by KAY TATYANA SELISHO

People hear the word debate and everything immediately gets serious and staunch and then Deep Fried Man comes along and turns the Live VIP debate into something completely different.

I, for one, had no idea what to expect until he got up, guitar in tow, and taught us our ANC’s (read: ABC’s). It was a genuinely hilarious tune that had the room roaring with laughter as he echoed some of our political thoughts in song. Laughter alongside politics… so, the question here is, is he a proverbial funnyman or a political commentator? I asked him five quick questions after the debate, so read on and decide for yourself.

1. There is a widespread view that the youth is indifferent to voting and politics, what is your take on that view?

I definitely don’t think that that’s the case at all. I’ve never thought that the youth [don’t care]. The youth in SA are very politically active and you can see that in the way that politics almost comes before soccer and almost comes before entertainment as a concern of the youth here. What I do think is that if it seems like apathy what it [actually] is, is that I think that a lot of youth feel that they struggle to choose. I think a lot of youth feel that maybe who you end up voting for is the lesser of two evils as opposed to who you would go out of your way to vote for, so I think that can translate as apathy, which i think is more of a dissatisfaction with the options that we have but i definitely think that the South African youth are very politically switched-on and active.

2. Do you think that there are enough policies aimed at the youth (are the pre-existing policies good enough).

What I’ll say is that in South Africa it’s never a problem of policies so much as it’s a problem of implementation. I think we have some amazing policies, we have the strongest constitution in the world etc. etc… I think things get lost in translation and just aren’t implemented properly. You know, people are going to fight over whether you need a youth wage subsidy or whether a youth wage subsidy will be bad for you or good for you but really [with] the policies we have at our disposal, what we really need to get right is implementing them properly to begin with. I think that’s much more important than actually changing policies or coming up with new ones, things get really lost in translation because we don’t have the means and the structures to actually implement things.

3. Kagiso Lediga once said – hopefully jokingly – that Comedians are self-serving individuals, in that vein, are you here for the money or do you really care about political issues?

Kagi is a self-serving individual! Not me, I care about the people. No, no, no, I’m joking. Well, we are self-serving… but you know what? What I will say is that my one man show is at the Joburg Theatre Fringe from May 7th – 10th and you can book [tickets] at computicket.

4. How did the presence of the party reps affect your performance?

Well it made me really nervous but they were all really good sports, they were all very good sports but I can’t tell if the ANC were really good sports because they weren’t here yet (laughs) but everyone else was a really good sport.

5. What does your song-writing process involve?

It involves waiting for stuff to happen in South Africa and then commenting on it. My main thing that people like is that I take popular songs like Avicii’s Wake Me Up or something like that that’s on the radio and I mix it with South African politics, which is a weird juxtaposition. So I take very serious concepts and I mix it into a pop song. So that’s what I do but I also sometimes write my own songs about weird things. I am someone who reacts to what goes on in one week so I wait for things to happen and then I react to them with my own slot.

Afterwards, I thanked him for being “such a good sport”. Being talkative he managed to fit in some self-promotion.  So please – before he writes a song about us – go see his show at the Joburg Theatre Fringe from May 7th – 10th. You can book your tickets at Computicket and remember, Deep Fried Man is not a self-serving individual, he is both a political commentator and proverbial funny man. He wears many hats… literally.

Follow me on twitter @kay_Tatyana

Feature image from entertainment-online

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