The past few years have seen a massive resurgence of benefit concerts. In 2002 we had MTV’s Staying Alive, 2003 saw the birth of 46664 and last Christmas marked the revival of the old Band Aid concept.
While local artists often share the bill with their big-name international counterparts at these events, there are seldom high-profile benefit gigs that place home-grown talent at the forefront of raising awareness for local issues. This looks set to change when a diverse line-up of South African rock, punk and hip-hop artists come together for this weekend’s Rage for the Revolution HIV/Aids awareness and fundraising concert at the Castle in Cape Town.
“Artists are supposed to be the prophets and role models for their audiences, but in South Africa they are mostly cajoled into situations where it is difficult to convey some of the concepts they believe in,” explains Opikoppi promoter, and one of the organisers of the event, Carel Hoffman. “For me, it is funny how everyone hangs on the lips of international acts singing for Aids or drought relief, but actually most of the battles will have to be fought by us ourselves.”
Hoffman’s words highlight the necessity for local artists, promoters and audiences to stand up and be counted when it comes to spreading the message of HIV/Aids awareness. As kwaito kingpin Zola said in reference to MTV’s 2002 Staying Alive bash: “Everybody’s talking about this show. But how many shows about Aids awareness are there that people don’t know about because the media doesn’t care about them? Sure, this concert is great. But let’s ask this: Must we get an international act — or some form of Western influence — to ask and answer these questions, or can we do them on our own?”
Enter Levi Strauss South Africa, which, in association with 5FM and Oppikoppi Productions is kick-starting the Treatment Action Campaign’s “Red for Life” awareness programme by creating a much-needed platform for South African musicians to bring the message of HIV/Aids home to the youth. Artists who’ve risen to the challenge include everyone from premier rockers such as the Springbok Nude Girls, Fokofpolisiekar, Karen Zoid and Bed on Bricks to heavyweight hip-hop crews Godessa, Ready D, Tumi and the Volume, Kallitz and more.
In contrast to more conceptually based local HIV/Aids awareness advertising campaigns such as loveLife, the message they’ll be sharing with audiences is a simple call to action: “Condoms Everywhere”. As Afrikaans hip-hop crew Kallitz puts it: “In a nutshell: it’s safe sex.”
In this case, however, the medium they’re spreading the message in really is as important as the message itself. MC and veteran hip-hop activist DJ Ready D stresses, “what we have to do is tap into the psychology and the dialect of the youth”. Translated? South African youth need to hear an HIV/Aids message in a language they can relate to. And these days the language that speaks most directly to the youth is music. As Godessa MC EJ explains: “What we’re trying to do is educate, we’re on that level of activism now where it’s not just entertainment. I think that the youth of today really need that because there is a lot of apathy.”
EJ’s words make for a welcome antidote to the accusations that 21st century South African musicians suffer from a loss of “struggle” consciousness.
It’s a sentiment shared by Hoffman. “We thought it was a great idea and a chance to inject some militancy into the live-music scene,” he declares, reflecting on the formative role that musical protest movements such as Voëlvry played in stimulating his own socio-political awareness back in the apartheid days. “I think it is critically important for a balanced society to expose the youth to events of this nature. So it is great if the South Africans are slowly starting to stand up and do it for themselves. We really hope this is the start of an annual musical celebration of liberal opinions with far-reaching consequences. Of course, we are also really happy to just plug in some amps and play tunes; in the old days even this was impossible.”