Rails laden with compact discs and DVDs by almost all Zimbabwean singers based in Johannesburg, fill the upper left rack as you enter the shop.
White T-shirts with black and white images of founding Ndebele king Mzilikazi, African heroes like Joshua Nkomo, Nelson Mandela, Kwame Nkrumah and Steve Biko, dominate one of the rails, while others beam with multi-coloured jerseys and T-shirts with horizontal stripes. On one of the walls hang white and red T-shirts, emblazoned with hearts and beaming with messages like “Happy Valentines’ Day”, “I love you” and “Be My Valentine.”
A sub-division of the same shop repairs cell phones and stocks their parts for re-sale, while from another room comes the hissing sound of a sewing machine. Welcome to BSM Clothing and T-Shirt Printing.
“We do a number of things here. Sewing and printing T-shirts, repairing and selling phones, selling Zimbabwean music and marketing musical shows and dramas, you get it all from us,” said Bongani Ncube.
“More than just a business, this is a partnership born out of passion and love of who we are. Some people say you cannot be a Zimbabwean in South Africa, but to us, nothing can be more important than staying in touch with your roots.”
Ncube and his partner, Nkosini Tshuma, opened the company to remind Zimbabweans about where they come from and who they really are, despite living in a cosmopolitan city like Johannesburg. “I am an artist and one of the key functions of my art is to strengthen our culture and tradition and keep it for future generations,” said Ncube, a poet, composer, producer and movie director, who has recently risen to become something of a cult hero among many Ndebeles here.
His poems, done in both his mother tongue and English, have endeared him to many exiles and made him the voice of the Zimbabwean Diaspora.
“Our idea is to also have Zimbabweans find somewhere to get things they truly identify with so that even those who had lost their sense of belonging will re-find it once again have that national pride,” he said.
Planted in Hillbrow, the hub of the Zimbabwean population that dominates central Johannesburg and surrounding areas like Berea and Yeoville, it is not surprising that BSM Clothing has suddenly risen to the place to be for many of them. “Very soon, we will be buying more machines to print T-shirts with photographic and multi-colour images. We also plan to give a platform to Zimbabwean writers to publish books in their various mother tongues.
“We will also expand our music net to cater for even those who are based back home. We only began with Johannesburg-based ones after the realization that most of them struggled to have somewhere to market and sell their music and had to resort to carrying discs in bags, something that demeaned them and limited their reach to customers.”
With the way the shop has been doing so far, the duo look forward to opening branches in other suburbs soon.
Post published in: News