Rolling Stone has come to South Africa, and hey presto, we now have our own cool music magazine to represent our own cool music scene. But will it? I mean, come on, this is South Africa; a land that is a boiling culture cauldron, bubbling away, with all the numerous and diverse cultures swirling together as a big pot of tasty soup.

Rolling Stone is such a ‘cool’ magazine. It just can’t stop oozing sex appeal and glamour as well as being so full of the hard-core, honest rock n’ roll that the international reader loves. This magazine is drenched in legacy to the point that it’s practically running of the sides.  And now it has come to South Africa, it is sitting at the airport waiting to be picked up, and here is the driver; Miles Keylock.

Keylock seems to be the best man for the job, his suave ‘come at me attitude’ and concrete portfolio make him the person to marry South Africa and the Rolling Stone brand, making a match seemingly made in music magazine heaven. All eyes are on Keylock, we want something just as sexy and rock n’ roll as the original Rolling Stone, but with all the tenacity that South Africa has to offer. The only thing is South Africa has a whole lot more to represent than just tenacity.

Can Rolling Stone South Africa really keep each vegetable, each piece of meat and each salt grain in the tasty soup happy and represented? Or are we just going to have a magazine which ignores the diversity part, instead edging to stay politically correct, or economically afloat?

No one can answer this question. It’s not easy, considering how difficult South Africa is to represent culturally, since, as I said before, we are tasty in our diversity. With such a wide range of people, from varying backgrounds with different stories, loves and interests, people who listen to fundamentally different music, and then having to represent all of that, I must say, no one can really envy Keylock’s job.

He has to manoeuvre the difficult mine field that is political South Africa, driving his magazine through all of the South African social and political tensions, without falling to a flat tire. It is not as if the American brand of Rolling Stone doesn’t have this problem, but it is a whole lot different they didn’t have something to look up to, or the diversity of this country to represent.

Sitting down with Keylock, you could feel the weight of expectancy on him, and physically see it. We stared at the man who would either be the saviour of our expectations, or who would steer Rolling Stone into obscurity, and we all knew what everyone wanted to ask; what are we to expect Miles?

we got this,

‘sometimes I get these guys saying ‘please put a white person on the cover’. No, I’m just kidding. But it feels like it really can get like that… we need to just understand that it is about the integrity of the music – that rock n’ roll spirit’

We are so easily lampooned into worrying whether the magazine would represent South Africa or not, that we forgot that it is not here to do that – it is here to represent South African music. Whatever this means in terms of demographics or political/economic interests, Rolling Stone is a music magazine and it will follow the integrity of music, and the integrity of writing about music.

Rolling Stone SA will represent the icons, the new interesting sounds that are coming out of South Africa and communicate that to its readers. Yes, as a magazine and business venture it must keep afloat and we know about the political tensions, we know about the economic hardships and social injustices of our everyday life, but we need to allow Rolling Stone the place to just show music – all music. Music that is free of politics, money or society. After all Rolling Stone is about the spirit of Rock n’ Roll, which Keylock through Lester Banks thankfully reminded us off,

“Rock ‘n’ roll is an attitude, it’s not a musical form of a strict sort. It’s a way of doing things, of approaching things. Writing can be rock ‘n’ roll, or a movie can be rock ‘n’ roll. It’s a way of living your life”

I don’t know if Rolling Stone SA will be successful, and I don’t know if Rolling Stone SA will be able to hear all the music. But I do know that as a music magazine, Rolling Stone South Africa will represent the music made here, not the politics. And after hearing Keylock reassure me, I can rest easy knowing that he is stirring the pot, with a big wooden spoon.