Financial Mail and Business Day

Constitution Hill beacon is ablaze with fresh creativity

• A world-class recording studio is turning a dark past into a vibrant, music-filled future

Lesley Stones

Beneath the ramparts of the Old Fort at Constitution Hill are gunpowder chambers and barrack rooms, arched roofs and mysterious tunnels. Outside is a courtyard surrounded by jail cells, with barbed wire stretched across the sky.

You expect to encounter ghosts in this old, atmospheric site, but you’re more likely to encounter rock musicians and rappers drawn by the addition of a world-class recording studio. Flame Studios is about to open in Johannesburg’s most historic building, financed by the entrepreneurs behind Nando’s, Robbie Brozin and the Enthoven family.

The name is nothing to do with roasted chickens, however. It’s named for the Flame of Democracy that burns at Constitution Hill, where things are beginning to heat up as the business people drive a new vision for its future.

“The crucial part is it’s not a commercial venture,” studio manager Lance McCormack says. “It’s a not-for-profit company and the mandate is to build a sustainable facility that will provide a platform for people to re-record the history of this space. What was once a place of pain and suffering and imprisonment is being repositioned as a place of creativity and hope.”

To achieve that the studios will be free to use by the institutes around it, including the National School of the Arts,

Wits and Johannesburg universities, Damelin College and Hillbrow Theatre for Children.

Musical instruments are waiting for talented people who cannot afford their own, and aspiring sound engineers will learn and be mentored here.

HIGHER PURPOSE

“You can’t come here and open a commercial recording studio hoping to make a lot of bucks. That’s not what the site is about. It’s not designed to be a place where people can come and get rich. It’s got a higher purpose,” McCormack says.

Professional artists will be encouraged to book the studios at a rate to cover the running costs and fund its altruistic developmental programmes.

The combination of worldclass facilities, SA’s affordability and the unrivalled kudos of recording in a place where Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi were once imprisoned

will attract international artists. It could become an iconic spot, such as Abbey Road Studios in London or Electric Lady in New York, McCormack believes.

“There’s nothing such as this internationally in terms of the historical setting of Constitution Hill and its context,” he says. One American hip-hop artist stuck in SA during lockdown recorded vocals here, so word will soon begin to spread.

The Old Fort was built as a jail in 1893 by then-president Paul Kruger, and extended into a fort ahead of the Anglo-Boer War. It’s part of a human rights precinct that also houses the Constitutional Court and is run as a museum by its owner, the Gauteng provincial government.

But there’s a lot of dead space and a shabby sense of disrepair, or, to give it a positive spin, room for fresh thinking and new possibilities. Since the government doesn’t have the money or entrepreneurial flair

to push that, it’s making an effort to work with corporates to encourage investment. Inviting Brozin to join the board of the Constitution Hill Trust was an inspired move, bringing his vision and business acumen, plus his willingness to invest to support his ideas.

When he was first shown around by the former Constitutional Court judge Albie Sachs, he saw not only its history but also its potential to create hope for the future. “I’ve never been more moved,” he said during a talk he gave to the entrepreneurial organisation Heavy Chef.

As well as funding Flame Studios he is paying for rooms to be converted into a small conference centre called Truth to Power, which companies could hire as a neutral site to hold workshops on issues such as diversity. Next door, rooms are being converted for Mpho

Phalane to open a restaurant and catering company called Food I Love You.

Brozin is working with Business Leadership SA and the Gibs Business School to encourage their members to hire these facilities or to invest here themselves. Not to make money, but to help the precinct thrive, being mindful of its status as the home of democracy.

SACRED SITE

Turning the Old Fort into a recording studio was guided by strict conditions imposed by the National Heritage Council, coupled with the team’s desire to honour its heritage and history as another draw to augment its hi-tech facilities.

Its décor was designed by Tracy Lynch, the creative director of Nando’s design programme, with bold colours offset by areas that expose the original stonework. “The brief was to build a world-class facility that’s really amazing and will attract the right profile of people,” McCormack says. “But at the same time we’ve kept the patina and the feel of the old walls, we haven’t tried to make it glossy and shiny.

“Constitution Hill is almost a sacred site, and you feel that when you work here. You’ve got the Constitutional Court just over the ramparts, and 20m away is where Mandela and Gandhi were imprisoned. You feel the weight of the responsibility to do the right thing and not mess it up because it’s such a precious thing.”

The finished studios include a large room for rehearsals or for recording, with space for a choir or an orchestra. It is also being used for recording podcasts, TV shows or hosting events, to expand Flame into a multipurpose centre.

The Green Room is a lounge for hanging out, with coffee and a bar fridge, and facilities to play back the recordings. There’ sa small vocal booth, a control room with mixing desks and the Red Room, the main recording studio with a drum kit, keyboards and guitars .

It’s a big step in the overall mission of bringing Constitution Hill to life as a creative hub.

“This is a unique opportunity to reshape the narrative of this space, and also of the industry and maybe even the psyche of the country,” McCormack says.

“It’s a cliché, but music is the universal language. It could be a much more powerful tool for social cohesion.”

Life

en-za

2021-06-18T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-06-18T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://bd.pressreader.com/article/281715502570769

Arena Holdings PTY