We’re still here—a playlist to kick off 2021, compiled by Tymon Smith

The JRB presents tunes and accompanying editorial from our EAP member Tymon Smith.

So here we are in 2021, a supposed relief after the vagaries of 2020 … ahem.

Let’s not list all the ways, only two months in, that 2021 is looking like the nastier, evil sibling of its predecessor. What matters is that The JRB and Radio JRB are still here—there’s just going to be a break in between our appearances, for now at least, as we all wait and see whether things will stabilise and get back to whatever is a reasonable facsimile of normal.

For this first musical adventure the process has been to climb a ladder to the top shelf of the wall of records and make selections from what is there and currently sitting in dire need of some sort of proper cataloguing in the nigglingly pressing future.

So here, without any further self-flagellation and navel-gazing, are 83 songs, 5 hours and 33 minutes of top-shelf aural entertainment for the massaging and cleaning of ears, the scratching of grey matter and the tickling of nostalgic recollection of better days.

Listen here:

  • Tymon Smith is a member of The JRB Editorial Advisory Panel, and a freelance journalist who writes about the arts and South African history. Previously the literary editor of the Sunday Times, he is the recipient of a silver Standard Banks Arts Journalist of the Year Award for feature writing. He was the head researcher for the interactive DVD Between Life and Death: Stories from John Vorster Square, and is working on a book about the Johannesburg police station.

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