Back in ‘ 76 it was the youth who injected new urgency into the struggle with their uprising and today it is the youth who’ve redefined South African culture. Yep South African urban culture ain’t just youth culture anymore, it’s everyone’s culture. Think about it: which artists have the most popular songs in South Africa: groups like Mafikizolo or Malaika right? What are the most coveted fashion items around? No doubt it’s the likes of Stoned Cherrie and Sun Godess dictating what’s Afro Chic. As for media it’s youthocentric Y-FM that sets the radio trends and shows like Yizo Yizo and Tsha Tsha that created the blue print for local TV productions.
All these youth culture elements are not just creating creative industries they also illustrate pride in being South African.
All of this has it’s beginnings in a new form of South African youth culture, that was created by the end of Apartheid. Just over ten years ago young producers and DJs like Oscar ‘Oskido’ Mdlongwa, Joe Nina, Arthur Mafokate and Mdu Masilela started cooking up a hot homebrew that came to be known as Kwaito, a sound made by sexy young groups like Boom Shaka, Abashante and Mashamplani.
Back then myself, Kutloano Skosana and Dzino were three Rhodes University journalism students who were just as excited as these vibrant new sounds that were getting parties rocking and the sexy new stars that created the music as anyone else in their teens and early 20s. But when we looked at TV shows, magazines and other media around us we didn’t see anything that reflected the funkiness of what was really going on — it was either drab or insultingly cheesy. “Where are our Source, Trace and Vibe magazines and cool TV shows?” we thought. Nowhere, so we decided to start our own media company that was by us for people like us, and Black Rage Productions was born.
Fast forward to 2005. Our company is amongst other things, now home to an urban culture focused website www.rage.co.za and TV show Street Journal (SABC 1 Mondays at 6:30pm) that never, ever run out of material because in these ten years of freedom young people have been finding and expressing themselves and it’s had a major effect on the cultural landscape.
As poet Lebo Mashile points out, “if we were 20 or 30 in the 70’s and 80’s we would have been using everything we had to fight Apartheid—but now there’s an explosion of talent happening all over the place because we have the freedom and space to do what we want with our talent and we have the ability to really manifest our dreams—” So as songstress Thandiswa Mazwai adds, “Today there’s a new kind of expression that’s happening, 10 years is quite a span and 18 year-olds today are interested in completely different things to back then, so the ideas are very fresh — look at all the different music, the poetry scene, the art scene, look at TV, film , fashion and theatre—”
Y Magazine editor Lee Kasumba comments on the exciting youth culture scene saying, “I remember an interview I did with (US rapper) Talib Kweli on YFM where he said that being in South Africa more specifically Jo’burg it felt like New York in the seventies. Young people are doing their thing coming up with ideas and just making things happen.”
And there are no limits to what youth are making happen nowadays.
Since we started ours, more websites have sprung up and there are now magazines as varied as young black and very economic empowered Blink or the arty political Chimurenga.
So you thought skateboarding and rock were just white boy persuits? Well then you’ve never seen rockers Blk Jks on stage or been to one of the Bass, Beats and Breaks events in Soweto, Alex or Hillbrow that feature skateboarding, BMX, inline skating, demos, contests, breakdance and music. These sessions were started, says organizer Sakhile Mzizi because, “Kids today want to be individuals not confined to uniformity and structures previously imposed by conventional sports like cricket, soccer, basketball and rugby. Freedom of expression is part of the revolution for the way kids want to grow these days—.”
This revolution and freedom of expression has been accelerating fastest into two of the most powerful forces in any urban culture music and fashion where people are exploring and expressing themselves and asserting their pride in being South African.
Super talented style icon Thandiswa Mazwai showcased a different kind of young kwaito girl and helped create the Afro pop mould when she joined Bongo Maffin in the late 90’s and her solo album rooted in traditional Xhosa sounds and urban experiences recently saw her sweeping award ceremonies like the Koras and South African Music Awards (SAMA). She’s excited by the new live sounds that have bubbled onto the mainstream radar after being nurtured and developed at small, bohemian, underground open mic sessions.
“I like (SAMA winner) Simphiwe Dana, MXO, Freshly Ground—there’s lots of new stuff coming out, there’s been a generational shift and people are being more expressive of their own experiences and not just regurgitating something—”, she says.
And as Gallo’s Sipho Sithole says, “Youth are finding their identity through music, the environment has given artists and labels the platform to use their craft and they have a market because whether it’s Pitch Black Afro talking about ‘Ntofotofo‘ or Professor and Tizozo’s ‘Woza Durban‘ or Pro Kid saying ‘Ungapheli Moya San‘, this music talks to youth in one way or another.”
It used to be that kwaito was the only soundtrack to the movie that is being a young person in SA. Kwaito is very much in the mix but it’s been joined by genres like afro-pop, house and hip hop.
So places like our label Outrageous Records are always full of kids wanting to be producers or get record deals and is home to super tight hip hop MC’s H20, Proverb, Optical Illusion, Zubz and singer Pebbles. Hip hop sure is making its mark, Skwatta Kamp broke new ground by signing to a major label (Gallo) and being the first in the genre to go gold in 2003 like the head of local label Ghetto Ruff Lance Stehr says, “in two years time hip hop will sell as much as kwaito.
Even the president and his men must be aware of Msanzi rap; hey at the official June 16 celebrations in Kimberly (where Mbeki spoke) Proverb was on stage and across the couhtry at Soweto’s official youth day celebrations at Orlando Stadium lyrical talent Pro Kid and Skwatta Kamp were billed.
In fact youth day parties this year illustrated just how varied the spectrum of SA sounds has grown. On stage you would have seen bohemian soul singers whose music could be termed neo African soul (in the way Erykah Badu, D’Angelo and Jill Scott fit the neo soul label) with a youthful African yet futuristic edge like gorgeous groundbreaking SAMA winning soul searching Simphiwe Dana and the jazz-funk-and-rock-mixing MXO.
If you were at these celebrations you’d have also been treated to the likes of ultra-glam Lebo Mathosa, Brown Dash and Zola who’s popularity and sales show that kwaito is most definitely not dead as some have tried to claim. You like it nice n’ live? Well then Freshly Ground or Tumi and The Volume are for you. You like it dubby? How about 340ml? You like your house music spiced with Afro grooves from all corners of SA’s musical traditions and histories? Then who better than DJ/production duos like Brothers Of Peace and Revolution.
Yeah we’re back to talking about the Revolution again. It’s the kind of talk you’ll hear at the poetry scenes that have also become a normal part of SA’s youth scene. One person who made her mark at these open mic sessions is the luminous Lebo Mashile who is working on a live CD and recently launched a book of her works entitled Ribbon Of Rhythm. She reckons the scene (and the popularity of more vocally introspective acts like Simphiwe and Thandiswa) has grown because “there’s a sizable audience for literature, information and culture that’s artistic and conscious and has something to say and that’s relevant to issues now.” And as she also notes “Poetry is accessible, it’s not like film where you need enormous amounts of money in order to express yourself, with poetry all you need is a pen and paper and people who’re willing to listen…”
It used to be that wearing locally made clothes was considered cheap and Italian designs were en Vogue. Not anymore: any truly trendy type in their right mind only wants to wear local designer wear from designers like the well known Black Coffee, Loxion Kulca or Sun Godess and Craig Native, Maya Prass and Stoned Cherrie who are even available at Woolworths.
People are coveting funky fashions by up-and-coming young designers available in cool, small boutiques: Palesa Mokubung, Machere, Soul Spice, Abantu, Exit, Elle Buter, Funeka, Bongiwe Walaza and loads of others who’re creating diverse yet distinctly South African wear.
“Five years ago people wanted Guess and Diesel but kids of today want Darkie or Native that get more street cred than international designs,” says SA Fashion Week organiser Dion Chang.
“Ten years into democracy there’s a whole new generation who want to believe in SA and want to wear clothes that have a sense of where they come from so we’ve stopped copying Europe and America.” Adds Chang. “If you’re wearing a Stoned Cherrie shirt it speaks volumes and makes a strong statement about what you feel about their country and themselves—”
It was a Stoned Cherrie T shirt that featured murdered Black Consciousness leader Steve Biko that inspired 26 year old Zuza Mbatha to start a clothing label named after the first child killed in the June 16 uprising Hector Pieterson.
“The Biko shirt inspired me because it was history told through fashion” says Mbatha.
After coming up wit the idea he met Hectors youngest half sister, Sina Molefi who was born in 1978 and with her 22 year old fellow fashion school graduate designer Tshepo Moropa they started Abasha Creations the company that will distribute the Hector Pieterson range of clothes, accessories and All Star like takkies from the end of June onwards.
Mbatha is keen to point out that with their label they, like so many other urban culture brands, are dealing with the crisis of unemployment by creating youth employment, and like Moropa says — almost speaking for everyone making South Africa’s highly influential urban culture — “it’s where we see amapantsula before they become kwaito stars, abomrapper before they become hip hop acts and where we party before we’re called socialites, where we hear mgozi before it becomes shwashwi and where young designers get inspired before owning fashion houses: it all starts on the streets.”