Gwen Ansell
THIS year’s Kora All-African Music Awards nominations again raise uncomfortable questions about how the industry in South Africa defines African popular music – and maybe how the world outside sees our scene. At last year’s major glitzfest, South Africa was represented by, among others, Lucky Dube, who was fted by the South African media and the organisers, and Bheki Mseleku, who was largely ignored.
A conservative local industry preferred to hype successful pop over creative originality, although the international judging panel compensated by naming Bayete’s Jabu Khanyile Best Southern African Artist.
That conservatism persists in a much more depressing South African finalists’ line-up this year. In various categories, we find The Soweto String Quartet (twice), Chicco, Sabela, Mzwakhe Mbuli and Ladysmith Black Mambazo. Those names come from the record companies. They send a longer list of names plus CDs and a video to the Paris pre- selection committee. According to organiser Suzaan Marais, a representative from Radio Metro was supposed to sit on the Paris committee, but had “other commitments”.
All the South African names have a solid pedigree; all are accomplished performers; most sell well. And these awards are about the profitability of the industry. In his Paris speech last week, Kora’s executive producer, Ernest Adjovi made the role of private enterprise and profit in cultural development a key theme.
Yet what does the selection say about South African popular music today? These are names who had their heyday as performers in the Eighties or early Nineties, or who laboured long in the vineyard before their talent was noticed.
South African record companies were slow to record their output in the CD and video form that allows them to qualify for Kora. And while it would be churlish to deny them this late recognition, they do provide a predominantly backward-looking view of South Africa. Chicco’s current fame, not as a performer but as a producer of Africa’s most sophisticated homegrown house music, kwaito, doesn’t feature.
Set South Africa’s nominees beside the rest of Africa and you see the problem. There’s nothing as creatively innovative as Africando’s village/Latin fusion; none of the contemporary social comment of Tarika or Khaled; nothing quite as rootsy as Granmoun’ Lele; no virtuoso vocalist like Cesaria Evoria; no real young-generation stylist like Cheikh Lo.
The selection appears to have been made by music industry executives wholly out of contact with our live performance scene. Our real innovators and virtuosi – from Phillip Tabane and Mabi Thobejane to Tananas, Robbie Jansen, M’Du, Gloria Bosman and Busi Mhlongo – are, once more, rendered invisible.