Oral poetry has always played an important role in South African culture, write Richard Bowker and Peter Makurube
When President Nelson Mandela entered his birthday bash at Gallagher Estate in July, he was led in by the boy-poet Samkhelo Mcandi, waxing lyrical about Madiba’s greatness. All in impeccable Xhosa.
He was following in the footsteps of Zolani Mkiva, the colourful poet who – having performed at Mandela’s inauguration – brought the traditional art of the imbongi, the oral praise poet, to the world’s attention.
That tradition still lives in African poetry, and played its part in the struggle against apartheid. Mzwakhe Mbuli was perhaps South Africa’s most successful exponent of the genre. He started out at funerals and rallies in the early 1980s, eulogising heroes of the struggle, listing the sins of apartheid in his deep, resonant voice and whipping his audiences into a revolutionary fervour.
The powerfully incantatory rhythms of Mbuli’s oral poetry – which has increasingly blurred into his more conventional role as a pop singer – have had a huge influence on young people. Because of his accessibility, his clones are found across the country.
Traditionally, oral praise poetry was confined to rural areas and mine compounds. By the mid-Eighties, however, it had spread to factory floors, forming an important part of the relationship between workers, unions and employers. Durban poets such as Alfred Temba Qabula made an enormous impact.
This history has meant that there is a continuity between the traditional oral poetry forms and today’s new developments in the wake of rap and dub reggae.
But poetry was not the sole preserve of poets in traditional African society. It was an aspect of daily life. When people introduced themselves, the entire description of the family tree was given in a stylised fashion. In Sesotho culture, for example, youths who had undergone circumcision returned from the rite as men and as fully fledged poets, each with his own unique, original poem. The ceremony of welcoming them back from their ritual retreat was public, and the poetry was the highlight of the day.
In urban South Africa today, oral poetry is finding a place for itself in a changing society, keeping alive a flame that has come through often dark times and painful circumstances.
The Black Consciousness Movement spawned a plethora of oral poets whose words were directed against “the system”, which in turn swooped on poets and their words. Hence, it is difficult to find documentation, whether textual or audio-visual, from that era.
Many went into exile. One of the best- known poets of that era is Lefifi Tladi, now based in Sweden. He has just released a CD in Europe, on which he collaborates with compatriot and drummer Gilbert Mathews. Another star of that era is Molefe Pheto, now based in London.
Yet the doyen of modern, politically conscious oral poetry must be, who regularly performed with his troupe the Mihloti Black Theatre. His work, which was collected in written form in Africa My Beginning – changed many a life in the ghettoes in the Seventies. The book was banned two months after publication.
An outside influence on the progress of oral poetry in South Africa was that of radical black American figures such as Gil Scott-Heron. The guru of anti-establishment poetry pioneered rap as a politically conscious artform, putting the spoken word into a musical context. Scott-Heron’s hit, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised was duly banned by the SABC.
South African poets are realising more and more that the best way to get their work to the public is to perform it – certainly, sales of poetry books are minuscule in this country and have declined worldwide. South Africa’s avant-garde dub poet Lesego Rampolokeng, has performed his work both with and without musical accompaniment. A few years ago he collaborated with The Kalahari Surfer to make the striking album End Beginnings. His third volume of poetry, The Bavino Sermons, will be published next month.
Rampolokeng emerged from the stable of the Congress of South African Writers (Cosaw) in the turbulent late Eighties. Cosaw, in many ways, continued in the tradition of the black consciousness poets of the Seventies. Rampolokeng recently went to Germany on a cultural exchange programme, and found an audience in Europe. Ironically, he now earns more abroad than at home.
Another hot contemporary, also well- travelled, is Siphiwe ka Ngwenya, who forms part of the Botsotso Jesters group, along with Isabella Motadinyane and the brilliant isicamtho poet Ike Mboneni Muila. Muila mixes as many as five or six southern African languages into a single poem, irking academics and purists.
Sandile Dikeni is also important -his detention by the security police in the Eighties unleashed the poet in him. Dikeni published his first volume, titled Guava Juice, in 1992 and recently took part in a spoken poetry tour called Echoes that kicked off on Robben Island, and featured international poets and the cream of South African jazz players.
The Cape is the country’s capital of rap, having spawned groups whose recordings combine English and Afrikaans. Outfits like Prophets of da City, Brasse Vannie Kaap and Black Noise are probably the best known of a form that has flourished in the poorest coloured townships of that province.
The May Day celebrations this year featured a workers’ poetry workshop at the Electric Workshop in Newtown, Johannesburg that recalled the part played by the unions’ creative use of oral poetry.
For the past two years Yeoville’s dance and beerhall Tandoor has been Johannesburg’s dub/ragga Mecca. With “open mike” sessions, and platforms for new DJs, it’s one of a growing number of venues encouraging anyone with “som-ting” to say.