The Dorkay House Story Told By Sipho Hostix Mabuse

On Eloff Street in Johannesburg stood Dorkay House: The Jazz Factory, once a clothing factory, later a sanctuary where Black artists under apartheid shaped South Africa's sound of freedom. Within its walls, legends like Hugh Masekela, Miriam Makeba, and Abdullah Ibrahim rehearsed, and the jazz opera King Kong was born. As a young boy, Sipho "Hotstix" Mabuse wandered into Dorkay House and witnessed the greats in motion. In this episode, a legacy with voices like Caiphus Semenya is also revisited, remembering how an ordinary building became a monument to courage, imagination, jazz and a story of a city.