The internet is so awesome. Espescially the “inter” part. The now-in-theaters movie, “Tsotsi,” reminded me of my on-going low level fascination with South Africa. Haven’t seen the movie yet, but certainly intend to. In the meantime I’ve downloaded music from the soundtrack and a bunch of other tracks in the South African house/hip-hop genre of Kwaito. I had a brief affair with this music in high school, but the one cd’s worth of songs I managed to collect eventually fell victim to a senseless act of random and acidental violence when I left it in the car and it got cracked in the dashbox.

But here again I’ve got most of those songs again, here are the artist names I remember. TKZee, Zola, M’du, Arthur, Bongo Maffin and Mandoza. The beats push forward relentlessly; this is music to take to the gym for an endless cardio session.

We listened to a lot of “world music” when I was a kid. First there was a Juluka record from South Africa. From there we picked up West African music, then a few cds from Madagascar, before my dad made the transatlantic jump to Afro-Cuban and Latin music, with the occasional sidetrack to the Balkans.

I particularly associate African music with cooking. It’s the soundtrack to my family in the kitchen, making dinner. And I like cooking. And I like the music. I like cooking with music. And this week it’s cooking with Kwaito.

(That’d be a great cooking show name. ‘Cooking with Kwaito’! Only on the Travel Network…”)