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Black Coffee pays homage to the three women who played a pivotal role in his life
Black Coffee made history this past weekend, becoming the first South African to headline a show at New York’s Madison Square Garden.
Black Coffee wearing the jacket with the faces of women who raised him. Picture: wonderbuhle/ Instagram
On a special night for him as he became the first South African to headline his own show at New York’s Madison Square Garden Concert, Black Coffee took the opportunity to honour the women in his life through his outfit.
“This is my grandmother from my father’s side, this is my mother and this is my maternal mother. First I did a painting of them, I’ve got this painting at the house. This painting is the logo of our house, like the crest of the family,” said Black Coffee explaining the significance of the outfit he wore for his performance in New York, to Oskido in a video.
The award-winning producer and DJ first commissioned South African artist Wonderbuhle to paint the three women who have impacted his life.
The painting is titled The Pyramids. To further honour the three pillars in his life, Black Coffee collaborated with US fashion designer Mike Amiri who gave the painting new life by hand beading and embroidering it on the shirt, and cropped double pleating the pant with jacquard motif.
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Preserving family history
“For me this is such an important piece because I am literally carrying my people to Madison Square Garden. The piece is these three women, one Zulu woman, and two Xhosa women. The one in the middle, younger, that being my mother.”
“Being who I am in the family, I wanted to preserve the history of the our family,” Black Coffee is heard saying in a video posted on his Instagram.
“I was really humbled that he would reach out to me, to partner with him on creating a look for such a special performance. One of the best feelings I get when creating, is putting something together with this much meaning and that is important to someone. He had shown me a painting that reflected them and I wondered was there a way to incorporate that into the look,” said Amiri in the video.
“Incorporating the art and also couture techniques, such as beading and hand embroidery, little by little started to build out this magical piece.”
The painting will continue growing in other forms as Black Coffee plans to use it as a cover for a book, which details his family history.
“From this painting, I’m making a table book; this is the cover of the book. I’m going to have the family history, the family tree, and the family pictures. These three women are the pillar of our family because in my family, there was never a male figure. When I was born, she (paternal grandmother) was there and she (maternal grandmother) raised me. All we have is because of these three people.”
