The rise of the De la Rey phenomenon has thrust Afrikaans music back into the spotlight, but the discussion seems to centre on Chris Chameleon’s release of English and Afrikaans albums, Steve Hofmeyr’s ability to sell ridiculous numbers of CDs and that Boer general whose name rhymes with lei.
On the fringes, a new breed of Afrikaans artists is springing up with original sounds, in an arena where the majority of English acts tend to stick to tried-and-tested commercial formulas.
While Afrikaans artists such as Kobus!, Valiant Swart and Somerfaan have released inventive albums this year, bands such as Buckfever Underground, kidofdoom and Foto Na Dans are set to release eagerly anticipated albums soon.
Is this being driven by a cultural predisposition, a captive market or a strong lineage of Afrikaans musical heroes? The Mail & Guardian went in search of some answers.
Captured and enraptured
Rhythm Records’ Albert du Plessis says the reason Afrikaans musicians feel a greater freedom to experiment and create distinct sounds is simply because musicians have a “captive market”.
“English guys have to compete against England and America,” says Du Plessis. “Afrikaans people want to listen to music in Afrikaans.”
This makes sense when you consider how many English-speaking South African rock acts merely try their hardest to sound like their American or British peers.
Du Plessis says the “new explosion” of Afrikaans musicians — which was led by Fokofpolisiekar and includes bands such as Foto Na Dans, Die Helde and Lukraaketaar — is at the helm of this resurgance.
Alex Fourie, trumpet and keyboard player for the upcoming new act Foto Na Dans, believes Afrikaans immediately offers an advantage in finding an original sound.
“If you sing in English you are competing with the international market on an international level, and everything has been done before,” says Fourie. “But when you sing in Afrikaans it is fresh and different. The moment you sing in another language you shift the playing field.
“If we were an English band, we would have been underground. There are a lot of English underground bands that are doing interesting things, but who have gone unnoticed on the public stage,” he says.
The general consensus among people interviewed was that there are not many English acts pushing boundaries and most battled to name more than one or two.
Lyrics for locals
Another factor in the resurgence of underground Afrikaans music is the establishment of DStv’s MK89, the first Afrikaans music channel.
MK89’s head of marketing, Haddad Viljoen, says this fresh crop of Afrikaans musicians is defining itself with a new sound.
“There has been a move towards more personal lyrics in young Afrikaans bands,” says Viljoen. “You no longer see people trying to write songs for a generation, the De la Rey thing started like that, it was a construct, written to be a hit.”
Francois Blom, lead singer of Kobus!, believes Afrikaans youth feel more free than anybody else in South Africa and that this is reflected in their music. Blom says the hand on the heart and brandy glass in the air, was their parents’ trip, the De la Ray trip. “It is only the older people [who are] looking for identity,” he says.
Former Battery 9 member and the brains behind Somerfaan, At Nel, says English-speaking South Africans do not have as many cultural heroes.
Ryk Benade, guitarist for Afrikaans post-rock outfit kidofdoom, agrees. “Personally, I do not think that the South African English-speaking youth have as many cultural heroes as the Afrikaans youth.
“When you think of people like Johannes Kerkorrel, David Kramer, Gert Vlok Nel, the list goes on, you end up with a catalogue of Afrikaans volk heroes that broke down the doors of conservative crap.”
Benade says the fact that the band is instrumental has worked in their favour because they play to Afrikaans and English audiences. “As far as kidofdoom is concerned, we do not consider the language thing too much; in fact, not at all,” says Benade.
For Foto Na Dans, it was never an option to perform in English. Fourie says the drummer’s name is Dirkie Uys — a famous hero/spy in the Anglo Boer War — and they are deeply connected to their roots. “We are Afrikaans, we think in Afrikaans, talk and converse in Afrikaans and dream in Afrikaans. Why would we want to sing in English?”
While several artists, such as Fokofpolisiekar, have expressed that the Voëlvry movement influenced some of their music, Fourie says Foto Na Dans were too young to really remember the buzz around that music.
Local music scene documenter, Liam Lynch says a lot of current bands’ inspiration goes back to the Voëlvry movement. “They needed people like Johannes Kerkorrel and Koos Kombuis,” says Lynch.
Nel insists that Afrikaners have always been creative, pointing out numerous prolific film and literary greats over the years. “We’ve always had a couple of people doing well and becoming world famous,” says Nel.
“Afrikaans musicians are not complacent, they always want to grow and expand,” says Nel. “We are a very inventive, rowdy crowd.”
Additional reporting by Yolandi Groenewald
Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away
A new breed of young Afrikaans bands may be pointing their fingers back to Voëlvry, but without pioneers such as Battery 9, alternative Afrikaans music would be a lot less healthy today.
Perhaps it is fitting then that, as an explosion of Afrikaans bands take the country by storm, former Battery 9 veteran At Nel returns with his best album to date.
“Battery 9 were quite important to the Afrikaans music scene [back] then, just so younger Afrikaners had something to look up to. We were really heavy and dramatic,” says Nel.
After leaving Battery 9 just before the turn of the century, Nel immediately branched out with his alter ego Somerfaan, winning a 2003 SABC2 Geraas Musiek Toekenning (Noise Music Award) for best electronic/dance album, for his self-titled debut offering.
This year sees Somerfaan return with new album Kyk of Sy Kyk, a dark gothic electronic album that effortlessly blends hip-hop, trip-hop, rock, industrial and electronica in a low-fi masterpiece.
The album features guest appearances by fellow Battery 9 members: Paul Riekert, Huyser Burger and Arnaud van Vliet.
Nel got into electronic music through listening to artists like Gary Numan and early hip-hop. He says he is addicted to sampling weird sounds, which he then uses to build the rhythm track.
“I grew up on the farm and I used to bash old farm tools together and then rap over that,” says Nel. “I used to sing over the rhythm of the tractor. Why does music have to be bass, guitar, drums and voice? It doesn’t, it can be anything.”
“There is this hardcore producer called El-P and I like what he calls ‘Iron galaxy music’. It’s hip-hop inspired music, but it sounds like giant craters and things crashing in the sky,” says Nel. “I only listen to left-field hip-hop. I have no time for that shit like, look how big my dick is or I made it and you didn’t.”
Nel’s love for science fiction as a farm boy growing up in Heidelberg inspired the creation of his alter-ego Somerfaan, a intergalactic intelligence agent locked in a fight with himself, his past and his demons.
The album opens with a boxing match between the old Somerfaan and the new Somerfaan and from there takes the listener on an interplanetary journey that encompasses disenÂfranchised people leaving the city for the bush, alcohol-driven domestic violence, ghost stories and, believe it or not, a plug for the last Somerfaan album. — Lloyd Gedye
Dancing to a different drum
There must be something in the Cape suburban water that makes it produce excellent Afrikaans rock acts. Following hot on the heels of cult band Fokofpolisiekar, the up-and-coming Foto Na Dans (Photo After Dance), have just released their first EP and are working on a full-length album.
Alex Fourie, trumpet and keyboard player, has a theory of why the Cape suburbs are rolling out quality bands.
“Instead of playing rugby, you play in a band around here,” he says.
While Foto Na Dans are still relatively unknown, their talent and fresh sound are destined to set them on the path to becoming an über-cool act. The five-man band, comprising Fourie, Le Roi Nel (vocals and guitar), Neil Basson (guitar), Theuns Schoonwinkel (bass guitar) and Dirkie Uys (drums), traces its roots back to Hoërskool DF Malan in Belville.
The band began as Trompie is Dood, which won the national Afrikaans high school rock band competition in 2005. Later in 2005, however, the band members went their separate ways, but some still had a deep urge to play good rock music and began looking for new members to fill the void. Schoolmate Nel stepped up to the plate to fill the position of vocalist.
The new band started playing together in September 2005 and jammed for a year before they decided they were good enough to take to the stage.
The band’s name was chosen after Basson paged through a book and saw a picture of children dancing around a fire. The caption was “Foto na dans”. The band decided that “photo” captured the visual side of the band and “dance” the musical component.
Foto Na Dans’s poetic lyrics deal with themes such as emotional conflict by taking clichéd love topics and giving them a new spin.
Nel describes their hit Soldaatvolk as a song that encapsulates what happens when you question the status quo, be it in your home, relationship or country.
He says the full-length album, due for release in August, will be more consistent and will represent a real coming of age for the band.
“We changed the writing process for our new album,” says Fourie. “We put in some effort to develop our own unique sound, based on technical processes that we developed from classical music. We expect a lot from this album. This will be a totally new sound, never heard in Afrikaans before.” — Yolandi Groenewald