“My mother is on the board of a dance company in Johannesburg that has been going since the height of the unrest in South Africa in the 1970s,” says Spoek Mathambo of the inspiration behind his band Fantasma’s new video for “Cat and Mouse,” which features singer and Afro-beat icon Mim Suleiman. "I've seen how modern dance and ballet has offered kids another reality.” 

Directed by Tlhonepho Thobejane, the inspiriting “Cat and Mouse” follows a group of dancers as they pirouette and petit jeté their way through the township of Khayelitsha, Cape Town. 

“My wife is an artist and musician, and she was doing research into some kids from a really rough neighborhood that have picked up ballet,” explains the musician, who formed Fantasma last year. “A lot of people worked on the video for free, so that 70% of the budget could be donated towards funding the kids to go on ballet exchange to Europe. It was hard to shoot, because a lot of people were really rude and aggressive towards the boys. The scene where the township guy challenges them to a dance battle – the reality was a lot rougher. They were incredibly brave to do it.”

Through his solo work, such as a cover of Joy Division's “She's Lost Control,” Mathambo has become a figurehead for the diverse music of the new South Africa. “I find great joy in being an ambassador,” says the 29-year-old, who started the Levitation music magazine when he was 15, and has since made two music documentaries. “I am a fan first and foremost.”

Although the project, which pulls together four other musicians from very different scenes and areas of the country, has been called a supergroup, Mathambo is having none of it. “That word is so pompous,” he laughs. “It's not like Iron Maiden and Metallica coming together! Most groups are quite homogenous; bands tend to get together based on their commonality, whereas we got together because of being very different. We are our own micro-society, trying to get along.”

Tom Horan is Culture Editor-at-Large at NOWNESS.