A bold new album deal and a minor national controversy have made it quite a week for top local band Boom Shaka. Charl Blignaut reports
The mutterings began more than a fortnight ago, at the afterparty of the 1998 FNB South African Music Awards (Samas). It was evident, before the first glass of wine had even been chugged back, that despite drawing cheers of approval, Boom Shaka’s live rendition of Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika had upset a certain section of the audience.
What gave South Africa’s original Nineties dancefloor phenomenon the right to render the national anthem in such a downright funky and sexually uninhibited manner?
Stylishly clad in the deepest of blue velvet suits over lacy bras and flimsy white blouses – held in place by at least one button – Boom Shaka’s Thembi and Lebo had walked
slowly to the front of the large Civic Theatre stage and then stopped, each raising a clenched fist in the air. A pounding beat kicked in, sending a sensual wave of motion down the girls’ lithe bodies, and so began their house-beat homage to a tune that, they say, represents their freedom to sing whatever songs they choose in a liberated nation; and an acknowledgement of those who have fought for that freedom.
But by the time the somewhat dismal taped recording of the awards had been transmitted on SABC-TV a few days later – one that failed, almost spectacularly, to convey any of the energy of what had been a breakthrough year at the Samas – it was evident that a minor national outcry was breaking around their version of the anthem.
Boom Shaka’s Nkosi, wrote City Press last Sunday, “has been viewed by some as a prostitution of African culture for commercial purposes and many even believe it should be stopped”.
“It’s a little bit of a misunderstanding. We’re not dissing anything, this is our own version; one for the young people,” said band leader Junior this week. “Our parents know the lyrics to that song, but a lot of kids don’t, even though they stand at school and hear it sung every morning. Young people’s reaction to our version of the song has been incredible, they love it. And this way they’ll learn the lyrics too.”
Watching the band perform the tune in front of 10 000 odd adoring black hipsters at the Y Mama Y bash at Johannesburg’s Park Station the weekend after the Samas, you get the feeling Junior’s got a point. Time and time again research has indicated that the new generation is astonishingly unpoliticised, generally unaware of the range of political
terms and rhetoric outside of their basic experience of human rights.
>From where I was standing at the Mama bash, Boom Shaka’s Nkosi was doing a whole
lot of good. “We decided,” adds Sokhele, “when we started the Nkosi project that we would be donating all of the proceeds of the single to charities – particularly to school- tuition fees for kids, but also to old age homes.”
But the national wobbly sparked by the song is not at all why I have requested a telephone interview with Sokhele on Tuesday this week and certainly not what he wants to speak about. He has just emerged from a gruelling two-day meeting during which the future of Boom Shaka’s new album, Words of Wisdom, was decided.
Having left their former record label, the kwaito-oriented Kalawa Records, after a much- publicised wrangle over creative ownership of material and disputed royalties off Boom Shaka’s second album Thobela (1996), the group had returned to the studio with the man who collaborated with them on their seminal debut album Now is the Time (1994), DJ Christos.
Ain’t No Stopping Us, a single released from that recording session, recently soared beyond gold sales and is heading for platinum status, making it clear that the band is still hot property. Working with a hand-picked management team, Boom Shaka have
been looking for the kind of recording contract that will make a serious commitment to investing in their vision, particularly in promoting the new album internationally.
When none was forthcoming, they decided to go it alone, this week signing only a one- album, 12-month publishing deal with PolyGram Records and hiring their own management.
In the process they have emerged as the only South African musicians outside of the country’s biggest-selling artist, gospel star Rebecca Malope, to own 75% of their master recordings and 100% copyright on their new material -and there’s just no containing the excitement emanating from everyone involved in the deal.
In an industry renowned for taking unfair advantage of its artists – particularly its young artists – Boom Shaka, Christos, PolyGram and Graeme Gilfillan of JD Management
have just set an industry precedent. For the first time in their spectacular career as the best-known voice of the new generation and its favoured club-style dance tunes, Boom Shaka are in control of their destiny. Junior is so fired up that he is speaking of establishing an agency to help emerging artists with their legal knowledge. The group has also started its own label, Jam On, intending to showcase up-and-coming musicians.
Most importantly, the deal means that Boom Shaka and Christos will be able to decide for themselves in what direction their work will be heading. Certainly the tracks that they performed at Park Station offered a fresh sound within the constraints of the new local pop/dance music scene, currently dominated by the same old steady thump of kwaito’s
(often borrowed and then slowed down) basslines and same old (often sparse) lyrics.
The new Boom Shaka sounds are spiralling closer towards the territory of progressive
international house music, with a big beats cutting a jungle edge through the bass. And the band has seldom looked so fine on stage, capturing the kind of club-release fervour previously restricted to international nightclub capitals like New York City. “We need to look forward. We need to add an international flavour and start exporting our sounds. And for me it is important to be putting out stronger lyrics,” says Junior with suitable conviction before handing the phone to Christos.
I ask him how working with Boom Shaka on Words of Wisdom has differed from their
first collaboration. “There’s more going on upstairs, you know, Boom Shaka have
matured, both in the lyrics and the groove,” says Christos, “The album makes sense to anyone. For the first time I feel like there’s a realistic chance of these tracks breaking across the colour barrier and also going international.”
It remains a confounding fact of South African clubbing that kwaito and house share both origins and beats, but that parties remain almost 100% racially divided. Listening to Christos talk about his plans for Boom Shaka’s sounds you start believing – or at least hoping – that maybe that could change.
What the local press seem to have missed in their reports on Boom Shaka’s Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika is that the song marks a new phase for South Africa’s most sensational pop stars. Not only have they proven their staying power, but they have also reinvented their image and re- emerged with a progressive new sound.
In a sense it has been a classic Boom Shaka week: a new album deal, a new look, a surefire new hit and a dash of controversy. It’s that old kwaito magic. It has transformed popular local music and brought with it a sexual revolution and a new edge of rebellion – but boogying instead of toyi-toying. In many regards their Nkosi sums it all up perfectly.