Born to Kwaito

Esinako Ndabeni

Description

Born To Kwaito considers the meaning of kwaito music now. ‘Now’ not only as in ‘after 1994’ or the Truth Commission but as a place in the psyche of black people in post-apartheid South Africa. This collection of essays tackles the changing meaning of the genre after its decline and its ever contested relevance. Through rigorous historical analysis as well as threads of narrative journalism Born To Kwaito interrogates issues of artistic autonomy, the politics of language in the music, and whether the music is part of a strand within the larger feminist movement in South Africa.Candid and insightful interviews from the genre’s foremost innovators and torchbearers, such as Mandla Spikiri, Arthur Mafokate, Robbie Malinga and Lance Stehr, provide unique historical context to kwaito music’s greatest highs, most captivating hits and most devastating lows. Born To Kwaito offers up a history of the genre from below by having conversations not only with musicians but with fans,\ engineers, photographers and filmmakers who bore witness to a revolution.Living in a place between criticism and biography Born To Kwaito merges academic theories and rigorous journalism to offer a new understanding into how the genre influenced other art forms such as fashion, TV and film. The book also reflects on how some of the music’s best hits have found new life through the mouths of local hiphop’s current kingmakers and opened kwaito up to a new generation.The book does not pretend to be an exhaustive history of the genre but rather a present-active analysis of that history as it settles and finds its meaning. “Born To Kwaito is not only an examination of the history of the music genre; it is also a revisit of the relationship we have with the music, its stars and their own relationship with their art and themselves.”– Thabiso Mahlape, BlackBird Books publisher

Sujets

• Littérature Sud-Africaine
• Littérature sud-africaine
• Réflexion
• Essai
• Reflection
• Pattern coin
• Reflexion (band)
• South Africa
• Reflexion

Informations

• Publié par: Blackbird Books
• Date de parution: 01 août 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781928337676
• Langue: English

Extrait

BORN TO KWAITO
BORN TO KWAITO
Reflections on the kwaito generation
Esinako Ndabeni & Sihle Mthembu
First published by BlackBird Books, 2018
593 Zone 4
Seshego
Polokwane 0742
South Africa
www.blackbirdbooks.africa
© Esinako Ndabeni & Sihle Mthembu, 2018
Images © Michael G Spafford, 2018
All rights reserved.
ISBN 978-1-928337-67-6
Cover design by Palesa Motsomi
Editing by Perfect Hlongwane
Proofreading by Linda Da Nova
Set in Minion Pro 11/15.5pt
Printed by ABC Press, Cape Town
Job no. 003294
See a complete list of BlackBird Books titles at www.blackbirdbooks.africa
To my grandmother, Thozama Notazi Thelma Ndabeni.
Ndibulela eza ntsomi wawundicela ukuba ndikubalisele, makhulu.
– Esinako Ndabeni
For Sne and Ntando
For Gogo and Ma
For Olwethu and Russel
And for Miss Kandai, I kept my promise.
– Sihle Mthembu
CONTENTS

Publisher’s note
Acknowledgements
Politicising kwaito Esinako Ndabeni
Not ‘South Africa’s hip hop’ Esinako Ndabeni
Mapaputsi makes it darker Sihle Mthembu
Plagued by hypermasculinity Esinako Ndabeni
Arthur Mafokate: Kwaito’s most hideous man? Sihle Mthembu
Kwaito women Esinako Ndabeni
On kombuistaals and tsotsitaals Esinako Ndabeni
I wear what I like: Fashion and kwaito Esinako Ndabeni
TKZee: Amapantsul’ ajabulile Sihle Mthembu
Yizo Yizo : The poetry of dysfunction Sihle Mthembu
The gangsta movie Esinako Ndabeni
Durban kwaito’s future, past and present Sihle Mthembu
Mandoza: Postscript for is’gelekeqe es’focused Sihle Mthembu
Producers paradise: A paean for the men on the boards Sihle Mthembu
Looking back to the future Esinako Ndabeni
About the authors
References
P UBLISHER’S N OTE
T HE MOST BASIC DEFINITION of a book is that it is a written or printed work consisting of pages glued or sewn together along one side and bound in covers. As both a reader and a publisher, this description is far from my lived experience. As a reader, books to me are treasures. As a publisher, they are a legacy. This book is both.
Sihle first made contact with me in March of 2017 with a burden, an idea. The burdensome thing about ideas, especially exciting ones such as this one, is the fear that they may never come to fruition. As a publisher you then agonise, always for far too long – thinking about what could have been. Writing a book is a terrifying and daunting task, and it is for this reason that many great book ideas never come to see the light of day.
When I started BlackBird Books, one of the things I knew for sure was that we needed to create a platform for black people to begin, not to only unpack ourselves and our culture, but also to begin to interrogate the cultural impact that our lived experiences carry. Seeing this book come to life has felt like a beautiful reminder of that promise.
I cannot speak for any people outside of my generation, but kwaito feels like something that belongs to us, and there are not many things that we own completely. As a music genre, as a lifestyle, as a movement and as a culture, kwaito is ours – and this project feels like a step in the right direction for us as a generation
This book is not meant to be the definitive book and/or conversation on kwaito, but a reminder of a capsule in time. A nudge for us to do more, in terms of archiving the moments and the memories that continue to define us. It feels like a momentous step in the right direction, which will probably reverberate for a long time after we are gone.
To you, reader, I am extremely proud to bring you this offering. I am confident that this will not be the last you hear from both these authors, two of the most brilliant young minds I know. Esi and Sihle, I know the both of you had not bargained on the pressure that came with bringing this book to life, but you should be immensely proud. You can be sure that I am.
– Thabiso Mahlape, Polokwane 2018
A CKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I NENE, UMNTU NGUMNTU NGABANTU . Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams; if I had to choose my own mother, I would still choose you. Thank you for giving me the freedom to be who I am. Sihle Mthembu; you have changed my life. Thabiso Mahlape; you embody Fierce. Please keep me around. I would like to thank the wonderful kwaito pioneers who entrusted us with their stories. Many people meet in this book. To name but a few: Perfect Hlongwane, Evelyn Nonqaba Ndabeni, Thato Abrahams, Kusisipho Abrahams, Somila Ngcongco, Chithibunga Ndabeni, Nyameka Mtirara, Phuti Marutla, Nthabiseng Mokitimi Dlamini, Lebohang Masango, Ana Deumert, Marlon Swai, Luvo Gila, Busisiwe Deyi, Precious Bikitsha, Nosipho Nwigbo, Lisa Vabaza, Njabulo Zwane, Thenjiwe Mswane, Sabelo Mcinziba, Miles Keylock, Charl Blignaut, Rhode Marshall, City Press, the UCT African Studies Book Collection, the National Library of South Africa…
‘In my life, I’ve loved them all.’
– Esinako Ndabeni
1

P OLITICISING KWAITO
Esinako Ndabeni
T O BE BLACK IS TO BE BURDENED with the automatic, relentless work of saving other black people. A black person can’t simply tell a story out of their love for stories – that story must carry with it some ‘conscious’ message, preferably political. At the very least, it is expected of black art that it should have the potential to offer solutions to the problems that we face. Of course, one can understand why these assumptions are often taken as given – black communities everywhere are beset with problems that need solving.
It’s not surprising then that this same burden of responsibility was immediately imposed upon the kwaito generation; creating the oft-repeated narrative around the apparent ‘meaninglessness’ of kwaito. Former President Thabo Mbeki once famously referred to the genre as a ‘distraction from real issues’, echoing sentiments that were common among the political ‘class’ and older generations in South Africa’s black communities.
It was to be expected that officialdom at that time would have frowned at black youths becoming apathetic or lackadaisical about issues of social reform in South Africa. The political rights that were attained post-1994 had not automatically ushered in socioeconomic freedoms for the black majority who had borne the brunt of apartheid.
But this animosity towards kwaito; the insistence that it was a disengagement from the political, also revealed shortcomings in how the political was being re-imagined.
Dr Gibson Boloka’s three-pronged definition of kwaito as: disengaging with socio-political discourse, breaking from previous traditions in black South African music, and a reflection of post-apartheid society, is not completely accurate. While kwaito clearly was a break from tradition and did reflect new cultural frames that emerged post-apartheid, I think it is important not to simply dismiss kwaito as apolitical. Perhaps kwaito would be better understood as having been driven in a sense by its own unique political nuances.
I intend to highlight the ways in which kwaito was not apolitical, and why it matters that we view the music as political text, but I also find it curious that black youths choosing to take a breather and seek pleasure through music is something that should have been perceived as so reactionary. It almost seems as if the youthful kwaito generation were begrudged their moment to be carefree; to live a little in the euphoria of the post-liberation relief that followed from apartheid’s demise.
As someone born after the advent of kwaito, a ‘born free’ as we are often called, it’s difficult for me to make older people understand why kwaito is so important to me. The older generations, who dismiss the genre even though they grooved to it when I was but a toddler, have clearly outgrown that phase. They now dismiss kwaito as the frivolous soundtrack of their youthful partying; little more than the background noise to which they socialised in the heady days of a newly liberated country. The enduring narrative seems to be that it was a genre by and for ‘amavuilpop’ (dirty hooligans). Nostalgia for kwaito’s bygone appeal is often accompanied by an element of disdain.
But kwaito for me is the most important music genre and subculture that post-apartheid South Africa has birthed, and to see it leaving the collective memory, as it seems to be, without having witnessed a shift in how it is perceived, is disheartening. Even with the benefit of hindsight, kwaito is still branded as not having had any socio-political message to offer.
Lance Stehr, Managing Director of Ghetto Ruff, speaks passionately about this, highlighting what he believes to be the differences between, for example, pioneering South African hip hop outfit Prophets of da City’s lyrical activism and the perceived indifference of kwaito music to ‘real’ issues. These are the insights Mr Stehr offers as we drive to Midrand from the Ghetto Ruff headquarters in Emmarentia:

The reason why we only got into kwaito accidentally as a label was because we were into hip-hop before that. Now, with Prophets of da City for example, the point of doing music was to put out a political message because we were fighting against the government of the time. And kwaito, for me, was just a distraction. It didn’t have a message at all. So, after the first democratic elections, all of a sudden nobody was interested in any socially conscious message. They were just into, ‘Yeah, yeah let’s party!’ and we were like, ‘What the fuck?’ These songs had, like, two words the whole fucking song.
Engaging Mr Stehr, I try to get him to think about it from a different angle. ‘Kwaito artists such as Oskido have said that it was a celebration of freedom,’ I point out, but Mr Stehr sticks to his guns. ‘Well, look where that freedom got us’, he scoffs. However, later on that same day, Mandla ‘Spikiri’ Mofokeng dismisses the idea that kwaito had no message.
‘The problem with South Africans is that we don’t believe in ourselves. We don’t believe in our music. If Beyoncé can copy our dance moves then who are you to say that our home-gro