BONILE NGQIYAZA | A tribute to the late ‘gracious’ Maria ‘Podesta’ McCloy

“Wanna come? I can list you for next Thursday’s show.”

That was Maria McCloy’s message to me in my Facebook inbox after she shared a Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra announcement about the return of live concerts after Covid-19. Tchaikovsky, Dvorak, Mozart, Beethoven at the Linder Auditorium. Music returning to the city after isolation and fear.

When I think about it now, I answered with the kind of reply middle-aged people send each other too often: “I would love to attend this Maria, but pshaw! I have got such a hectic, hectic schedule I cannot possibly make it. Not this time around.”

At the time it felt like one of those infinitely renewable invitations friendships survive on. There would always be another Thursday. Another concert. Another encounter somewhere in Johannesburg.

Life, of course, has other ideas.

Years passed.

And then, on Tuesday evening, May 12 2026, Maria McCloy died at Milpark Hospital in Johannesburg after heart failure.

Maria arrived at Rhodes around 1994 to study journalism, one of my own majors, during that strange hinge moment when South Africa itself was being rewritten. I was in my final year then. I cannot honestly say now whether we properly met at the time or not. But I do remember her beginning to register in my mind later through conversations with a close friend of mine who was a year behind me at Rhodes and moved in the same circles as her and Kutloano.

Her name would surface now and again in stories, usually admiringly, and one detail stayed with me: Maria’s refusal to reduce herself to apartheid South Africa’s racial categories on official forms. Even then there seemed to be something instinctively resistant in her spirit — a refusal to be boxed in.

Later, in Johannesburg, our paths crossed more naturally in those sprawling “Rhodent” circles and the cultural ferment of Yeoville in the 1990s. Back then, culture in Johannesburg did not feel curated or institutionalised. It felt improvised, restless and gloriously unfinished. You could begin an evening around Time Square at the top of Yeoville and eventually drift down Rockey Street towards Bellevue and Bellevue East until the early hours of the morning.

There was Coffee Society with its intimate upstairs theatre space, the Lizard Lounge, House of Tandoor, Mammas, Speakeasy, Rumours — venues that flickered brightly and, in some cases, disappeared again before the decade itself was over. Somewhere in between were the arcade spots with Pac-Man machines, pinball tables and cigarette smoke hanging permanently in the air. The city seemed permanently awake then, as though everyone feared that if they went home too early they might miss the next great conversation, poem, performance or movement.

And culture was happening everywhere and all at once. Monday Blues sessions — founded by the late Peter Makurube of the ever-present “Jambo jambo!” greeting — moved between venues and for a time found a home in Yeoville too, becoming an essential open-mic, jazz and poetry platform where artists, journalists, musicians and drifters collided and remade one another in real time.

I still remember Boom Shaka in those years — Lebo Mathosa and Thembi Seete seeming almost to defy gravity itself on dance floors crowded with young South Africans trying to invent an entirely new urban language for freedom.

And somewhere inside that ferment was Maria.

What became clear later was that she, Kutloano and Dzino had already begun building creative worlds together back at Rhodes University. Johannesburg simply amplified what was already there. Before long they seemed to explode into the cultural landscape altogether — online magazines, television scripts, production work, music ventures, entire ecosystems of creativity unfolding around them.

I admired Maria from a slight distance sometimes. Perhaps envied her too. She moved quickly into meaningful work at the Mail & Guardian while some of us were still circling uncertainty. She was one of those people whose momentum made others pay attention.

I remember sitting not far from Maria and Kutloano one evening after TKZee released Palafala and hearing them enthusiastically spit the lyrics word for word. That was enough for me. I followed that band obsessively after that, from gig to gig through those halcyon Yeoville days, occasionally fraternising with others orbiting that musical universe.

Maria had that increasingly rare quality of encouraging other people publicly and without calculation

I hesitated before writing any of this because there are many people far better qualified than I am to speak authoritatively about Maria McCloy and the magnitude of her contribution to South African cultural life. Many knew her more intimately, worked with her more closely, built things alongside her and loved her more deeply and directly.

But perhaps that is also part of what made Maria remarkable. She moved through so many worlds, leaving behind not just collaborators and close friends, but accumulations of smaller memories too — conversations, invitations, gestures of encouragement, moments of cultural discovery that continue attaching themselves quietly to people years later.

Maria herself occupied a rare place in South African cultural life. She moved fluidly between journalism, fashion, music, media and the arts without ever seeming trapped by category. Many people knew her publicly as a stylist, creative producer, entrepreneur and cultural connector. But what stays with me now is not simply achievement.

It is graciousness.

Maria had that increasingly rare quality of encouraging other people publicly and without calculation. Every now and again I would post something on social media — usually cultural, reflective or hopeful about South Africa’s possibilities — and if it resonated with her, she would acknowledge it generously and sometimes share it too.

What struck me about this was not celebrity validation. It was the openness of spirit behind it. Maria moved in circles filled with major names in entertainment, fashion, media and the arts, yet she never seemed to operate according to those invisible hierarchies that make so many public people guarded or transactional.

That small exchange about the Philharmonic concert captures it perfectly now. It was so characteristic of her: open-handed, casual and inclusive.

• Ngqiyaza is an award-winning journalist, editor and author.

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