seven days, we have never run advertorial dressed up as a review, and four times a year the whole thing goes onto newsprint in Fordsburg, because some records deserve to be argued about on paper.

The desks

Six of them. Every commission goes through the desk that covers it, rather than a general address nobody reads.

Reviews

Albums, EPs and singles out that week. We choose what gets reviewed. A press kit in the inbox is not a commission.

Photography

Two shooters on the door most weekends, Rosebank to Katlehong. Photographers keep their copyright and are paid per published frame.

Interviews

Long ones. Karabo will sit in a Wimpy in Benoni for two hours if that is where the artist is comfortable talking.

Live

Gig write-ups inside three days, including the nights that went badly. Selling out the venue buys nobody a free pass.

Listings

Every gig, launch and set we can actually verify across Gauteng, the Cape and eThekwini. Updated Wednesday mornings.

Open desk

Two commissions a month held for writers who have never been published. Pitch us a paragraph, not a CV.

Langspeel Sessions

Filmed in a converted bottle store in Troyeville. Two cameras, one take, nothing fixed afterwards. A new session goes up on the last Thursday of the month.

How the chart is counted, and who pays for it

The Langspeel chart is not streams. Every Monday we phone the same fourteen places — two rooms in Braamfontein, three in Cape Town, one in Umbilo, four record shops and four DJs who will still answer — and ask what got played and what actually sold. It is a small sample and we say so at the top of every list.

Nobody owns us. This is paid for by subscribers, by the newsprint issue, and by the two broadcasters who license the sessions. Labels do not buy coverage here. If a piece was written on a trip somebody else paid for, that is printed under the headline in the same size as the byline.

On repeat this week

1. Mo Sekgoto — Hlala Le Nna

2. The Nkosi Quartet — Sunday, Six Hours

3. Ayanda Dube — Vinegar

4. Rafeeq Sedick — Bo-Kaap Suites

5. Lindiwe and The Fold — Half a Reason

6. Bhoni Mavuso — Tsela

Two dispatches a month, no advertorial

One on Wednesday with the listings and the chart, one at month end with the long read and the new session. It is free, and one click takes you off it again.

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Two dispatches a month. Gigs, records, the odd argument.