From the sounds of taxi ranks and rain-drenched hip hop to the health goth look and zebra street art – this is Nas Hoosen’s Johannesburg

Johannesburg culture in five words

Gold, blood, work, dance, faster

Sound of the city

With most of the city’s workforce still commuting from townships outside the city – a holdover from the days of government issue segregation – ambient sounds like these, recorded at the Bree Street taxi rank in central Jo’burg, epitomise the beating heart of inner city activity.

Everyone’s tuning into …

Ashes to Ashes is a new soap opera that I believe – I don’t watch it myself – is extremely popular. A labour dispute brought South Africa’s previous biggest soap opera, Generations, to an untimely end last year. The national broadcaster tried to revive the show as Generations: The Legacy but competing free channel E.tv launched this new soap opera starring a handful of the country’s biggest stars.

The look on the street

‘Pastel colours, patterned shirts, caps and chains.’ Photograph: Anthony Bila aka The Expressionist

South Africa is a melting pot of cultural influences that are just about strung together by some kind of innate punk non-conformist attitude. The look that there’s a lot of right now is repurposed early 90s: pastel colours, patterned shirts, caps and chains. Not to mention all those people who obviously remember the fortnight-long swing revival in the mid-90s who are going for a more dapper look. At the same time there’s also this strong undercurrent of the health goth look.

What we’ve ended up with is some weird overlap between the three: imagine a dapper-looking DJ Jazzy Jeff wearing an Amish man’s hat.

What’s the big talking point in your city right now?

Xenophobia. The riots have prompted fresh debate about South African collective identity, something that we talk about a lot out here. We love to talk about how far we’ve come from apartheid while reflecting on how little ground we sometimes appear to have covered.

Best local artist

Bogosi Sekhukhuni is an artist whose work merges the hypnotic content of internet memes with the political thinking that is young, culturally relevant South Africa’s bread and butter. Sekhukhuni’s work connects technology, self-reflection, pop culture, collective consciousness and black identity in a way that’s going to be interesting to see develop as his body of work grows. His stuff is pure current-gen artistic South Africa: as much a product of the country’s post-apartheid ideals as it is out to dismantle the false ideologies of our “Rainbow Nation”.

Check out the internet’s best attempt at capturing his Rainbowcore exhibition here.

Who’s top of the playlist?

Riky Rik. Hip hop is huge here and Riky Rik (as well as his crew Boyzn Bucks) feed that need. He just released an album I have on repeat.

Here’s his recent single Boss Zonke, the video for which was directed by Adriaan Louw. It’s like classic Hype Williams filtered through rain-drenched KwaZulu-Natal (Riky’s home province).

Best current venue

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Showcasing the works of young South African artists. Photograph: Kalashnikovv Gallery

Kalashnikovv Gallery is a space created pretty much expressly to showcase the works of young South African artists outside of the city’s better known (and I guess occasionally more stuffy) galleries. Kalashnikovv is a modest-sized space on 153 Smit Street in (currently still trendy arts/student district) Braamfontein.

While the space itself sticks to exhibitions, the minds behind it are pushing into the city in other ways. They’ve got Kalashnikovv Radio, dedicated to exposing the South African audience to music they might otherwise overlook and they’ve created a public art fund that they’re funding by auctioning off pieces by local artists.

What Johannesburg does better than anywhere else

Protests (no, really). When we’ve got something to dispute – wages, politics, whatever – we tend to do a pretty epic job of actually fighting in the streets over it. Sometimes this is a bad thing, but that’s never stopped us. This goes for the whole country: see #RhodesMustFall on Twitter and elsewhere.

Best cultural Instagram account

Run by a trio of photographers, I See A Different You started out with the clear mandate to create positive imagery of young black South Africans living in townships around Jo’burg. Given that development in these ruralised urban communities continues to stall, it’s a shame to think, but this account will never not be relevant, creating a significant body of work around these neighbourhoods.

Comedy gold

LNN – Late Nite News with Loyiso Gola is a news satire show produced by some of the country’s best comedians. Broadcast on E.tv, it’s directed by Kagiso Lediga, hosted by Loyiso Gola and has contributions from Deep Fried Man, David Kibuuka and Chester Missing (a puppet operated by comedian Conrad Koch). This show skewers Southern African politics on a regular basis. This is an old skit of theirs that continues to make me cringe-laugh years after it was broadcast.

Best street art

Street art by Faith47. Photograph: Cale Waddacor, author of Graffiti South Africa

There’s a piece by prolific South African street artist Faith47 called Una Salus Victis Nullam Sperare Salute – a quote from Virgil which means “the only safe bet for the vanquished is to expect no safety”, something which could be seen as hugely relevant to the city considering the mass gentrification we’re on the verge of at the moment (not to mention the xenophobic attacks).

This mural can be found on the corner of Rissik and Fox streets in the Central Business District (CBD)of the city.

From me

Nas Who writes copy and (now) comics, runs Another-Day (another damn blog) and throws parties in the city (sometimes).

Five to follow

Rebels Without Pause

City of Johannesburg

Charl Blignaut

Another-Damn-Podcast

Johannesburg 1912