HISTORICIZING KWAITO

*y

GAVIN STEINGO

In the standard narrative, kwaito is described as a form o f electronic dance music

that emerged alongside the democratization of South Africa between Nelson M andela’s
release from prison (1990) and the democratic elections o f 1994.1In most cases, scholars
have claimed that kwaito emerged as a direct response to the end o f apartheid and the
birth o f the South African “rainbow nation” (see Allen 2004; Boloka 2003; Coplan 2005;
Impey 2001; Peterson 2004; Satyo 2001; Steingo 2005, 2007; Stephens 2000). While
there is certainly some truth in such a claim, the present essay is an attempt to complicate
this rather simplistic and monolithic historical narrative.
Before engaging carefully both with kwaito history and historiographical issues
more generally, it is necessary to establish the “kwaito story” as it is usually told. While
a review o f kwaito’s histories might lead in many directions, down labyrinthine paths
o f oral history, newspaper archives, and sound recordings, I focus here on academic
historicizing which is, for the most part, based on a multiplicity o f voices and media.2
While there is no book-length study o f kwaito to date, several article-length publications
have briefly recounted a kwaito history. In the following section I will review some of
the extant literature on kwaito, observing common tendencies and lines o f flight in and
among various academic works.
Kwaito Stories
Bhekezizwe Peterson has written one o f the most imaginative and lucid accounts of
kwaito’s history. In a section titled “And then there was kwaito” Peterson (2004:198-9)
suggests:
K w a i t o ’s g e n e s is is a c c r e d ite d to D J s w h o , a f te r 1 9 9 4 , h a d to r e s p o n d to th e n e e d e x p r e s s e d
o n th e d a n c e flo o rs f o r a n e w m u s ic . A f t e r th e d e c a d e s o f th e p o litic a lly c h a r g e d to y i- to y i, th e
c a ll w a s f o r a s o u n d , d a n c e a n d a tte n d a n t s ty le s t h a t w o u ld c a p tu r e th e s e n s e o f re le a s e th a t
y o u n g p e o p le f e lt f o llo w in g th e d e m is e o f a p a rth e id .

Among other things, Peterson clearly correlates kwaito’s “genesis” with the precise
date o f apartheid’s formal demise. Ignoring, for the moment, the fact that Peterson is
incorrect about the exact date (kwaito had emerged at least by 1993 with Boom Shaka’s
first album), his basic point that kwaito was a response to the end o f oppositional politics
at the end o f apartheid is an archetypal example o f the dominant kwaito historicization.

1 I would like to thank Carol Muller, Roger Grant, and the anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful comments.
Thanks also to Diane Thram for her support and encouragement.
2 This paper represents preliminary thoughts about historicizing kwaito, derived from several short-term periods of
field research in preparation for the larger project that will begin in November 2008, funded by a Benjamin Franklin
Fellowship from the University of Pennsylvania.
 HISTORICIZING KWAITO 77

Ethnomusicologist Angela Impey (2001:45) historicizes kwaito in much the same

way:
While the kwaito movement appeared to adopt the politically defiant posturing of Cape
rap and hip-hop, in reality, it appropriated defiance as a fashion statement...Groups such
as Boom Shaka appeared to unleash among young black consumers an explosive desire
to disengage from the long years of oppression and political protest of the apartheid era.
No longer restrained by the need to comment on racial injustice and political freedom, it
expressed a new set of dreams.
Like Peterson, Impey draws a direct parallel (indeed, proposes a direct causality)
between the end o f apartheid and the beginning o f kwaito. It perhaps is worth noting that
Impey does inject a certain disturbance into the coherent narrative that is often told about
kwaito. Unlike Peterson and several other scholars, Impey suggests that kwaito’s rejection
o f oppositional politics is not immediately apparent, and that the “kwaito movement
appeared to adopt” - even though it did not - “the politically defiant posturing o f Cape
rap and hip-hop” . Put otherwise, kwaito’s rejection o f oppositional politics was not
apparent, and needed to be uncovered through analysis. Im pey’s precise construction is
doubly confounding because she continues that “Groups such as Boom Shaka appeared
to unleash among young black consumers an explosive desire to disengage from the
long years o f oppression and political protest o f the apartheid era” (emphasis mine).
While in the first instance kwaito’s appearance as political defiance was, in reality, only
the appropriation o f defiance as a fashion statement, in the second instance kwaito’s
appearance as a form o f political disengagement appears to be interpreted by Impey as
a “true appearance”, as not simply an appearance, but an immediate reality. The slippage
between “appearance” as the covering up o f reality to “appearance” as the disclosure
o f reality in Impey’s text certainly does unsettle any straightforward reading. However,
putting aside these slight difficulties in the text, it is possible to conclude that Impey’s
and Peterson’s basic historical narratives o f kwaito are similar.
The basic claims that (1) kwaito emerged as a response to the end o f apartheid
and that (2) kwaito was a form o f disengagement from the oppositional politics of the
apartheid era, can be found in a vast majority o f the extant literature on the music genre.
I would like to suggest that there are two problems - or, at the very least, two limitations
- with the story o f kwaito that we have become accustomed to telling ourselves. Firstly,
discussions o f kwaito have failed to take into account larger shifts in global political
economy, on the one hand, and “North American global” (Jameson 1991) popular culture,
on the other hand. Here I am specifically thinking o f the triumph o f neo-liberalism and the
end o f the Cold War, along with associated transformations in popular culture. Secondly,
the precise dating o f kwaito’s genealogy is slightly skewed. There is ample evidence
that the form o f music we today call “kwaito” emerged, not in the “celebratory” early
1990s as most people believe, but rather in the far more ambiguous and violent 1980s.
Moreover, the periodizing o f kwaito’s birth at 1990 creates a false dichotomy between
78 JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LIBRARY OF AFRICAN MUSIC

the 1980s and 1990s. Thus, in addition to resituating kwaito as a slightly older genre
than is usually imagined, a rethinking o f South African popular music in the 1980s is
also necessary.
Bubblegum
Regarding the second problem, David Coplan (2005:11) has done much to blur the
boundary between pre- and post-1990s South African popular music:
[K ] w a ito h a s n e v e r e x is te d a s th e g e n r e - a p a r t t h a t i t h a s w id e ly b e e n m a d e o u t to b e .
F u r th e r m o r e , its m o s t s k ille d a n d c r e a tiv e e x p o n e n ts , s u c h a s A rth u r, A b a s h a n te , T ro m p ie s ,
M ’d u o r T K Z e e , w e r e s w im m in g i n th e b r o a d e r s tr e a m o f S o u th A f r i c a n p o p tr a d itio n s f r o m
th e v e r y f irs t p lu n g e .

W hat troubles Coplan is not so much the particular way in which histories o f kwaito
have been written as what he refers to as “inappropriate inscriptions o f generic labeling”
(2005:12). It is not only that kwaito in particular never existed as a “genre-apart”, but
also that the naming o f genres in general fails to take into consideration the complexities
and textures o f historical unfolding. To make this point, Coplan turns away from kwaito
briefly:
T h e r e is n o b e tt e r illu s tr a tio n o f t h e i n a p p r o p r ia te in s c r ip tio n s o f g e n e r ic la b e lin g t h a n th e
t e r m a p p lie d to th e p o p u l a r b la c k d a n c e m u s ic s ty le t h a t p r e c e d e d k w a ito i n th e 1 9 8 0 s :
“ b u b b le g u m ” . P e r h a p s it w a s th [e ] p e r c e iv e d s h a llo w n e s s i n th e m id s t o f th e g a th e r in g
p o litic a l s to r m t h a t l e d s o m e ra d io d is k j o c k e y to d is m is s th e n e w s ty le o f t o w n s h ip p o p a s
“ b u b b le g u m ” : a c h il d i s h te a s e i n w h i c h th e in itia l b u r s t o f s w e e tn e s s q u ic k ly v a n is h e s o n th e
to n g u e . (2 0 0 5 :1 2 )

While I certainly agree with Coplan here, it seems to me that his nuancing o f the
“names ofhistory” forcefully brings to light my first major criticism ofkwaito historicizing:
the failure to take into consideration international cultural production. For, while Coplan
has done much to complicate the alleged fracture line between the 1980s and 1990s, his
omission o f any international bubblegum music is striking. It seems unlikely that a radio
DJ named 1980s South African pop music “bubblegum” solely because such music was
perceived as shallow. It seems far more likely that South African bubblegum was so
called because it resembled (very closely, in fact) the contemporaneous bubblegum music
in Europe and the USA. It may be true that South African bubblegum was perceived as
“shallow”, but the inappropriate inscription o f “bubblegum” clearly needs to be viewed
in a larger context, a context in which the word “bubblegum” was frequently used to
describe 1980s electronic disco music (see Viljoen forthcoming).
Lara A llen’s entry on bubblegum in the New Grove Dictionary o f Music and
Musicians is also relevant. Allen (2001) writes that the “worldwide popularity o f disco
in the 1980s spawned a South African township variant commonly called ‘bubblegum’,
although its exponents prefer the official classification ‘township pop’” . Allen does, it
needs to be said, situate bubblegum within the “worldwide popularity o f disco in the
 HISTORICIZING KWAITO 79

1980s”. W hat Allen does not mention, however, is that bubblegum was not exclusively
the name o f a South African township variant o f disco. In fact, the word “bubblegum”
was commonly used to describe the music o f 1980s European, American, and Australian
pop groups and singers such as Bananarama, Tiffany, and Kylie Minogue (see Cooper
and Smay 2001). O f course, the genre known as “bubblegum” existed long before the
1980s. Carl Cafarelli (2001), for example, observes that the term “bubblegum music”
was being used as early as the 1960s.
More recently, Coplan has in fact addressed the possible international influence on
South African bubblegum. Writes Coplan (2008:294):
T h e n e w t o w n s h ip s t y l e . .. w a s u n f la tte r in g ly k n o w n a s “b u b b l e g u m ” . T h e r e is n o b e tt e r
i llu s tr a tio n o f th e i n a p p r o p r ia te in s c r ip tio n s o f g e n e r ic la b e lin g t h a n th is te rm . B o t h A n s e ll
a n d M e in tje s - w h o s e lf - a d m itte d ly h a v e n o t r e s e a r c h e d th is g e n re - m is id e n tif y it a s a te r m
f o r s u p e rfic ia l B r itis h - s ty le lo c a l p o p . E v e n th e firs t in f e c tio u s ly b o u n c y re c o r d in g s w e re
n o t th e ta s te le s s e p h e m e r a , m u s ic a lly o r p o litic a lly , t h a t th e d is m is s iv e “b u b b l e g u m ” la b e l
assu m ed .

Coplan suggests that perhaps the label “bubblegum” served a similar function to
the earlier “jive” which was chosen specifically to “deliberately mislead government
watchdogs” . Ultimately, writes Coplan, bubblegum “clearly had both audible roots in
local black popular balladry as well as engagement with popular social and political
issues”.
There are many ways that one might respond to Coplan’s arguments that are, as
usual, both insightful and well informed. Here I simply raise a few issues that will not
be easily resolved. Firstly, I see no reason to assume that “bubblegum” is an unflattering
label. W hether or not the term was used to deliberately mislead government officials, the
term is (and was) certainly open to multiple interpretations and need not be thought o f as
inherently derogatory. Secondly, dismissing British-style bubblegum pop as “superficial”
(as Coplan seems to have done) is predicated on a problematic notion of authenticity. As
Fred Maus (2001) has suggested, the superficiality o f groups such as the Pet Shop Boys
was not as superficial as one might imagine. Or, to put it otherwise, “superficiality” itself
can be mobilized politically towards progressive ends. Thirdly, Coplan gives a quick
nod to Brenda Fassie’s “Weekend Special” which he suggests was “political only in the
sexual sense o f protesting against the subordinate romantic status of the ‘weekends-only’
girlfriend” but quickly moves on to explicitly political songs like “Black President” and
“Shoot Them Before They Grow” . On the one hand, one can point to dozens o f bubblegum
songs with “superficial” lyrics (think, for example, o f Yvonne Chaka Chaka’s “Thank
You M r DJ”); on the other hand, a focus on explicitly “political” lyrics often both misses
the point o f songs and risks a too narrow understanding o f the political - as Coplan
him self has pointed out. Fourth and last, one should not forget that it is music we are in
fact writing about. Even the most cursory hearing of bubblegums from South Africa and
80 JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LIBRARY OF AFRICAN MUSIC

Britain reveals obvious similarities: repeated electronic drum tracks; simple, repeated
vocal refrains; heavy use o f synthesizers as vocal accompaniment; pristine production
quality, without distortion or clipping; emphasis o f sonorities in the upper registers.3
My aim, o f course, is not simply to draw attention to the international use o f the term
“bubblegum”. Instead, I would like to argue that in historicizing kwaito it is imperative
to consider larger global flows and shifts.4 In this vein, I suggest that the triumph o f neo­
liberalism and the end o f the Cold War in the late 1980s were more significant events
(or series o f events) in the history o f kwaito than the end o f apartheid. It is to this point
that I now turn.
Ends and Means: The Two Stages of Postcoloniality
In his notorious The End o f History and the Last Man (1992), Francis Fukuyama
argued that “Hegel had been right in saying that history had ended in 1806, since there
had been no essential political progress beyond the principles o f the French Revolution,
which he had seen consolidated by Napoleon’s victory in the Battle o f Jena that year.
The collapse o f communism in 1989 signaled only the denouement o f a broader liberal
democracy around the globe.”5While it is possible to dismiss Fukuyama as a conservative
ideologue (which, o f course, he is), it is difficult to deny the hegemony of global capitalism
after 1989. Put another way, the fact that there is no Fidel Castro Street in Johannesburg
(as there is in cities such as Maputo and Windhoek) signals the relative lack o f communist
influence on South Africa’s 1994 “transition” into a neo-liberal state.6 There are certainly
many problems with Fukuyama’s “end o f history thesis”. However, the ubiquity of

On the last point (about musical characteristics), see Meintjes (2003). In fact, Meintjes’ discussions on bubblegum are
rather insightful, if brief. Meintjes says that bubblegum (which she alternatively labels “township pop”) “is keyboard and
drum based with short call-and-response vocals. It is largely programmed and sequenced - and meant to sound that way. It
uses a lot of absolutely electronic, contemporary-sounding timbres, created as themselves rather than designed to represent
amplified or acoustic instruments. Signal-processing effects such as reverb, chorus, and echo are self-consciously added
to the recorded voice...” (2003:154). However, Meintjes is less interested in comprehensively historicizing bubblegum
than understanding discourses about bubblegum within the mbaqanga community. It is occasionally difficult to ascertain
whether Meintjes is representing the voices of her interlocutors, or if she is making her own point. For example, after
observing that mbaqanga musicians often talk about bubblegum as “whitey” music, she writes: “Musically, township
pop is white because it shares formal characteristics with particular popular styles that black South Africans in the early
1990s identified as music produced and consumed by white people, namely, intensively produced studio music that grew
out of a rock tradition” (153). Now, disco of the 1970s, a large amount of 1980s American and British bubblegum, and
electronic dance musics such as house and trance, were all originally produced and consumed by black people. While I
do not doubt that (some) black South Africans think of those genres as “white”, Meintjes herself says nothing about these
genre histories. Similarly, while Meintjes does not offer us her own take on the issue, “whitey bubblegum” did not grow
out of rock music in any obvious way (it was both a descendent of, and reaction against, rock music), and rock music,
again, was invented by African Americans, and not whites.
4 O f course, several ethnomusicological studies have carefully elucidated the ways in which South African musicians
have interacted with African American music. See, for example, Ballantine (1993); Coplan (2008); Erlmann (1999);
and Muller (2006).
5 This synopsis of The End o f History is from the preface to Fukuyama’s later book, Our Posthuman Future (2002:xi-
xii).
6 For more on South Africa’s “neoliberal turn” see, for example, Marais (2001) and Bond (2004).
 HISTORICIZING KWAITO 81

acronyms such as TINA (There Is No Alternative to neoliberalism) in contemporary South

Africa certainly seems to imply that apartheid ended after the end o f history.
Anthropologist John Comaroff has approached this topic from a slightly different
angle. He suggests that “postcoloniality” is not monolithic, and instead asks if
“postcoloniality” might not be parsed into two broad stages:
Is i t p o s s ib le o r u s e f u l to s e p a ra te th e firs t - w h i c h b e g a n w i t h th e “ d e c o lo n iz a tio n ” o f I n d ia
i n 1 9 4 7 , b r o u g h t f o r t h m o s t o f th e “ i n d e p e n d e n t” n a tio n s o f th e “ T h ir d W o rld ” , a n d u s h e r e d
i n th e a g e o f h i g h n e o c o lo n ia lis m - f r o m a s e c o n d , im a g in e d to h a v e h a d its g e n e s is in
1 9 8 9 , w i t h th e e n d o f th e C o ld W ar, th e “ tr iu m p h ” o f n e o lib e ra l c a p ita lis m , d e m o c r a tiz a tio n
m o v e m e n ts , a n d th e ris e o f a n e w w a v e o f p o s tr e v o lu tio n a r y s o c ie tie s i n C e n tr a l E u r o p e ,
S o u th A fric a , a n d e ls e w h e r e ? (B h a b a a n d C o m a r o f f 2 0 0 2 :1 5 )

Leaving aside, for the moment, all the difficulties involved in this question (the fact
that South Africa was not, strictly speaking, a “colony” for many decades before 1994;
the obvious differences between Central Europe and South Africa), I would argue that
Comaroff’s “parsing” is indeed possible and useful in understanding kwaito. For, while
many academic researchers and journalists have commented on kwaito’s striking lack of
overtly “political” content, kwaito’s conditions o f possibility have been all but ignored.
The crucial point is that whereas “liberation” musics in countries such as Zimbabwe,
Mozambique, and Angola were often agitprop or linked to organized politics (Bender
1991), kwaito musicians and fans eschew sloganeering and celebrate pleasure, the body,
and consumerism. Seen this way, kwaito is more meaningfully understood as a genre of
global neoliberalism than a narrowly conceived “post-apartheid” genre.
In a recent interview, activist and intellectual Jeremy Cronin was asked how the Left
in South Africa coped with the collapse o f the Soviet Union. Cronin answered that the
top communist leaders left the South African Communist Party for the ANC in 1990, and
“the social-democratic project was rolled back. In a way, the new South Africa emerged
in a kind o f neo-liberal triumphalism” (see Das 2008). While analysts and historians
have emphasized South Africa’s “peaceful transition”, Nelson M andela’s humility and
forgivingness, and the spirit o f reconciliation in the mid-1990s, insufficient attention
has been paid to the global conditions that shaped and constrained these events and
sentiments.
Thus, while a commentator such as Patrick Neate (2003) can interpret kwaito as
the confluence o f international genres flooding into South Africa after apartheid, a more
elaborate meditation would map the transformation o f the politics behind such genres
between the 1980s and 1990s. To do so would be to more carefully understand the
position o f South Africa in global history.
Fissures: Between Decades
In this section I would like to turn to my second major area o f inquiry: the diachronic
historiography o f kwaito. As suggested earlier in relation to Coplan’s discussion of
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bubblegum, believing that kwaito simply appeared ex nihilo as Nelson M andela stepped
out o f jail is rather simplistic. In the following section, I present several problems with
the assertion that kwaito appeared suddenly in the early 1990s.
The 1980s was a particularly ambiguous time in South African history. Despite the
rampant violence and frightening uncertainties, the promise o f a democratic horizon
seemed to finally be on the horizon. O f course, people had been prophesying almost since
apartheid’s advent that the regime o f apart-hate would end in the next five years, so the
future o f the 1980s certainly did not seem determined. Nonetheless, increased pressure
on the Nationalist government both from within South Africa and internationally created
a particular sense o f political excitement and anxiety. Paradoxically, South Africa’s
isolation from the rest o f the world also began to loosen in the late 1980s.
Ethnomusicological studies on “world music”, and specifically Paul Simon’s
Graceland, have illustrated in detail that the international cultural boycott against
South Africa was highly contested in the mid- and late 1980s. The complexities of
the cultural boycott in the 1980s have been documented in detail, and need not be
rehearsed here (see, for example, Meintjes 1990; Nixon 1994; M uller 2008). I wish to
only point out what Rob Nixon (1994) has characterized as the shift from obstructive
to constructive strategies. Nixon argues that the cultural boycott was more appropriate
for the specificities o f South African politics in the 1960s, and that by the 1980s black
South Africans were dissatisfied with international obstruction. W hile international
movements (such as Artists United Against Apartheid) attempted to encourage and
enforce the terms o f the United N ations’ restrictions, important black South African
musicians such as Hugh M asakela and Joseph Shabalala were reconfiguring South
African international representation.
Many black South African musicians were beginning to encourage, rather than to
thwart, collaborations with American and European musicians. A conference o f South
African artists and musicians took place in Amsterdam in 1987 to access the future
o f “Culture in Another South Africa”. “Many o f the three hundred participating artists
maintained that world isolation o f apartheid had to be complemented by international
exposure to the creative energies o f those South African artists who were giving
imaginative form to an alternative order” (Nixon 1994:168). The Amsterdam conference
resulted in a restriction and limiting o f boycott policies, that is to say, a selective boycott.
In some senses the selective boycott was simply impossible to administer. In 1988 the
Mass Democratic Movement instigated the “cultural desk”, whose task it was to decide
who the boycott applied to. The cultural desk was wildly unpopular and was soon
dissolved. Although the cultural boycott officially lasted until the end o f apartheid in
1994, its efficacy and value was widely contested in the late 1980s and 1990s. Moreover,
as we have seen, between the years 1987 and 1994, the boycott was less aggressive and
less comprehensive.
 HISTORICIZING KWAITO 83

The majority o f anti-boycott voices came from within South Africa. Beginning
with the Black Consciousness movement o f the 1970s, black South Africans hoped to
displace censure with affirmation (Nixon 1994:162). Interviews with black South African
musicians in the 1980s illustrate an overwhelming desire to challenge the “poor African”
stereotype.
The important point is that in the extremely repressive decade o f the 1980s, the
majority o f black South African musical voices were affirmative. Black culture was
being affirmed; South African culture was being affirmed; in a sense, life itself was
being affirmed.
Seen this way, the “celebratory” ethos o f kwaito is perhaps not as markedly different
from the 1980s as is often thought. David Coplan observes that the emphasis on enjoyment
and pleasure in kwaito music in the early and mid-1990s was not really anything new.
Coplan quotes Johnny Clegg on musical life in the 1980s:
T h e w e e k e n d s a re f o r r e c o n s t i t u t i o n .. . “ G o o d t im e ” m u s ic is re c o n s titu tiv e b e c a u s e it s a y s,
c lim b in s id e a n d I ’ll m a k e y o u w h o le , g e t u p o f f y o u r c h a ir, d o n ’t f e e l so b a d , l e t ’s m o v e
to g e th e r, a b i t m o re s tro n g ly w i t h e a c h r e p e a te d c y c le o f th e s o n g . I t is d e fia n t. It e x p r e s s e s
th e d e te r m in a tio n t h a t e v e ry o n e o f u s w i l l b e f r e e o n e day. I t c a n n o t b e e x p lic itly p o l i t i c a l .
i t e x p r e s s e s i n its to n e , i n th e s o u n d o f th e v o ic e a n d th e s o u n d o f th e in s tr u m e n ts , th e s o u l o f
th e b l a c k S o u th A fric a n . ( C o p la n 2 0 0 5 :1 6 ; q u o te f r o m T a y lo r 1 9 9 7 :8 2 , 8 0 )7

We see from Clegg’s comments that perhaps the reception and meaning o f kwaito
is not so different from that o f earlier South African music. O f course, it is possible to
argue that, whereas in the 1980s the enjoyment o f music was in stark opposition to “lived
conditions”, in the 1990s there was something like a dialectical resolution whereby the
enjoyment o f music reflected (rather than contradicted) political and social life. I would
argue, however, that this interpretation is too simplistic. Significantly, the politicized
black youth o f South Africa have always been aware o f the ambiguities o f political life in
South Africa, in the 1980s as well as in the 1990s. While kwaito was and is certainly the
soundtrack o f a different South Africa, the notion that kwaito is simply about “celebration”
is highly reductive. After all, as Veit Erlmann (1991:3) points out, material conditions
do not determine social practice. The following lengthy excerpts from Niq M hlongo’s
(2004) brilliant quasi-autobiographical novel elucidate the anxieties that continued into
the post-apartheid era. Here, the protagonist o f the novel is queuing in line to vote in the
first democratic elections in 1994:
D if f e r e n t p o litic a l p a r tie s h a d m u m b le d t h e i r b i g lie s to ra lly p e o p le to v o te f o r th e m . I h a d
n o t m a d e u p m y m in d a s to w h i c h p a rty to v o te fo r, b u t I d e fin ite ly w a n te d to s e e a b la c k
p a r ty i n g o v e r n m e n t. I d i d n ’t c a re t h a t m y B i g B r o th e r s w e r e s a id to b e s till w e t b e h in d th e ir
e a r s w h e n i t c a m e to r u n n in g a c o u n tr y a s b i g a s S o u th A fric a . I w o u ld e v e n h a v e v o t e d f o r

7 It is perhaps ironic that at this point Coplan (and Taylor) has a white man commenting. Nonetheless, black South
African musicians (such as Joseph Shabalala and Philip Tabane) were reported to have said similar things during
apartheid.
84 JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LIBRARY OF AFRICAN MUSIC

th e J a h m a n c a n d id a te w h o h a d v o w e d to le g a lis e d a g g a i n h is v e r y f ir s t t e r m a s p r e s id e n t. T o
m e , j u s t a s lo n g a s h e w a s b l a c k it w a s fin e , a s s tu p id a s th a t. ( 2 0 0 4 :6 1 )

In the following excerpt, the protagonist and a friend are going home in a minibus
taxi after having voted:
T h e k s a n d m y s e lf re m a in e d s e a te d u n c o m fo rta b ly o n th e b a c k s e a t o f a n o is y d e a th -tra p m in ib u s .
I t r a n h e ll f o r le a th e r a lo n g C o m m is s io n e r S tre e t v i a J o h n V o rs te r S q u a re . E a r-s p littin g m u s ic
w a s b la s tin g f r o m a p a ir o f s p e a k e rs rig h t b e h in d u s. T h e b a s s w a s p o u n d in g m y e a rd ru m s , b u t
th e d r iv e r a n d th e tw o te e n a g e rs i n f r o n t o f u s w e re n o d d in g a lo n g to J o e N in a .
M a r i a P o d e s t a m a a n . D in g -d o n g .
Y eah, y e a h , y e a h baby.
U n g i s h a y a d in g , d in g d in g d in g -d o n g .
I t w a s so lo u d t h a t it w a s d iffic u lt f o r p e o p le s ittin g n e x t to e a c h o t h e r to h a v e a n y k i n d o f
c o n v e r s a t io n ...T h e o l d m in ib u s s k id d e d a t th e r e d r o b o ts a lo n g M a i n R e e f R o a d n e a r th e
F o r d s b u r g S h o p p in g M a ll. I w a tc h e d T h e k s a s s h e s h u t h e r e y e s w i t h frig h t. T h e m in ib u s
s ta r te d to y a m a ll o v e r th e ro a d . T h e r e w e r e s c r e a m s f r o m th e c o m m u te r s in s id e . F o rtu n a te ly ,
th e d r iv e r m a n a g e d to c o n tr o l th e s k id b y a p p ly in g th e b r a k e s j u s t b e f o r e h e c o llid e d w i t h th e
B P p e tr o l ta n k e r t h a t h a d c o m e to h a lt i n f r o n t o f u s .
T h e r o b o t c h a n g e d to g re e n , b u t b e f o r e th e d r i v e r c o u ld a c c e le r a te th e p a s s e n g e r d o o r, w h i c h
w a s f a s te n e d b y a w ire , s w u n g o p e n . T h e g u y s ittin g n e x t to i t w a s i n s tr u c te d to h o l d o n to th e
d o o r u n t il th e d r i v e r w a s a b le to p u ll th e ta x i o n to th e s id e o f th e ro a d . S in c e th e in d ic a to r a n d
b r a k e lig h ts o f h is m in ib u s w e r e d e a d , th e d r i v e r w a v e s h is h a n d o u t o f h is w in d o w to s ig n a l
to th e o t h e r r o a d u s e r s t h a t h e in te n d e d to m o v e h is c a r in to th e s lo w e r la n e . A w h ite 3 -s e rie s
B M W D o l p h i n c a m e s p e e d in g u p f r o m b e h in d . I ts d r i v e r w a s f o r c e d to m a k e a n e m e rg e n c y
s to p , th e tir e s s c r e e c h in g o n th e r o a d to a v o id a n a c c id e n t. I n a s u d d e n fla s h th e tw o d r iv e r s
w e r e s w e a r in g a t e a c h o th er.
“ W h e re d i d y o u b u y y o u r d r i v e r ’s lic e n s e , y o u m o r o n ? D o n ’t y o u k n o w to in d ic a te w h e n y o u
h a v e to c h a n g e la n e s ? Y o u th in k th is is y o u r r o a d ? ” s h o u te d th e w h ite b e a r d e d m a n in s id e
th e B M W .

“ I b o u g h t i t f r o m y o u r m o th e r ’s a r s e ,” r e to r te d th e m in ib u s d riv e r.
“ Y o u r m in d is a s s h o r t a s y o u r h a ir, y o u p ie c e o f s h it.”
“ G o f u c k y o u r s e lf , y o u w h ite b a s ta r d .”
“ W h o d o y o u th in k y o u a re ? Y o u th in k d e m o c r a c y m e a n s ru n n in g a r o u n d d r iv in g th e w a y
y o u lik e w i t h o u t th in k in g ? Y o u u n c iv iliz e d b l a c k s h it! ”
“ Y o u c a n s u c k m y d ic k . I d o n ’t g iv e a s h it a b o u t y o u , y o u r a c is t b a s t a r d .” ( 2 0 0 4 : 7 7 - 7 8 )

As the above quotes indicate, the claim that - unlike music o f the 1980s - music
o f the 1990s “celebrates” freedom is clearly reductive. On the one hand, much music of
the 1980s was celebratory in a certain sense, even if what the music celebrated is rather
difficult to define. On the other hand, kwaito fans in the early and mid-1990s were well
aware that other struggles were clearly on the horizon: crime, poverty, and HIV/AIDS.
Both the 1980s and the 1990s were shot through with ambiguity, joy, excitement, and
 HISTORICIZING KWAITO 85

pain. While the pre- and post-apartheid periods certainly do differ in many respects, the
1990s cannot be understood as the emancipatory telos o f the 1980s.
In a poignant dialectical reversal, kwaito superstar Zola suggests that freedom is
itself a type o f struggle: “As much as the children of the ’70s and ’80s had to be violent
to make a point, the generation o f the ’90s had to deal with freedom and that is hard.
W hoever says the struggle continues didn’t tell us how. Kwaito came out o f that” (cited
in Neate 2004:142). Kwaito is thus the product and production not o f the struggle fo r
freedom, but rather the struggle o f freedom.
I would like to add one final observation about the 1980s that goes against the
grain o f dominant kwaito historicization. It is true in some sense that the 1980s was a
decade o f violent struggle. However, it is also true that the struggle often took on the
form o f frenzied “fun”. One o f the major anti-apartheid strategies amongst youth in the
1980s was “ungovernability”. The Young Lions o f the ANC Youth League advocated
organized but disruptive strikes and marches on the one hand, and complete chaos and
unruliness on the other. “Liberation before Education” - this was the slogan o f the times
(see van der Vliet 2001:154). As Steve Mokwena (1992; cited in van der Vliet 2001:154)
observes about the 1980s: “all forms o f control were challenged. Some argue that it was
the strategy o f ‘ungovernability’, preached by sections o f the political movement, which
is directly responsible for the breakdown o f control in the townships.” While the strategy
o f ungovernability was often scary and dangerous, it was also a politics o f refusal that
produced a certain chaotic enjoyment. In a sense, the hedonism o f kwaito is not very
different from liberating politics o f refusal in the late 1980s.
Other Stories
In the final section o f this article, I would like to review several accounts o f kwaito’s
history and origins by kwaito musicians and cultural brokers themselves. I am also
interested in how knowledge is produced within dialogue. I will thus focus exclusively
on a single interviewer, Aryan Kaganof.8 In addition to paying close attention to the
words o f kwaito musicians and cultural brokers, the questions framing the answers also
require consideration.
This section will, fortunately or not, do little to clarify kwaito’s history. Instead, I
hope to point to several statements that complicate the normative historical account of
kwaito. Moreover, the interviews below give body to, and materialize, the texture of
lived experience, the contradictions in the lives o f historical actors.9

8 Kaganof is a South African filmmaker, novelist, poet, and artist. In 2003 he directed the documentary Sharp Sharp!
(The Kwaito Story) (South Africa: Mandala Films). Transcriptions of interviews from the film are available online
at http://kaganof.com/kagablog/category/films/sharp-sharp-the-kwaito-story/, accessed on 20 February 2008. All
subsequent quotes from Kaganof interviews are from this webpage. I have made very slight changes to interviews
where transcriptions have been entirely incomprehensible or in order to correct minor typographical errors.
9 I plan to do extensive interviews with kwaito musicians and cultural brokers during my fieldwork beginning in November.
The histories told by people such as Arthur Mafokate, M ’du, and Oskido are invaluable for any history of the genre.
Academics have paid insufficient attention to the testimonies of the “founding fathers and mothers” of the genre.
86 JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LIBRARY OF AFRICAN MUSIC

As the “King o f Kwaito” (see Steingo 2005), I believe that A rthur’s statements
about the emergence o f kwaito are extremely important. Arthur is not only an important
kwaito musician in his own right; he has also produced many o f the leading kwaito
groups. In an interview with Kaganof, Arthur defines kwaito like this:
K w a ito is b a s ic a lly S o u th A f r i c a n g h e tto o r t o w n s h ip d a n c e m u s ic a n d i t c a m e a b o u t i n th e
s e n s e t h a t w e , a s th e y o u t h o f S o u th A f r ic a f e e l in g t h a t t h e r e ’s a l o t t h a t w e n e e d to s a y th a t
h a s n ’t b e e n s a id b e f o r e th r o u g h a m u s ic fo r m a t, y o u k n o w e x p r e s s in g o u r o w n s e lv e s i n th e
b e s t w a y p o s s ib le f o r o u r s e lv e s b e c a u s e w e ’v e a lw a y s h a d m u s ic g e n r e s b e f o r e o u r tim e
b u t it w a s f o r t h e i r a g e a n d p e r io d , b u t p e o p le lik e m e , w h e n w e w e r e b o r n w e s a w t h in g s
d if f e r e n tly a n d w e s a w t h in g s h a p p e n in g i n f r o n t o f o u r e y e s a n d w e f e lt th e n e e d to e x p r e s s
o u r s e lv e s i n a w a y th a t w o u l d b e m o re a p p r o p ria te f o r o u r s e lv e s .

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Kaganof assumes the normative historical narrative of

kwaito and asks Arthur: “W hen you say earlier genres are you referring specifically to
bubblegum?” A rthur’s response is not the expected one:
I w o u l d n ’t e v e n s a y b u b b l e g u m m u s ic , I w o u l d s a y e v e r y th in g t h a t h a p p e n e d b e f o r e m e , y o u
k n o w a ll th e m u s ic g e n r e s e x p r e s s e d p e o p l e ’s liv e s i n t h e i r o w n p e r io d b u t w h e n m y p e r io d
c a m e I f e lt I h a v e to e x p r e s s m y s e lf i n m y o w n w a y .

Arthur does not single out bubblegum as the predecessor o f kwaito; instead, he
endeavors to present a more inclusive history. Kaganof continues by asking the rather
obvious question: “So how does for example, the release o f Nelson M andela from prison,
or the democratic elections, help shape the development o f kwaito culture?” Arthur’s
response is rather striking: “I would say it’s a music format that had to come about
because o f the South African youth feeling they needed to have a voice o f their own and
coincidentally it happened whilst he [Mandela] was in ja il...”
According to Arthur, kwaito emerged - not because ofN elson M andela - but because
the youth felt that they needed to have a voice. Arthur firmly locates agency in the youth,
and not in a much older imprisoned politician. Let us sharpen this into two points. Firstly,
the voice o f the black youth emerged, according to Arthur, coincidentally while Mandela
was in jail. Arthur seems to be refuting, or at least complicating, the idea that there was a
direct causality between M andela’s imprisonment (and subsequent release) and the birth
o f kwaito. Kwaito emerged while Mandela was in jail, and not because M andela was in
jail. Secondly, kwaito emerged not when M andela was released from jail, but while he
was in jail. In one sentence, Arthur’s comments turn our normative narrative o f kwaito
on its head. Arthur elaborates on these ideas later in the interview:
F o r m e b a s ic a lly th e s tru g g le c o n tin u e s w h i c h is w h y I sa y s o m e h o w th e r e w a s a p o litic a l
c o n tr ib u tio n to k w a ito o r w e c o n tr ib u te d v ic e v e r s a y o u k n o w . W e c o n tr ib u te d to p o litic s ,
p o litic s c o n tr ib u te d to k w a ito b e in g th e re , b u t o n e w o u l d n ’t sa y i t c a m e a b o u t b e c a u s e
M a n d e la w a s r e le a s e d b e c a u s e y o u c a n n o t j u s t th in k o f a n id e a o v e rn ig h t. M a n d e la w a s
r e le a s e d a t th e tim e w h e n a lr e a d y th e y o u t h w e r e a ffe c te d i n t h is c o u n try , w e f e lt w e n e e d e d
to h a v e a v o ic e .
 HISTORICIZING KWAITO 87

Arthur thus rejects a simple periodizing history o f kwaito, arguing instead that “you
cannot just think o f an idea overnight” . Put another way, historical change is not punctual
- it does not happen in an instant. Arthur does not simply recount an inventory o f events
that conflicts with what I have been calling the “dominant narrative” . More importantly,
Arthur subtly proposes an entirely different form o f historiography, a different mode of
inscribing history. In fact, Arthur seems rather frustrated by journalists who interview
him anticipating specific answers. Responding to Kaganof’s question, “Would you
call the post-apartheid generation the kwaito generation?” A rthur’s annoyance finally
surfaces: “Yes you can call them that depending on what you would be referring to.” I
interpret this sentence to mean: “Yes, Mr. Kaganof, you can call them that if you want
to.” Arthur continues:
B e c a u s e so f a r I ’v e s e e n i n p a p e r s p e o p le w r i t in g d if f e r e n t s tu f f a b o u t k w a ito a n d f o r m e
t h a t h a s b e e n b e h in d th e w h o le th in g o f k w a ito , I a lw a y s f e e l b a d , w h i c h is w h y I s o m e tim e s
re fu s e to d o in te r v ie w s u n le s s i f i t ’s a s e n s ib le in te r v ie w t h a t d o e s j u s t ic e to k w a ito b e c a u s e
w e a re p r o p e r h u m a n b e in g s a n d w e k n o w o u r s to ry a n d w e k n o w w h a t w e w a n t to a c h ie v e
o u t o f life .

In summary, Kaganof entered the interview expecting to hear that bubblegum

led directly to kwaito, and that M andela’s release from jail coincided directly with
(or, perhaps, caused) the birth o f kwaito. However, Arthur seems to refute, or at least
infinitely complicate, both o f these assumptions.
Several other interviews by Kaganof problematize the rather simplistic hermeneutics
that have come to characterize much kwaito historicizing. For example, Oksido -
undoubtedly one o f the founders o f kwaito - stated that he started DJing in clubs in about
1987. He says that at that time he was playing “a lot of house music”. Because kwaito
is, in many ways, a derivative o f house, it is impossible to ascertain precisely at what
point house “became” kwaito. If nothing else, Oskido implies that a kind o f proto-kwaito
emerged in the late 1980s, before M andela’s release from prison.
In terms o f generic markers, the late Lebo Mathosa recounts:
I g o t in v o lv e d i n a g ro u p c a lle d B o o m S h a k a . W e w e r e o n e o f th e g ro u p s w h ic h s ta rte d th e
w h o le c o n tro v e rs y a b o u t th e c h a n g in g o f th e m u s ic w h i c h w e c a ll k w a ito . A t firs t it w a s G o n g
b u t t h e n th e y s a id n o w e w a n t a b e tte r n a m e so it w a s k w a ito a n d I g u e s s I to o k i t f r o m th e re .

It seems that the music we today call “kwaito” was not always known as such. To
my knowledge, no one has fully historicized the various names that were applied to
this new genre. But what new genre? Surely the argument is circular? Angela Impey
(2001:46) writes that “kwaito” operates as “an umbrella term for a variety o f styles
ranging from guz, d ’gong, and isghubu, to swaito” . While this may be true in some
sense, at least according to Lebo Mathosa kwaito was not always an “umbrella term ” for
these genres, but was rather a generic marker competing with and against other markers.
Perhaps with the exception o f “isghubu”, I have not heard the genres “guz”, “d ’gong”,
or “swaito” ever mentioned in South Africa. At what point did the term “kwaito” become
88 JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LIBRARY OF AFRICAN MUSIC

dominant? W hich historical actors were important in establishing the hegemony of

the term “kwaito”? A complete history o f kwaito will necessarily trace how the word
“kwaito” rose to prominence.
My observations in this section have done little to clarify kwaito’s history. In fact, it
seems like kwaito has become ever more elusive. Nonetheless, I hope to have provided
several points o f departure for future work.
Concluding Remarks
In this article I have attempted to broaden the possibilities o f historical research
on kwaito. I have suggested that taking global flows into consideration is imperative if
we are to write a meaningful history o f the genre, and indeed, o f South African cultural
history in general. Moreover, I have argued that overly reductive, periodizing histories
(notably, those histories that posit a radical fissure between South African music o f the
1980s and the 1990s) do little to further our thinking about kwaito’s history.
As academics slowly come to terms with the historicization o f kwaito, kwaito itself
is becoming less popular. Perhaps in several years, when no one is listening to kwaito
anymore, academics will write a definitive history o f kwaito. Perhaps the truth lies here:
fourteen years after the birth o f South African “democracy”, we write kwaito’s history
as its eulogy, kwaito the nostalgic, fictive historical marker o f jubilation in a “rainbow
nation” that stubbornly refused to materialize.
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