As an entertainer, the Fashion MC humanizes the busy space of the otherwise alienating inner city shop. He spins tunes, makes jokes with the customers and generally keeps the mood lively. Mostly South African and Zimbabwean the Fashion MCs have a strong relationship with the owners of the shops as well as the Ethiopian and Eritrean refugees and asylum seekers who have taken control of high rise 'bad buildings' in the fashion district.

The importance of the Ethiopian and Eritrean refugees and asylum seekers is the fact that they have organised the inner city space through the formalisation of a refugee run NGO called the The Horn of Africa Crime Stop Association (HACSA). HACSA was formed after an Ethiopian trader was killed during a robbery in 2006. The organisation pays for supplementary security services which consist of 25 private guards who patrol an 8 block radius of the Fashion District. Through formal partnerships with the South African Police (SAP) and Central Johannesburg Property Company (CJP), the organisation dispels the myths and negative perceptions of immigrants in the city as contributing to crime. HACSA's efforts are beginning to pay dividends as the crime levels in the area have dramatically subsided. South African investors and chain stores are beginning to notice the business potential of the area, now that crime has been controlled. The development value of the area is on the increase and there is much activity by private sector housing companies who are redeveloping residential buildings for middle class South African families. However, for the Ethiopian and Eritrean businesses which started the initiative, their success may lead to their displacement as refugees and asylum seekers are unable to get a foothold in the city due to backlogs in the Department of Home Affairs.

In response to the situation artist and urban geographer Ismail Farouk organised a performance at Nadiba's Wholesalers in the fashion district where he collaborated with teamuncool and the Fashion MC's in an intervention/performance. The event brought a middle class art crowd to a space in their own city which, for many of them, was alien and exotic.

For the performance, Farouk and the Fashion MC's, dressed in their drag, sold cheap mass produced products of a tourist African design. Leopard print and camouflage hats and shirts, large shopping bags emblazoned with the 'Big Five' represented the unfair logic of exchanges in developing world and exploitation of African resources. They pimped the tourist vision of Africa.

To accompany the performance was an installation using surveillance footage of police arresting immigrants in the city. The merchandise on sale was draped across TV screens - a combination of the mass consumerism represented by the produce and some of the daily realities of those who engage in its sale as a means of survival.

After the event, traditional Ethiopian coffee was served on the rooftop. People walked through the five floor multi use building - higher into the unknown they were confronted by a multitude of hanging produce from clothing to drying meat and then into a Utopian environment with a fountain, roof garden and view of the city.

For Ethiopians, coffee is about an important social interaction. Visitors were fortunate enough to be part of a more traditional aspect of Ethiopian culture.