With apologies to Leo Tolstoy, all happy families are alike — but each creative family is creative in its own way. I took Karabo Lediga, younger sister of (comic, producer and director) Kagiso, for lunch at Hallelujah, the new Asian street food outpost of the wondrous Glory at 44 Stanley.
Over chicken prepared in many delightful ways, I tried to understand something of the nature/nurture debate by investigating the second of the Lediga siblings I have now had the pleasure of lunching with.
Here is what I learnt from my close questioning: a brilliant, wicked sense of humour powers them both; they have a formidable mother; and there is an inbuilt resilience and drive they have channelled into their creativity which has led them to successfully cultivate and craft entertaining narratives for the nation.
“There are only the two of us. We went to a township school in Soshanguve — which gave us a lot of personality, I guess, as well as our distinctive sense of humour. Our parents divorced when I was 11. It was quite a tumultuous break-up — big drama, very public, and very traumatic. So a big part of our lives is the Shoshanguve movie and the post-Soshanguve movie.
“I think both of us would admit we’re probably lucky the split happened. You know, we probably wouldn’t be here in Joburg, I wouldn’t be sitting here, unless all that had gone down. I guess the divorce led to a separation between us and our very conservative dad — he wouldn’t even let us go to the shops by ourselves and would drive and fetch us instead. After the divorce, we became wanderers — CBD roamers in Pretoria. Kagiso liked to go to the movies, and I tagged along.”
Because we were Africans doing political satire, the Americans expected dramatic stories of repression and censorship from us.
— Karabo Lediga
Initially her idea was to study mechanical engineering, because she was good at science and maths at school, but it became clear her true calling was writing.
“I was going to be the one making the money, as I had seen how my mom had been forced to work double shifts as a nurse to get us out of the financial crisis caused by the divorce. But it didn’t take long for me to realise that engineering wasn’t my path. Kagiso and my mom said to me, ‘You have written all your life — you have always been coming up with stories and songs and whatnot.’ So I went to UCT to study film instead, and then I became kind of like my brother’s sidekick.
“I started off as a researcher in television, which I really loved, and then I worked on The Pure Monate Show (and I have been working with him on and off all these years). That was a really great TV-and-film boot camp, because there I learnt how to write and direct sketches, as well as act. After a while, I said I should do more long-form writing, so I became a freelance writer for South African television. Then I felt the urge to direct, and I eventually made my own short film, and then a feature.” (The full-length movie is Sabbatical, available on Netflix.)
We reflect on the parlous state of comedy in the US.
“I remember that when we did Late Night News with Loyiso Gola we ended up getting nominated for Emmy Awards for Best International Comedy. We got to go to New York twice, as we were nominated in two different years. Because we were Africans doing political satire, the Americans expected dramatic stories of repression and censorship from us, but we were like, ‘No, no — we have nothing like that!’”
We turn to the creative impulse that leads her to find her own voice.
“At the moment, it feels like I’m going into memory and nostalgia a lot. It’s a slightly obsessive digging into maybe a personal past, but perhaps also a collective one. You know, I don’t think the 1980s and 1990s were well-documented, well-archived, especially from a personal point of view. My short film What Did You Dream? was almost like an ancestral offering to my grandmother. It’s about the little things in life, such as what she cooked, the language she spoke, and the chores she made me do. You know what I mean?”
Sabbatical was about motherhood.
“It deals with black motherhood, or just motherhood in general. And people are kind of triggered by it, you know, like it’s the stuff mothers and daughters don’t talk about. Maybe I knew my mother at some point, but then I went away and grew up without her — and then when I came back I was a completely different person. So, yes, I wanted to play around with the gap, that awkwardness, which is almost like a culture clash. It’s kind of like you’re an immigrant, but in your own country.”
Karabo is clear-sighted about the path forward — this is the perfect moment to value our own perspectives and stories.
“When people talk about the world, it seems it’s always from a Western perspective. But we have a very different vibe here, and things just don’t feel the same. It’s just not the same temperature here.”
This article was first published in Sunday Times Lifestyle.
