By Gwen Ansell
Ismail Mohamed-Jan – better known by South African jazz fans as Pops Mohamed – has passed away at the age of 75.
His life in music represented a struggle against narrow, oppressive definitions – of race, instrumental appropriateness and musical genre.
A few days before his death, a remastered version of his 2006 album Kalamazoo, Vol. 5 (A Dedication to Sipho Gumede) had been released on digital platforms ahead of an official launch.
Mohamed was born on 10 December 1949 in the working-class gold-mining town of Benoni in South Africa.
By his mid-teens, the Group Areas Act – which divided urban areas into racially segregated zones during apartheid – had forced his family to move to Reiger Park (then called Stertonville).
The suburb was allocated to residents of mixed heritage: Mohamed’s father had Indian and Portuguese ancestry; his mother, Xhosa and Khoisan forebears.
Influences
Significantly for his
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