kagablog

Chris Roper

What fresh hell is this? We now live in a country where only racists are allowed to say the word kaffir. So, for example, if you happen to be black, and some racist idiot calls you kaffir, you have to say, “Hey! Don’t call me the k-word!”

People at the Broadcasting Complaints Commission, are you out of your tiny little minds? The BCCSA are fining radio station 5fm R10 000 for playing Arthur Mafokate’s famous 1995 kwaito hit Kaffir. This is like fining American hip hop legends Niggaz With Attitude (NWA), and making them change their name to N-Words With Attitude. Ooh, that’s a catchy name!

The Arthur song is a protest song (you needed them in 1995, and you still need them now), and it’s an important part of the history of the struggle against apartheid.

But the BCCSA, in the person of Professor Kobus van Rooyen, said: “The word represents one of the elements of apartheid which degraded a whole nation of black people. The broadcast of the song flies in the face of the constitutional founding values of dignity and equality.”

According to the Sunday Times, the BCCSA also ruled last year “that the song amounted to ‘grossly offensive language’ broadcast at a time when children were likely to be part of the audience”.

‘Educational opportunity’

So, to sum up - teaching children of South Africa that their parents fought to be able to tell racists not to insult them by calling them kaffirs, is bad for children. Let’s rather let them believe that their parents fought and died so that they could have equal access to BMWs. Let’s have them believe that a dompas is something the Stormers do, and that forced removals are what you do when you want to make space in your belly for more beer.

To her credit, “one of the BCCSA tribunal members, Tembeka Mdlulwa, believed the song could offer an educational opportunity for parents”. But naturally, she was outvoted, because a tribunal is invariably a many-headed creature with no guts. It won’t escape seasoned race fans

Am I saying that we should be able to use the word kaffir with equanimity? No. I’m saying that you shouldn’t write works of art out of history, especially works that are actually pro-human rights and -equality, and actually by the people who suffered injustice and oppression.

In an odd moment of syncretism, our music team at Channel24 have recently voted Arthur’s song in at number one on the list of Great South African Song Opening Lines. If you want to listen to the native song that’s causing all the trouble, go here - but don’t let your children click!

Of the opening lines “Baas, say ‘nee’, baas, don’t call me a kaffir,” Music editor Miles Keylock writes, “Is there a more righteous opening salvo in the entire history of recorded music?” Well, I don’t know if there is or isn’t, but I do know “White person formerly known as baas, say nee, White person formerly known as baas, don’t call me the K-word,” isn’t it. That’s going to go down well on kwaito dance floors.

Recolonising languages

Why not ban Brain Damage, by the late, great James Phillips’ band Corporal Punishment, which features the lyrics “He’s a supervisor, takes a lot of skill to be in charge of 40 kaffirs, that’s responsible / he doesn’t mind that he gets all the pay / Mr Arri Paulus says ‘they’re just baboons anyway’.”

A graphic musical portrait of life under apartheid by one of the great struggle rock bands, but one that the BCCSA would probably have us write out of history. Poor James Phillips, he might as well have chosen a musical career over fighting oppression. I don’t see the BCCSA stopping radio stations from playing Ag Pleez Daddy.

Personally, I wouldn’t want the language of alternative music in South Africa to adopt the word kaffir in the same way that American Hip Hip culture embraced the word nigga.

There are times in history where drastic action is needed to recolonise languages, and while that time is here for us, our power balance isn’t as out of kilter as America’s was at the birth of Hip Hop.

Russell Simmons, the Donald Trump of Hip Hop, as our music editor defines him, called last year for the eradication of the words “bitch”, “ho” and “nigger” (sic). Clearly, the Def Jam founder believes that the time has passed when black Americans need to reclaim nigga - they own it now, and are abusing it. He even made Nas change his album title from Nigga to, uh, Untitled.

Different kettle of fish

Arthur’s Kaffir is a different kettle of fish though, and you’ll notice that it’s mostly white pots that are calling that kettle black. It appears that only white people have objected to 5fm’s playing of the song.

I leave you to work out why that is. All I know is I want to be there when the BCCSA’s Kobus van Rooyen tells 50 cent that, in the future, he has to refer to himself as a “bad n-word”.

I’ll leave you with another lyric by James Phillips, from 1993’s Fun’s not over:

“Just when we thought it’s over, we found it’s only just begun / Just when we thought it’s over, we’re still dying like flies underneath the sun / It’s still going crazy just like it’s always done.’

Chris Roper blogs on www.chrisroper.co.za. Join my Facebook group, or follow me on Twitter @ChrisRoperZA.

this article first appeared here

Monica Laganparsad Published:Apr 19, 2009

Out of tune: When DJ Fresh played the song on 5FM it caused a storm, but not on black radio stations

Kwaito star: Arthur Mafokate’s 1995 anthem sold 150 000 copies despite being banned by some stations

‘The only people who actually complained about it, funnily enough, were white people, which suggests to me it was more white guilt than anything else’

Arthur Mafokate and DJ Fresh offer to pay up for ‘Kaffir’ song.

One of South Africa’s major kwaito hits, Kaffir, released 14 years ago and recently replayed on 5FM, has cost the station a R10000 fine, imposed by the broadcast watchdog.

But the DJ at the centre of the fuss has blamed the outcry on “white guilt”.

The Broadcasting Complaints Commission of South Africa (BCCSA) ruled this week that Arthur Mafokate’s controversial 1995 protest song has “no place” in a country where “political correctness and sensitivity need to be practised”.

The song, considered a classic, starts with the words: Kom hier, kaffer, kom hier! Hoekom het jy nie my kar skoongemaak nie. .. Bliksem! The reaction follows: Baas, don’t call me a kaffir…

The song goes on to say: I don’t come from the devil, don’t call me a kaffir, you won’t like it if I call you baboon.

Although it was an instant hit in post-apartheid South Africa — it sold more than 150000 copies and became a club sensation — it was banned by several radio stations.

Last November 5FM’s DJ Fresh outraged several listeners when he played the song on his drive time show’s daily segment known as Cheese of the Day. The week’s theme was kwaito.

The SABC, owners of 5FM, said in its appeal that there had been no malicious intent in playing the song. The hit, it claimed, is said to “have set a precedent for the post-apartheid generations’ struggle combining dance music with the new phenomenon of freedom of expression”.

The BCCSA ruled last year that the song amounted to “grossly offensive language” broadcast at a time when children were likely to be part of the audience.

One of the BCCSA tribunal members, Tembeka Mdlulwa, believed the song could offer an educational opportunity for parents. She was, however, outvoted and the appeal was dismissed on Thursday.

Yesterday Mafokate, known as the former king of kwaito, said the song was still relevant.

“I don’t think it was a fair judgment. I wouldn’t encourage radio stations not to play the song and if push comes to shove I will pay the R10000 on their (5FM’s) behalf.”

The singer said the song had been used to re-launch 5FM when its name was changed.

DJ Fresh said he stood by his decision and would meet Mafokate’s payment “halfway”.

“‘The only people who actually complained about it, funnily enough, were white people, which suggests to me that it was more white guilt than anything else.”

He said the song had been on the SABC’s playlist for 14 years, but had previously been played mainly on black stations. When he aired it, he said, many people had heard it for the first time and this may have caused the shock.

The BCCSA dismissed the appeal, saying negative stereotypes could lead to further divisions in society and evoke “deep-lying emotions reminiscent of apartheid”.

Chairman of the appeal tribunal Professor Kobus van Rooyen, said: “The word represents one of the elements of apartheid which degraded a whole nation of black people. The broadcast of the song flies in the face of the constitutional founding values of dignity and equality,” he said.

Complainant Russel Raubach said in a written statement to the BCCSA that the song was “inappropriate” and if a white DJ had played the song there would have been an outcry.

“It takes away the progress we have made in South Africa towards trying to eradicate racism and racist terminology, ” he wrote.

A second complainant, listed as C Coetzee, said “this type of rubbish” was demeaning to white South Africans. — laganparsadm@sundaytimes.co.za

# To read the full BCCSA ruling go to:www.thetimes.co.za

this article first published by the sunday times

The Kwaito era

The 90’s saw the emergence of the dance music genre called Kwaito, which while tapping into rap beats, house rhythms and opening itself up to the influences of jazz and at times uses rhythm and blues harmonies, also draw from the aesthetic rhythms of earlier musical genres, characterized by the resonance of the drum and bass that gives it a distinct African flavor. To give its voice a more South African accent Kwaito dug deep into the vast well of vernaculars of South Africa and the many variants of township slang. According to Aryan Kaganof the hybrid nature of Kwaito reflects its proclivity to resolve the dialectic between struggle culture and bubblegum, pure entertainment and art for a socio-political purpose by fusing these previously opposed tendencies in township politics, positing sophisticated, digital body liberation whereby dancing itself becomes the site for a radical rejection of the traditional struggle lyrics in favour of the liberation of pleasure, while at the same time attempting to use the language of the street to grapple with and articulate the present reality for the man and woman in the streets of the ghetto and to explore the future. (See Sharp-Sharp: The Kwaito Story (http://kaganof.com/kagablog/category/films/sharp-sharp-the-kwaito-story/)

Kwaito star, Zola (Bonginkosi Dlamini) posits that the Kwaito concept of mixing languages to produce a sort of lingua franca that facilitates interaction and communication between people from different socio-linguistic and cultural backgrounds dates as far back as the days of the establishment of the Cape Colony. “It all begins with the Dutch people. The voyagers when they come to South Africa and then all the other nations mix up as South Africans integrate into what it becomes today but basically you had Dutch which of course when it mixed up with other languages ended up as a language called Afrikaans and in Afrikaans there’s a word called kwaai, sommer baie gevaarlik, somebody who’s dangerous, like very cheeky you know, hard core. And then back in the sixties there was a gangster groups called Amakwaitos which of course were the most notorious boys around. I don’t know exactly if they were from Sophiatown or Soweto, one of the two, but that’s basically where the name came from. So we had a bit of Afrikaans a bit of Zulu a bit of English a bit of Tswana Tsonga Tshona and then all those languages came up together when people started working in the mines when people went up to Joburg with the gold rush and then they had their own language. That’s where the name kwai came from and as the years went by music changed and it ended up being called kwaito as in Amakwaitos.” (Zola in an interview with Aryan Kaganof)

Language in post-1994 poetry

In the literary arena, the search for artistic and aesthetic expressions that capture the peculiarities and particularities of social issues, challenges and opportunities of post –South Africa that comes with its own set of promises and contradictions, dreams and nightmares and fears and hopes peculiarities and particularities of the contradictions, saw the growth of poetry among young people. This also came with an exploration of new stylistic and thematic concerns, which ranged from exploration with hip hop, dub\reggae and jazz poetic accents, tapping into African orature, and delving into the fluidity, spontaneity, vibrancy and vastness\ richness of the ghetto-lingo; Iscamtho\ringas, fly-taal.

Sometimes poets write mainly in English and bring in either jazz\ blues\soul aspects, or Rasta-speak, ragga rhythms or dub beats, or slam poetry and hip hop beats, or ghetto lingo and kwaito sounds, or traditional African oral, or all of these influences. Though some poets choose to specialize in one of the genres and are quite comfortable with being classified as ‘page’ poet or ‘performance poet’, spoken word artist, ‘slam poet’ oral poet, ‘praise -poet’, etc many poets including those who are referred in the media by some of these labels choose not to confine themselves to any template or label. Therefore you find a significant number of poets who write for both the page and the stage and who also have collection of poems that are a mixture of poems written in English, and poems written in hybrid language, Rasta-speak and hip hop register, African languages, Iscamtho\tsotsi-taal and a mix of these.

I started writing this piece at the landmark House vs. Kwaito jorl in Newtown in 1999.

Not literally: I was raving on a wicked cocktail of A & E that night and couldn’t hold my pen straight; but conceptually, in my head like.

Cathy Henegan drove us into town. We didn’t have tickets. We didn’t have money. But Cathy got us in. Under the fence. Pantsula extrordinaire. My thanks go out to the red head sister.

I had been out of South Africa for 16 years. She showed me some of what I had been missing out on. She took me around the early morning streets in her clapped out jammy. How she drove that thing I don’t know, we were both so trashed. Hammered.

The area around newtown was apocalyptic. Hundreds of street people, the rainbow homeless, making fires in the middle of the road, living in their own garbage – actually eating it, literally.

And then on to the Northcliff Tower where we polished off the last bankie, watching Jozi’s lights metropolize around us. When the cops came they didn’t even give us grief. With my big bushy beard I looked like one of them, a boet. Then on to Yeoville to score more dagga. Rocky street never closes. It was 4am but we still had 13 dealers to choose from.

Everybody knew by then that dagga was legal. Just the cops didn’t know. The government didn’t know.

In the weeks leading up to the election I got bawled out at the Full Stop in Melville for smoking my biggie bomba in public. The asshole shouting at me was the son of a struggle hero. He screamed “not in public, not in public.” That’s when I knew that the future was chains. Just the same old hypocrisy in a darker vest. Instead of legalising weed the ANC was smoking behind closed doors. Business as usual in the age old political game of musical chairs.

What pissed me off most of all was knowing that the “sons of” generation were all such worthless little shits. They had done their growing up in expensive public schools in England, spoke with larnie accents and did not tolerate back chat. They were the future.

Ruthless cold bureacrats, addicted to their elite status, to power. But kwaito isn’t about this future.

Kwaito is the street’s antidote to the rainbow doggerel. Remember, there isn’t any black in the rainbow.

Kwaito begins when Dr. Mandela is released from prison. Politics in culture is repositioned at this moment. Classic struggle culture is instantly old hat. The dialectic between struggle culture and bubblegum, pure entertainment, is made redundant. Kwaito fuses these previously opposed tendencies in township politics, positing a sophisticated, digital body liberation.

The dancing self becomes the site for a radical rejection of the traditional struggle lyrics. Rejecting previously held positionalities is both political and liberational; if only the politics of nihilism; the liberation of pleasure.

Kwaito does not have a program. It is not in the service of a higher goal. Kwaito primarily represents Jozi.

Kwaito spreads itself over the vast sprawl of Jozi by way of the mini-bus taxi cabs. In this way Zola and Sandton are connected.

Kwaito is the city’s nervous system. The consciousness phase of kwaito is yet to come. The body does not want to be preached to.

Kwaito is blacker than label, kwaito is the street cocking a snoot at all the politically correct monkeys in silk telling the people how to behave.

Kwaito is rude, uncontrollable. Kwaito throbs with a vibrant pulse, its roughneck dignity laughs at the terrified rich behind their high fences and barbed wire who are indeed, the prisoners of luxury.

aryan kaganof

Spikiri came straight out with it when he arrived at our meeting in Newtown. “Babes, I’ve been in the industry for 21 years. I’ve been making hits for 18 years. I have a 16- year-old daughter and three other daughters I need to protect.

“I have created hits and changed people’s lives. I spoke to Kabelo before the launch and told him I had something to say. The tabloids were planning to write really bad things about me - I had to defend myself.”

The incident in question happened at the relaunch of Kabelo’s record label, Faith Records, which had all the entertainment media in attendance. While Kabelo and his partner, D-Rex, were giving their thank yous, Spikiri burst on stage, took the mic from Kabelo and, using many expletives, ranted at the media about how they must back off.

The next week on SABC1’s music show, Live, he apologised to the elders, his family and to the kids, but not to the media.

“They hate me and I don’t know why. I don’t just pull stunts like this for publicity. I will not apologise to the media. They lie. Check what they are trying to do to Zola. That’s what I am fighting for.”

Clearly, he is an angry man. So let’s tackle the issues. Many think he’s crazy and on drugs. There were allegations he was HIV positive which is why he lost so much weight and landed up in hospital. He shakes his head.

“I do not have Aids. I had a nervous breakdown because I was under a lot of pressure. And anyway, I have always been a skinny person.

“My new CD is kwaito featuring HHP, Unathi, Oskido, Magesh and Trompies. I used them because they are good and are my friends. I always try to work harder. Each album must be better than the last.”

So with all that anger in his life how does he find the inspiration to compose for various artists? After all, Spikiri and his label Kalawa Jazzmee are largely responsible for shaping the SA music industry.

“It’s in my blood. My father is a musician. He left with Ipi Ntombi where he was the percussionist. I was 2 at the time. He disappeared and ended up in Australia. I met him for the first time last year. When they called me I dropped the phone. It took me a week to see him because for 38 years he never saw me.”

The little man, who speaks quietly and earnestly, looks like he’s struggling.

“I can’t blame him. It was the apartheid years, so I’m not cross. I just told him that we suffered. I sold apples and peanuts in the stadiums. I am a self-made man and that’s why I’m helping lots of people, because I know what it is to suffer. I’m a hard worker and I am talented.”

“When we started kwaito it was like bubblegum. I wanted to come up with something different . I love to be original. We released our first album in 1988. I was mixing it with Chicco’s vibe. That guy is like my father. He took care of me. I learned everything from him. He paid for my piano lessons, everything.

“In terms of production now, everyone’s got a different vibe, so it is easy.” He starts listing all the artists he has produced.

“When we started Bongo Maffin we didn’t want it to sound like Boom Shaka. Look at Mafikizolo, obviously it’s not the same as Kabelo’s Pantsula for Life or Dubulah.”

Is it true he reserves the best beats for Thebe?

“No. I try to give everyone the best beats, from Mzekezeke to Brown Dash. Sometimes you don’t do things for money. You do it for respect. I don’t charge that much. I’m reasonable.”

“I love being with people. That’s why I chill everywhere in the country. People love me. I don’t drive a fancy car. These journalists must leave me alone.”

Aaah, we’re back to that again.

“I had a bad life, but now I’m cool. My friends are okay. My family is okay.”

He flashes a grin. “I’m with you.”

Aah, the man is charming. Charming and seemingly happy.

He is also one the country’s most prolific producers of all time. And one of the original kwaito artists, so he never pretended to be a saint.

But fame has a way of catching up with you, now more so than ever. In the ’80s, when Spikiri first started in the music industry, the world was not celebrity obsessed. There were few tabloids, (absolutely none in South Africa), no E! Entertainment, etc.

In 2007, the entertainment media across the world are dedicated to exposing celebrities as fallible human beings, after creating their infallible images. It’s a case of supply and demand. We 21st century human beings love it.

On an international level, we cannot get enough of Paris Hilton and her whoring antics, or Britney Spears and her narcotics and alcohol sprees.

Many of our local celebrities are only realising this now. Some, like Kelly Khumalo and Arthur, have quickly learnt how to exploit our celebrity culture.

Others, like Spikiri, have been too busy creating real music and living a full life to notice that it had happened before it was too late.

The reality is that celebrity culture and celebrity accountability is not going away soon, so they’re going to have to adapt or die.

“I’m a very strong man and no one will put me down. This is real life and there are ups and downs. I’m going to work with my head up.

“This is my life and it belongs to me.

“I’m here for a reason and I am doing it well.”

interview by therese owen
originally published in tonight

Damon Heatlie entered the kwaito music video world at the beginning of the new millennium. Within a couple of years he had made his mark on the visualization of the music form for the broadcast media with a series of fluidly edited pieces that combined a knowing sense of “street smarts” with the hi-tech look and feel of contemporary music videos made with far greater budgets than he had access to.

His body of work is rare in the kwaito field in that it has the instant stamp of an “author” - a signature. This might be best described as a consistently successful marriage between post-production techniques and the “look” of the production design. Very often in his videos, significant markers of character are displayed by the use of a strong colour - a red or a purple - that is exacerbated in the post-production.

His work, made at furious tempos for ludicrously small budgets - displays a willingness to engage with the “man maak een plan” work ethic of kwaito itself, and hence the success of the videos, that distinguish themselves from the lumpen (lack of) quality of most of the genre.

His greatest moment was ZABALAZA, a video for the Brothers of Peace. In this mini masterpiece, the coming together of production design, of song mood, of editing tempo, of direction and of overall atmosphere - leaves the viewer crying out for more. More than any other kwaito video, ZABALAZA bridges the gap between struggle era urban South Africa and the so-called “new South Africa”, where bling is a media lie, where the mindless monotony of computer dance music denies the hideous truth of the urban nightmare of South Africa today.

Zabalaza is a work deeply rooted in the tradition of conscious music - it fits snugly alongside work by Linton Kwezi Johnson, Mzwakhe and MIA. There is a militant feel to the music that is perfectly captured in by Heatlie’s framing. But the song isn’t merely an agit-prop anthem - the haunting minor chord progression speaks of a unbearable sadness in the souls of the working class protagonists of the video who understand more than they will ever be able to afford. This is profound African pop music that can stand proudly next to the best of the Senegalese school or even Cesaria Evora.

ZABALAZA was a milestone in the kwaito genre - both the song and the video remain without peer. Only Zola has come anywhere close. The genre seems to have put its best days behind it and run its course to some extent. One hopes that Heatlie will find a new challenge, a new promise, and a new forum for his distinctive and unequivocal talents in the music video field.

(photo nadine hutton)

Moving on a fine line

“You can’t deny death, you can’t fear it. I’m sure God has a better place for us, if you’re a believer.” Lebo Mathosa tells Nadia Neophytou what she learnt from Brenda Fassie’s demise

Brenda Fassie’s death in May 2004 year scared a lot of people. Not least one young singer whose striking voice and outlandish behaviour has led to comparisons between her and the deceased diva. But don’t expect Lebo Mathosa to follow in the same footsteps.

Like Fassie, her role model, Mathosa grew up in the spotlight. Performing as a naive 14-year-old in Boom Shaka she and Thembi Seete courted controversy with their daring skirt lengths. Boom Shaka became one of South Africa’s best-loved groups, but both Mathosa and Seete were itching to make it on their own. “Musically, as an artist, you need to grow in the type of music you do,” says Mathosa. “It is a matter of growing up. You want different things and sometimes you have to wait … ”

So, Mathosa waited. She released her debut album Dream in mid-2000 but despite winning two South African Music Awards in 2001, the album wasn’t that well received. “It was my first album so I didn’t expect too much. It is probably going to take four to five albums to get where I want, but it is just a matter of being dedicated to what I do and pushing myself so that my music is out there.”

Album number two sees Mathosa trying out different styles. Working closely with producer DJ Christos, she pushes the perceptions people have of her as an artist. “I’m not a kwaito singer,” she says. “I’m a singer. I’m a versatile singer. I can sing Indian music, Latino music, rock music. And that is what I want people to hear.”

It is no surprise then that one of her favourite songs on the album is a ragga-infused track, which she raps to. Nor is it a surprise that she’d love to work with New Porn rocker Arno Carstens.

It is this hunger to push out of the kwaito/house typecast that drives Mathosa’s new album. The house tracks are there and she pulls them off well. But it is the tracks where she experiments a little that hint at what we can expect from her in the future.

As was the case with Fassie, there are, of course, those who tend to focus on her personal life more than her musical one. The album’s title, Drama Queen, has been seen by some as an adjective to describe her. She says this isn’t the case. And anyway, it doesn’t worry her. “What matters is that you like what I do — do you enjoy watching me perform? I want people to come back and see me perform on stage, switch on the TV to see my videos, turn up the radio when my song is playing.

“It is not about fame for me. I have my fame; I’ve been in the scene for 10 years now. Boom Shaka put me out there, introduced me to the public. Now it is all in my hands and what do I want to do about it? Do I want to play or do I want to be serious about it? I choose to work hard for this dream.”

For a while, though, there were doubts as to whether Mathosa was alive and there were whispers that she had fallen off the wagon. It took three years for her to release Drama Queen.

But, she says, she had contractual issues to deal with, which a move from Gallo to EMI sorted out. “For the past decade I have never had to deal with the behind-the-scenes things. So this was the first time. You learn as you meet different people. You learn how they operate. These things don’t just take a year to sort out. I was lucky that I got out [of my deal with Gallo] clean and was able to approach another record company.”

While she may have been out of the spotlight musically, Mathosa kept herself busy with her solo material, as well as charity work, acting and corporate gigs. “I like the fact that whether or not you’ve got something new on the shelves, people are still interested in you. They still call you up and book you for their clubs. If people like your music, if radio stations continue to play it, then it doesn’t matter whether you’ve got something new or not.”

With her new album, Mathosa writes about having fun and enjoying life, but she is also aware that music can carry a message. Like Ma Afrika, in which she challenges xenophobia and the damage it does. But she maintains, she is not out to preach. “You can actually listen to the lyrics and dance to the song, you can hear what I’m talking about but it’s not so serious you’ll be sad about it.”

When a suspected drug-induced cardiac arrest took the life of one her role models, Mathosa took a step back to reflect. “People come and go,” she says. “You can’t deny death, you can’t fear it. I’m sure God has a better place for us, if you’re a believer.” Mathosa considers herself a believer, but the non-denominational kind. She also believes it was Fassie’s time to go. “If it wasn’t her time she’d still be living. But it was her time.

“She used to complain all the time that she was tired. When you’re tired like that, I think in part, she knew.” Having been compared to MaBrrr, Mathosa is adamant not to fall into the same trap. “You choose to avoid certain things. Sometimes it is not easy, you get weak … and people take advantage of you.

‘You find yourself pushed into things you never thought you’d be doing. Peer pressure really is hard to get out of, when you’re so deep in. I think that was the position she was in. Everything she wanted she could get … It is like me for instance. When I walk into a club, I want to pay. If it is my night, and I’m performing, only then do I want to be treated like a star.”

The comparison to Fassie flatters Mathosa and spurs her on to “You learn from the negative and the positive aspects.” So, while she is content to be considered in the same class of performer as Fassie, she is not content to follow the same destructive path.

“It all boils down to family. If you have a good family background, and you have your family and friends’ support, you will be better able to handle it all.” And if you’re worried about her, she says, you don’t have to be: “I’m still active,” she says “And I’m happy.”

this interview with lebo mathosa originally appeared on the mail and guardian online of november 5 2004

October 23 2006 at 07:57AM

South African singer Lebo Mathosa died in an accident east of Johannesburg in the early hours on Monday, her manager Linzy Cowley said.

“Unfortunately, Lebo was killed in a car accident in the early hours of this morning,” she told Sapa.

“We send our condolences to her family and friends.”

Mathosa’s driver apparently lost control of the Toyota Prado they were travelling in on the N3 highway on the East Rand.

The vehicle overturned between the Heidelberg Road off-ramp Grey Avenue in Germiston, Ekurhuleni metro police Kobeli Mokheseng said.

The cause of the accident was unknown. A case of culpable homicide was being investigated.

The rhythm and blues and Kwaito singer died at the scene. The driver suffered minor injuries, and was treated for shock.

an in-depth interview with lebo mathosa and aryan kaganof can be found here

arthur: Kwaito is basically South African ghetto or township dance music and it came about in the sense that we, as the youth of South Africa feeling that there’s a lot that we need to say that hasn’t been said before through a music format, you know expressing our own selves in the best way possible for ourselves because we’ve always had music genres before our time but it was for their age and period, but people like me, when we were born we saw things differently and we saw things happening in front of our eyes and we felt we need to express ourselves in a way that would be more appropriate for ourselves.

aryan kaganof: When you say earlier genres are you referring specifically to bubblegum?

arthur: I wouldn’t even say bubblegum music, I would say everything that happened before me, you know all the music genres expressed people’s lives in their own period but when my period came I felt I have to express myself in my own way.

aryan kaganof: That period you speak of isn’t merely a period in music history but also in the political history of this country. So how does for example, the release of Nelson Mandela from prison, or the democratic elections, help shape the development of kwaito culture?

arthur: I would say it’s a music format that had to come about because of the South African youth feeling they needed to have a voice of their own and coincidentally it happened whilst he was in jail, so you might find that the influence arose because Mr. Mandela was still in jail and obviously we got influenced because we didn’t see him go to jail so we didn’t feel that process but when we grew up we were taught that this is how we were supposed to be living and it was up to us to take charge and say we need him back we need to express ourselves in a way that would be more appropriate for us as human beings. Rather than being under the apartheid rule and following whatever lifestyle that was existing then. We felt we needed to express ourselves in the best way possible for ourselves. So I would say somehow yes it’s got a political contribution because if Mr. Mandela was not in jail or other people were not in exile we wouldn’t have been brought up the way we have been brought up. We had to grow up knowing that we were under apartheid, we were not free as a country, we were not free as the youth and there was a difference between the black and white youth and we felt we need to express ourselves so that we can feel comfortable about who we are. Other people who hurt, more specially me, when I did that song Don’t Call Me Kaffir, because they felt that I didn’t have a right to do such a song but for the black youth and the black people they felt yes, here’s a hero speaking for our rights, but other people were affected that felt they still needed to use that word kaffir.

aryan kaganof: What is interesting about that song is that it was released after the democratic elections, in other words saying that change doesn’t happen overnight and there are still issues to be adressed, despite the new democratic dispensation.

arthur: For me basically the struggle continues which is why I say somehow there was a political contribution to kwaito or we contributed vice versa you know. We contributed to politics, politics contributed to kwaito being there, but one wouldn’t say it came about because of Mandela was relased because you cannot just think of an idea overnight. Mandela was released at the time when already the youth were affected in this country, we felt we needed to have a voice. Because I started dancing at an early age and by then I wanted to be out there and be seen and I asked myself how do I get to be on tv? From the moment I started as a dancer I was already affected as a black kid in the townships and I grew up knowing that I need to be a star I need to be exposed. But what channels do I use? And I felt it’s a bit difficult because of the apartheid regime making things difficult for us. So somehow you grew up knowing that it’s difficult for you. For you to make it as a black kid you have to triple your effort. It wasn’t going to be easy for me because of the regime that was existing, so I had to work three times harder than any normal South African kid that was not black. So that gave me the will to win and made me realise that I’m living in a country that’s got a problem. And somehow it’s my duty to change that. So I had to triple that effort and then started hustling and trying to make things happen for me.

aryan kaganof: You came to fame when you won the title Mr. Soweto.

arthur: It wasn’t my fault. I was asked by a friend to enter that competition. I was just a frustrated somebody in the township trying to make it in music and dancing but there were no channels and I thought here’s an opportunity of being famous, maybe one can be a model, whatever, and a friend pursued me, she said you must go enter for these things because she was already a beauty queen. So I went and luckily it helped me because somehow I managed to get contacts, be exposed you know.

aryan kaganof: Aside from your role as a pioneer of the music genre, what sets you apart from musicians of the earlier period is your astute business practice, creating and industry around your talent, and owning and controlling that company, 999 Records.

arthur: When I started as a dancer I danced for one group, I didn’t last for a month I think. And I felt I just needed to be on my own and do my own thing from then I knew that I can make it in life if I keep on being the leader I am, because in life you just have to believe in yourself and I felt I’m going to be something one day and believed in my dream and pursued it. I think with me, talking about business, it had nothing to do with colour, it was just an idea of me being exposed and doing what I wanted to do. The only time colour comes in is because I was underprivileged as compared to whites but apart from that I just had this business sense in my heart that I just need to make it in life and help other people if I can. For me to really succeed I had to create my own kind of employment and by so doing I decided I’m going to have my own genre of music express myself in my own way. Even my dance routines were something different from what was existing. We would watch Michael Jackson and Bobby Brown but still come with our own things that would be mixed with our own township pantsula.

aryan kaganof: Do you see any parallels in your life with that of Godfrey Moloi, in the sense of being a black entrepreneur and being a legend in Soweto?

arthur: There have been role models in my life, people that came into life before me, and there’s a whole lot of them, the list is just endless but any black hero in the country just motivated me to be a leader and a proper business man.

aryan kaganof: Tell us about the formation of Aba Shante.

arthur: The reason I decided to really go straight into business and make 999 the force that it is today was because I was getting successful as a solo artist. I had dancers behind me and I felt they also deserved a chance to be in the forefront. And then I took some from the streets that would be good in music, and not good in dancing, and tried to create groups, like for example Chiskop. The group that Mandoza comes from. I discovered them from the streets they were just guys doing breakdancing whatever, they were not that good or well choreographed but I felt vocally they had talent. With Aba Shante what I did was auditions where I said to people go look for these people for me. I announced all over that I was looking for a group of people. I was looking for dancers, I was looking for singers, rappers and whatever. And people started coming to me and I had to choose them one by one. I was not in a hurry because I was making it as a solo artist and I was not sure if it’s the right decision to make but as soon as I found people that clicked I put the group together. They all met through me and I created the group that was never to be stopped up to today.

aryan kaganof: Did you produce them in the studio as well?

arthur: After getting everybody together the next thing was to make them understand what the industry was about. How to handle interviews, even before going into the studio, and they started moving with me to shows all over the country, experiencing what I was doing. Because I felt it would be better for them to experience the real feel of the industry before even getting into the studio. By the time they got into the studio they were hyped up. They knew that people were expecting things from them and by the time they did their album they knew how to express themselves. So it wasn’t just about discovering them. It was about discovering them, teaching them how to perform, teaching them how to handle interviews and teaching them how to be stars on their own.

aryan kaganof: What characterises you and is quite exceptional in the industry is a marked sense of discipline.

arthur: I think my sense of discipline comes from my parents because me and my brothers and sisters we grew up under the apartheid regime and it was difficult for my parents to really make it in life so they had to make it a point that we survived. And by making us survive they were teaching us things along the way that you don’t do this, you do this, you respect people, nothing that comes easy is worthwhile, you have to be a hardworker, persevere and be disciplined. And the other fact is that my father, not being educated, and my mother not being educated, they had to still raise seven kids and had other relatives in the same house so it wasn’t easy for them and my father for the will to win attitude that he had! He was the first black show jumper in South Africa and as we all know that show jumping is an expensive sport, but he still made it. He went to compete in Wembley then to Italy, he went all over the world. So for somebody who didn’t even go to school he was a motivation to me so I had the nearest role model next to me, somebody that I can say, I need to be like him. But I’m not going to do what he’s doing, I cannot ride horses, it’s too expensive for me, for me I just need my body and my voice to make it.

aryan kaganof: With the possible exception of Kaffir, your music is jubilant, celebratory, uplifting. This despite the harsh history that you’ve lived through. What is it about South African music that it remains so positive despite all that the South African people have been through?

arthur: I would say South Africa is a forgiving country, or maybe I would say Africans are forgiving, respectful, they’ve got a proper sense of humanity, you know we understand that regardless of colour we have to live together. Even if somebody did wrong, obviously we don’t have to forget, but we have to forgive and move forward because if that was not the case there would just be chaos in Africa, because we are in the process of rebuilding Africa so somehow we feel we have to unite with other people in order to move forward, that’s how I’m looking at it. If we were always to express sorrow in our music I don’t think people would really appreciate that because then what we would be saying is we don’t appreciate them appreciating us. We have to welcome them by being happy, rejoicing the way we are, we know we’ve had hard times before but we’re in the process of rebuilding. But we are happy. We have achieved our goal. People might think because we achieved our goal late we might be hurt and have hatred in us. We don’t have hatred, we know maybe it had to happen, maybe it was God’s plan but now that we are achieving we have to let people into our hearts and rejoice with them and that way they will appreciate us and start buying into our ideas so our only form of marketing ourselves as Africans is just by being comfortable with who we are.

aryan kaganof: Would you call the post-apartheid generation the kwaito generation?

arthur: Yes you can call them that depending on what you would be referring to. Because so far I’ve seen in papers people writing different stuff about kwaito and for me that has been behind the whole thing of kwaito, I always feel bad, which is why I sometimes refuse to do interviews unless if it’s a sensible interview that does justice to kwaito because we are proper human beings and we know our story and we know what we want to achieve out of life. There may be diffeences between us here and there but that happens in any industry. And if you have a mission and a vision of why you are in kwaito I am sure you will succeed. Yes, we are a kwaito generation, but not just as a format to give you money, but as a format to try and rebuild the whole African continent.

aryan kaganof: The media has indeed often focused on kwaito in a negative way, why is that?

arthur: The most popular person that brought kwaito into being at some stage had to be aggressive and arrogant and the reason I was like that was because of the criticism I got when I released Don’t Call Me A Kaffir. Because people were starting to dissociate me from the proper community of South Africa and I felt I had a right to express myself because what I was tallking about was existing and people started buying into my story. I would say that people don’t like to hear the truth if it’s something that they failed to pick up. I had to do Kaffir in an aggressive way without holding anything back. For me it was like Mandela is free, I’m a free person, I’m going to say what I need to say and people will learn out of what I’m saying and they’ll put it in the history books. Apart from what we achieved as Africans there were still those brave ones who continued with the struggle the struggle to now educate other people. Don’t just forgive, you must remember.

arthur: When I released the song Kaffir, which was always referred to in media circles as Don’t Call Me Kaffir, I took the song to radio stations, most of them were scared to play it, most of them banned it, they felt it doesn’t belong to the South African radio stations, but people out there went to shops, went to parties, went all over with the tapes, CDs, and said no matter what you say radio stations, this is the music which we need to play, which is why maybe the whole media, not just radio, the whole print media and everybody, might have felt, kwaito is not the right music format because already it was making it without their participation because I went to where people were and played my music and people would say, no no no wait a minute what’s this song, don’t call me a kaffir, it’s a funny song, it’s a strange song, it’s scary, but at the end of the day it’s right on point, people understand what I’m tallking about and they started buying the music and it was just unstoppable. Then I was invited to do it on tv, I was invited to do radio interviews talking about it I mean even talk shows that were like not featuring music had to call me to try and comment about that song and that was the real birth of kwaito because then there was no turning back because the music genre was known because of this song that was politically linked because of we were still celebrating our freedom and here’s this black kid coming from the townships still continuing to express himself in a manner that people felt was strange because we were free as a country but because I always grew up trying to say that what they’ve always done to us as Africans was not good I need to teach people that the struggle will continue. Till we are united as human beings regardless of whether the colour is black white green or whatever.

aryan kaganof: How come in New York in the sixties the Last Poets took up the word nigger and made it their own such that niggah is now how all the hip hop generation refer to themselves, but the kwaito generation have not taken up the word Kaffir in describing themselves?

arthur: I would say with Americans it might have been easier to turn nigger into a normal word because the majority there is white people, blacks are the minority. Here it’s vice versa we are the majority and whites are the minority. At the end of the day we are a forgiving people we don’t want to make people feel out of place. It doesn’t mean because I was expressing myself that way I was really pointing a finger saying as a white person you are my enemy, no no no. I was not saying that. You see.

aryan kaganof: Hit after hit followed Kaffir and last year you signed up with the biggest and oldest major label in South Africa, Gallo. What was your reasoning behind this decision?

arthur: I started off selling my stuff from the boot of my car, from my first album to Aba Shante to everybody. Then EMI got interested and they signed me and I was with them for ten years. And I needed to grow to face the challenge of the industry and Gallo was a company that was too much criticised in the music circles and for different reasons but for me I looked at it from another angle that yes we might criticise them but they have the South African music heritage with them, they have been around for over 75 years and I need to tap into that music heritage and try and fuse it with my kwaito. How do I best do that without having to wait for responses that take three months to come, six months to come before a track is cleared, let me go and tap into the heritage of my grandfathers and mothers and try and re-invent it into the latest trend. Again the other reason was that Gallo was bought by a black empowerment company and I felt somehow they were going to give me an opportunity to express myself in the best way possible and it was just about expanidng wings, getting a better deal and trying to see how far I can take 999, because it hasn’t been easy for me to build triple nine because I come from a very poor family and I didn’t have any budget in my pocket to start up a company so I started from zero.

aryan kaganof: And taking kwaito into the international market?

arthur: Taking kwaito into the international market depends on how ready are countries out there to receive us as Africans, regardless of the music in the first place. Because they have to say ok we’ve been having Indian music we’ve been having whatever whatever let’s go tap into African music and see how we can fuse it with our music. Because as far as I’m concerned music is music, seven notes, and a couple of ornaments out there, because you play all those twelve notes and it’s the white ones and the black ones and it depends on how you fuse them you know you can even see it on the piano, all of them are fused so black and white music, countries whether Africa Asia or America or Europe we must just fuse and create something. At the moment there is still this thing of we are going into Africa to fuse the music but honestly speaking they are doing it without crediting us. So it would be better if they did it with us in the studio rather than just taking it away from us, because that might make it but it still lacks the real feel of us being involved.

Saturday 15 February 2003

kabelo: Basically growing up I’ve always been a keen music lover and throughout my schooling life I was always involved in the choir. It was when I got to high school that I met the other two TKZ memebers, namely Tokollo and Zwai, we were all at the same high school. We all sang in the same choir. And because I didn’t do so well in my matric I had no other choice but to find a job and I was pretty skilled when it came to writing lyrics and I had a good ear for music, so it was suggested between the three of us that, let’s form a group and that’s how it started. It was quite easy to start because we already had that whole gang feel from school, so it was tight.

aryan kaganof: Zwai Bala was the first black member of the Drakensberg Boy’s Choir, a bastion of European colonial high culture.

kabelo: Yes he was. He’s also been a keen music lover and it was the best thing for him to take him to a school which was renowned for its singing. He was the hands on producer of TKZEE, but we were all involved in production. He’d produce the music, we’d produce the vocals, but the end product would all be produced by the three of us. Musically I feel we were quite arrogant in a way cos we knew we were good. I mean from the onset we knew we had something, it was just a matter of time until someone heard it. And I feel the secret behind Halloween was that we had songs, we had written songs, unlike what was going on in the scene at the time, it was just repetition of gimmicks and stuff unlike what we were writing about which was more real and was dictated in song form.

aryan kaganof: What is kwaito in its essence?

kabelo: You know to keep it simple it’s dance music, but it’s definitely got an influence of jazz and hip hop but it’s got that drum and bass, that African drum and bass sound. It’s distinctively African music. They all say the drum belongs to Africa right? And to get into the global market in due time we must get our production intact. There are people out there who are doing it, who are making waves overseas, like the BOPs, TKZEEs, Mandoza as well. You see our music is very easy to groove to.

aryan kaganof: How did you evolve into a solo career?

kabelo: I suppose spending a life with two other guys for like five years nearly every day it got a bit sick, everything got a bit entertwined you know. We had had enough, honestly, we just said let’s take a break, we stopped recording for about three years and in that three years because of the roller-coaster ride we’d been going through, cos I was more calm then and I just took the time out to find out who I really was you know. And explore myself musically and lo and behold I found something, something I didn’t expect I’d find and something to the syurprise of a lot of people. I found myself doing what I do, what I love, and that was the birth of my solo career.

aryan kaganof: Pantsula For Life?

kabelo: Basically it’s saying I’m a ghetto boy for life, you can take me out the ghetto but you can’t take the ghetoo out of me kind of thing.

aryan kaganof: You’re talked about as the bad boy of kwaito.

kabelo: Ag it’s all about drugs and rock ‘n roll you know what I mean? When you’re involved in the drugs scene you just don’t behave like a normal person you know what I mean? And I mean I was heavy into the cocaine and the ecstacy and the alcohol and I was a rock star at the same time so those things just didn’t go together. I thought I was the be all and the end all of the world and that wasn’t true cos it landed me in a whole lot of trouble you know? I’m not blaming it on the drugs I mean I was also involved, but I think the drugs had a major part to play. I’m clean now. Been to rehab an’ all and I’m trying to start all over again cos I mean that whole bad boy image is not so cool you know. It’s bad for business.

aryan kaganof: What is different about you is that you have come forward and talked about this problem openly. Of course one of the most sleazy aspects of the industry is the managers who supply the artists with their drugs in order to keep power over them, managers operating as pushers and dealers in fact, instead of looking out for their artist’s best interests.

kabelo: Yeah in fact that’s one of the many pressures you have to handle. And I opted to medicate myself with drugs and oppress any feeling I had to anybody, any feeling of resentment I had towards the music scene or my friends or whatever and I used the drugs you know. Which wasn’t the way to go. But I’ve learned my lesson and with God’s blessing I hope I don’t go back.

aryan kaganof: Does kwaito have as much of a political stance or function as hip hop as we know it?

kabelo: You know I think kwaito is still in the early stages, I mean at the beginning of kwaito it was about the rejoicing of having a free South Africa. And then now because everyone’s learning a bit more about what’s going on in the country and stuff, and kwaito therefore is getting more politically inclined. But hip hop’s been around for longer so I feel if kwaito is around for that much time it will get politically inclined. The production side of kwaito is going to improve a lot. It’s going to have to. There are certain people who are setting a standard and people will definitely have to meet that standard in order to compete overseas you know. Same as the content, you know people must just talk about their normal life in general, you don’t need to lie and talk about someething that you’re not. Just be real and straight to the point.

aryan kaganof: Who were the kwaito artists that you were listening to when you were coming up, your heroes.

kabelo: I had a lot of respect for Mandla Spikiri from Trompies, M’du Masilela. Those are the guys that I basically grew up on in terms of the kwaito scene but obviously as a kid I listened to Brenda Fassie.

aryan kaganof: There is a lightness, a kind of four dimensional spatiality that distinguishes your productions from any other kwaito producer’s. Where does this springy texture come from?

kabelo: don’t know…(struggles for words) … I feel your music should be happening. I believe in electricity and energy flow. I feel my music does have that, a lot of energy flow and it seldom drops from where it starts, it goes up, higher. I’m really finnicky about that in the studio, the energy flow should be the same in the beginning as at the end, I feel that’s my formula.

aryan kaganof: Who is Bouga Love?

kabelo: (chuckles) Bouga Love, when the name started it was all about being a ladies’ man you know. But Bouga Love’s now a one lady’s man. I kind of evolved from a crazy rock and roll superstar on drugs and alcohol to a responsible member of society. But it’s still the same person in a way.

aryan kaganof: We’re here at the Melrose Arch, you’re sitting in your BMW Z3, you’re obviously everybody of your age’s idea of success. You’ve made it. You’re there. Is that not a terrible responsibility?

kabelo: My job does come with a lot of social responsibility but I mean I urge people not to look at how I’ve done things but to look past it. Cos success is not judged by material things, and what you have. Fine yes in the music industry it’s cool to sell a couple of hundred thousand units, stuff like that. But you shouldn’t judge success like that really. You should always judge success on whatever goals you set for yourself and achieve at any given time.

aryan kaganof: What’s your personal favourite of your own songs?

kabelo: (thinks for a long time) Gee whizz. I could say on my first album there’s a track I did, Amasheleni. I produced it with a late friend of mine, Moses Molelekwa, he was a brilliant jazz muso. And he’s actually one of my icons. He passed away sadly. It’s one of my favourite songs cos it had a lot of jazz influence in it and I love jazz and I’m just looking forward to incorporating jazz with my music more and more and more.

Friday 14th February 2003

mandoza photo by hens van rooy

aryan kaganof: Mduduzi Tshabalala.

mandoza: That’s my name.

aryan kaganof: How did Mduduzi become Mandoza?

mandoza: It all began with a love of music you know. I started being in love with the industry since I was a baby. I didn’t whether is was acting or presenting or whatever, whatever, because I wouldn’t see myself if it was in twenty years time sitting in an office like this you know? Such a boring work for me. I need something which is active you know.

aryan kaganof: You grew up in Zola.

mandoza: Well Zola is the roughest part of Soweto. It was difficult to grow up under that situation and with those influences around us. Thuggish. It was all of that like, it was so difficult for us to grow up under that. We used to feel in love with being a thug, we all wished to be thugs when we grew up. Thugs were the only role models in our township you know. And there were comrades while we were fighting the strrggle. They were the only good role models of which you can think of. We didn’t have good role models like we have now. So we were blinded by the situation that was happening in the ghetto.

aryan kaganof: So as a teenager you actually got involved in the thug lifestyle.

mandoza: Yes. Because you were not a man if you were not involved in that direction. And people were going to look at you like you’re scared, you are a coward. You know what I’m saying, stuff like that. We had to. We had to do that. I got into car theft. We stole cars and stuff like that. At that stage I got arrested. I sat for two years in jail. I sat in Sun City (Daveytown Prison)in 1992, the biggest jail in Gauteng. It was like that. But my heart was not there. I did what I did just for fun, just to get a name in the ghetto. But that wasn’t my life.

aryan kaganof: So there’s no fronting with Mandoza?

mandoza: What you see is what you get. I’ve still got the ghetto mind. Although I’ve moved into the suburbs now. But you know you can’t take the ghetto out of me. I’m still that M’du they know.

aryan kaganof: Tell us about Chiskop.

mandoza: As I just said, that was not my line, being a thug and stealing cars and stuff like that. Me and my friends we had a dream, we had a dream to be on tv, by then we were dancers, we loved dancing and stuff like that, we used to imitate songs, overseas stuff like hip hop and stuff like that. We used to perform concerts in the ghetto, our own concerts. In our local halls. We used to win some competitions, got into tv imitating some of the American stuff you know what I’m saying. We loved what we were doing and we wanted to take it far. And then we got hooked up with Arthur. Arthur who is the man who started kwaito you know, we hooked up with him, and he gave us a deal. And then we called ourselves Chiskop. It hasn’t got a specific meaning, it means a man who is bald head. Cos in those days the fashion was being bald on your head you know. Cos everybody by then was scared to shave his hair. You thought you were gonna look ugly without your hair. Because the fashion was just coming in. So we were brave enough to shave our heads. So we set the trend, you can say that, and we called ourselves Chiskop. Our first album went well. We went to platinum. The name Chiskop became strong. We did our second album it went well. We did something like five albums, the first two went platinum, the others went gold, because we had no proper management, no proper marketing strategy. Originally there were four of us, the other one died, we lost our friend Sizwe Motaung. He died of pneumonai cos we were doing a lot of gigs you know. And sometimes we drink, we don’t sleep, we were doing promotions, tyring the best that we can to promote our album. So I think Sizwe got sick then. But after he died our spirit became more stronger, we came together and became like brothers. So that is why we’re still together today.We agreed that if one of us did a solo that the name Chiskop would remain, would continue. I was lucky enough to be the first one to do the solo. It went well. I went triple platinum with my first album. At the same time we kept the name Chiskop alive. But for me it was beginning to have a lot of work in a year. My year was beginning to be shorter you know. I have to do Chiskop, I have to do Mandoza, and then some other projects on the side you know what I’m saying. Between those two projects you need some time, after you release you need some time to promote the album, to market it right and stuff like that. So the year became kind of shorter to me you know.

aryan kaganof: You work mainly with producer Gabi Le Roux.

mandoza: Gabi Le Roux started to work with us from the first Chiskop album. He’s awhite man. And he has this heart you know he used to feel what we want to present to the people. So he’s the one who used to always understand and so for me to change another producer when I was doing the Mandoza project it was difficult you know. We’ve done everything together with Gabi until today and he’s a good musician, he used to be a jazz player, he can collaborate all styles you know.

aryan kaganof: There have been two significant reconciliatory moments in the post-apartheid period. One was when Mr. Mandela donned the jersey of the Springbok rugby team and gave the whites a chance to identify with him and feel embraced into the new dispensation. For me the second most important event politically in terms of this reconciliation has been the way white youths have identified with Nkalakatha to the extent that it has become their own unofficial South African national anthem. How did that happen?

mandoza: I don’t have a specific explanantion for that, for me to analyse it you know. I think it’s God who did this. Who made all these things to happen for me you know. He is the creator, you know what I’m saying. I didn’t have those kind of intentions to bring whites in, I was not there you know what I’m saying, my main aim was doing nice music for the people. No matter what colour it is black or white but I was just doing music. If you love my music thank you for that. But you know God has blessed me with that song you know dos it has brought a lot of black and white on the same dance floor. If I come to look at it if I’m on the stage performing it’s like wow! Cos I have crowds like that you know black and white dancing to Nkalakatha and they go crazy when the song starts! For me when I see that happening and I’m on the stage it’s like wow you know and sometimes when I get off the stage we pray. We pray when we go to the stage we pray when we go out of the stage because it’s kind of like a miracle. Nkalakatha is gangster talk it means aman who has got it all, like you are a man, Nkalakatha, you’re the man!

aryan kaganof: Is Mandoza the role model for all young South African children?

mandoza: Well I don’t know about that. Cos there’s a lot of good guys in the industry who are doing good things. Office people you can look up to you know. I wouldn’t consider myself a role model. I’m a sinner too you know what I’m saying. Like all other people. If people see me like that well, ‘nuff respect. But me as an individual I odn’t see myself as a role model. But people always tell me that, that now you’re a role model you have to start doing this and that, so they’re feeding things in my head. Of which I don’t want to. Things must happen naturally you know what I’m saying. I’m a grown up, I can think for myself.

aryan kaganof: The birth of your son Tokollo has had a big influence on your life.

mandoza: Big time. My son is like me. When he sees me performing on tv you wouldn’t switch the tv off because he’ll kill you you know. And he loves going with me to the gigs. When I go with him to the gigs he’ll cry to perform with me of which he can’t perform with me we’re doing a sequence on the stage you know what I’m saying. He’s like me.

aryan kaganof: Is he going to go into the industry?

mandoza: Well, he must finish school.

aryan kaganof: What is kwaito?

mandoza: Phew. Comes a tough one. I can put it this way, kwaito it’s a language that we use, a music that we use to express our ghetto lifestyle. It’s the way we talk in the ghetto. South African ghetto. And now it’s crossing over to the whole of Africa so you can say African ghettos. What we do, what we always do, what we like to do. Cos we only talk about that and the life that we live in the ghetto. That is why we call it kwaito.

aryan kaganof: Historically for hundreds of years black people have lived in ghettos. But that was never their choice.

mandoza: Yes.

aryan kaganof: So what is the future of kwaito.

mandoza: The future of kwaito is crossing over now. Like you just said, we created our own culture in the ghetto when we were forced to stay there, through that culture we had to create our won things that make us happy. Things that would remind us back to the struggle. Not forgetting who we are. Our language which the next person who doesn’t understand where you coming from can’t hear. We have to give it to them now. And explain it to them. What kind of a level we used to live and stuff like that. And I think that’s the way forward of the kwaito. We wil do collaborations with other overseas artists. Like right now I just did a track with Beenie Man. It’s opening doors. I see kwaito growing big time.

aryan kaganof: Who are your favourite kwaito musicians?

mandoza: There’s lots. Every good kwaito album I love it. I can’t be specific. Every good kwaito album which has got message on it. No just these fun songs but somethening which has got a message on it, good music, I love it.

Thusday 13 February 2003

zola: It’s Bonginkosi Thuthugani Ka Dlamini! You see when you grow up on the streets right you get a name associated with the things that you do, for example if you play soccer you’ll get a name like Shoes or Pele or Maradonna, they always give you names you know and then with what we were involved in which was more like we were a bit of naughty kids but we had a passiion for art and we were doing kwaito from when we were young then I inherited the name like Zola. Which of course is also my township, I grew up in Soweto and there’s a little small place which for years has been known for being notorious and it’s actually called Zola so that’s how I got the name Zola. I grew up in Zola, 100%.

aryan kaganof: Where does this word kwaito come from and what does it mean?

zola: Ok. It all begins with the Dutch people. The voyagers when they come to South Africa and then all the other nations mix up as South Africans integrate into what it becomes today but basically you had Dutch which of course when it mixed up with other languages ended up as a language called Afrikaans and in Afrikaans there’s a word called kwaai, sommer baie gevaarlik, somebody who’s dangerous, like very cheeky you know, hard core. And then back in the sixties there was a gangster groups called Amakwaitos which of course were the most notorious boys around. I don’t know exatly if they were from Sophiatown or Soweto, one of the two, but that’s basically where the name came from. So we had a bit of Afrikaans a bit of Zulu a bit of English a bit of Tswana Tsonga Tshona and then all those languages came up together when people started working in the mines when people went up to Joburg with the gold rush and then they had their own language. That’s where the name kwai came from and as the years went by music changed and it ended up being called kwaito as in Amakwaitos.

aryan kaganof: What relationship does kwaito have to hip hop and house?

zola: A lot of people would argue that house is European made but really if you think of it you know if you go up to Nigeria the people called the Griots which are the best drummers in the world and that’s where they sample the drums of house and then digitalize the whole thing you know so house would very much with us be more like an ancient cultur. And then on on side you’ve got hip hop which is more like your modern culture which is how people express themselves on the street but then again if you take that very same African beat, gugh gugh gu gu gu gugh, and then you put poetry on it right, and then you rhyme with poetry then you end up with hip hop and since it’s street music people will end up talking about street stuff and how the street affects them good and bad. So those two genres of music, how they relate to kwaito is the whole fact that I also grew up in the ghetto I also grew up in a very tensely political country even though now everything has now settled down and we are happy our economy is growng and stuff but then again what happened is we still had to adress street life, aberrational families, rape, sex, drugs, prison, education, church, culture, cult, myuth, all those things come out through our version of music which is kwaito. We sing about those things before we can start singing about suburban life because truly speaking we don’t know suburban life. I’m still fighting the same struggle that my brothers in the States and all over the world are fighting.

aryan kaganof: What was the point that you cracked into the industry?

zola: Ok, for one I’ve been bubbling under for ten years. Which we can safely say that kwaito stole my childhood but for the beauty of it, right? But I did a movie called Yizo Yizo, it was a tv film but very much movie quality. And which adressed the problems of the South African youth, predominantly black. And I played a character called Papa Action who was an inmate and he was going through his problems, like spiritually and problems at home and stuff, and what happened is they were also doing a cd which would come with the film and I did a song which became the main track called Ghetto Fabulous which basically was a dedication to my people that even though we suffer we still ghetto fabulous. And basically that’s how I managed to break into the music industry but I had to go via acting first.

aryan kaganof: Tell us about your debut album.

zola: mdlwembe means stray dog, a dog with no owner right. A dog with no owner will eat from a garbage can , bite when it has to, will run away when it has to, it’s got rabies and it will go and basically mess up your lawn if it feels it wants to use it as a toilet right. Unfortunately in life there’s people who treeat themselves exactly like that, they are always a thorn in society, they are always bugging people, they always trying to hijack a car, trying to take a bag from an old lady and those people we refer to them as imdlwembe and basically the song was dedicated to them as in saying the good people are taking back the streets, we are taking back our pride, we taking back the reason why we fought for this country to be liberated, we will not be bugged by a young kid just because he’s got a nine millimeter. We not afraid of them. So it was a warning to the minority of criminals that we have that this country is better than that. And because people related to that and they were sick of what was happening it blew up and became a big song.

aryan kaganof: What is Woof Woof about? Why did you use the ragga form?

zola: Well it’s a very personal story. I had a girlfriend sometime back who dumped me, badly, for the simple fact that I had nothing. Right? And she’d gone out with a guy who had more. So I saw her about two years after I had struck it successful in the business and then I don’t know, somehow a song came up you know and Woof Woof basically says wherever I go all my dogs bark, they respect me and yo, sister look at me now, look at what I became, but thanks for dumping me because I would have been stuck with you for the rest of my life not knowing that you were in this whole business for money, not that you loved me truly. So her dumping me was a blessing but it did hit a nerve because I was young and I was really in love with her. It’s more of a thuggish, dirty, down into the dirt-like take me as I am you know, if you don’t love the thug then get out of my way you know? Because I cannot picture myself all romantic and walk in the park feeding the ducks because we don’t have that where I’m from. The only kind of water you get flowing down is when a sewer gets blocked you know. So I cannot be romantic as in an R&B singer, I can try to be romantic but in my way, my kind of music.

aryan kaganof: when you were a kid at school you used to be called mubi, mfene, mnyamane, what was that like?

zola: This is very much a story of the ugly duckling right. Because I came from a poor family and we still lived in a country whereby even my complexion kids would tease me because of it because the most beautiful thing was being white. So automatically anyone who was lighter in complexion sort of appeared nicer in society. We even had wedding songs like wanangstalalilikadag??? meaning this beautiful maid she’s beautifully coloured meaning she’s light in complexion and stuff. So it got to a point whereby I was a skinny kids, came form a poor family, didn’t have much of dress code and stuff and with kids what happens is we rank in society, if so and so has a rich father he becomes the leader of the boys, if so and so has got a poor father or a mother he becomes the servant of the boys on the street. So I was more like a servant. And my mission was to prove that a kid from the ravages of the ghetto can actually grow up and become an example in the country because we have Mandela, we have Bantus Steven Biko and our current president Thabo Mbeki who came from that situation and they became something better. So unfortunately with the kids it’s a different story because they’ll always tease each other and say bad things to each other and so metimes it gets to a point whereby it becomes a seriously sensitive issue where another kid will go and seriously hurt another kid. You’ve read about this around the world where kids can just walk into a school and shoot everybody else or you hear that so and so just killed somebody and the whole issue just started over a girlfriend or who was ugly and who was handsome. It happens. But I survived that and I live in a country whereby a lot of kids can actually toelrate that , we live in a country of different cultures, different races, and different religions and we were this close to a civil war, but we survived it. That’s why we stand as a proud example to the world that we have our liberty back without an actual civil war. And if my country could survive that then I as an individual can do more.

aryan kaganof: Would I be correct in assuming that Tupac played a big role for you in terms of inspiration?

zola: The life that Tupac lived, played an inspiration. He was a man, I don’t know him, I never met him. The stuff that I read about him, the stuff that I saw on DVD and back then in the tapes about his about his documentaries and that beautiful book called Rose In The Concrete, those are things that gave me an I nsight of what kind of a man he was. And how he died, how he lived his life, how his mother was an active member of the Black Panthers and how that in a way related to my life from when my mother was poliitcally active to how she lived and how she was preganant with me right in the heart of ’76. She gave birth to me in ’77 and how I lived a miserable life, how my father left me, how I grew up hard and how I had fights with my mother when I was 17, 18, because I was a teenager and how I struck it gold and how me and my mother reconciled and healedand I became a voice of the nation. I understand what Tupac went through because I went through exactly the same, the only experience that he had that I haven’t been through is that I haven’t been killed yet. Rigth? So I feel him, I understand him and I also understand that he could not sing about swans in the park, he could not sing about the beauty of how some western books portray life because he grew up on the concrete and he was a rose. He grew up hard and I’m going through the same thing right? And even worse in my country I can never have the money that he had. But he also taught me that sometimes it’s not about money, it’s about letting it out and be fully used before you die right? So he used all of his energy, he fought every day, he fought pollitically, he fought spiritually, he fought socially, so even though he was a brother from another country, but what he was is like in direct parallel of what I go through every day of my life. Therefore I feel him. I feel his pain, I feel his joys, and I feel what he was trying to achieve and he was in a struggle. And a struggle is something that you never achieve, it’s something that you fight until you die. Therefore I shall also fight until I die. Him and I are birds of the same feather. It’s just that I’m still here and he migrated.

aryan kaganof: If we look at Bob Marley in reggae or Tupace in hip hop, would it be pretentious to say that you assume a comparable role within kwaito?

zola: I do assume but before I can even say I assume it that role was given to me before I was born. That political role, that consciousness, that struggle, that pain, that pain that Bob Marley fought all of his life, the things he talked about in his music, for he could not pick up a gun and shoot a man therefore he took a microphone and fought it onstage. Same thing that Tupac went through. I can say in a true sense that role was given to me before I was even born. And it’s something that I’m supposed to take all the way for the rest of my life and hope that before I die other kids will pick up after me and take the same role and move on. Until whenever the powers that be truly understand what we are trying to talk about.

aryan kaganof: There is an element of the messianic in the tragically young deaths of both of these great men. Is kwaito the music form that will deliver up a South African messiah?

zola: Julius Caesar was killed by his own friends. Christ was betrayed by his own friend. Shaka Zulu was killed by his own brother. Tupac’s death remains a mystery. Bob Marley’s death I’m still trying to figure out up to now. I do not wish to follow a legacy that I’m gonna die. But I know that that’s the way of the flesh. But what I’m living I’ll be preaching and I’ll be singing. However, being god’s servant is something that I very much like to do but I cannot necessarily say that there is a messiah in me. I may be a voice that maybe I might have inherited it from Bantu Steven Biko and Mcenge (?) and Tsiyetsi (?) and Martin Luther King and Malcolm X and the Mahatma Gandhi. I’m a different voice that speaks a different language to a whole new different population. But I do not seek a messiah in me, I only seek to be god’s servant. And if God decides that the time has come for me to go I will go. And how I go will b eentirely depending on the situation. Somebody could shoot me. I could die from AIDS. I could die from a car accident. Anything is possible but I know that one day I shall go the way of the flesh. The most satisfying thing about it is that, you know Tupac when he says he was watching Marvin Gaye’s show yesterday, I’d like to sit with Martin Luther King one day and Batus Steven Biko and maybe grow my dreadlocks with Bob Marley, that would be a great feeling for me because I do not believe that when I die that’s it. I believe that when I die I move to a greater power, a position which I was born for. The whole life, whether I live for seventy years, is nothing more than a test, the longer I live the longer the test is extended. But there’s a life after this and that’s exactly where I’m going. And if they decide to write books and movies about us it will be great because they will push on the legacy that we tried to teach. But we only got to a situation of teaching because us ourselves were taught and my greatest teachers in life are these kids because they know nothing about apartheid even though they are getting the reflection of it because they live in the ghetto, but they get a better chance than me and if they ever tell the stories that I tried to tell they will tell them better, they will become better individuals than I am. So every day a new generation will work towards cleaning the mistakes of the past and creating something new. What I’m doing almost has got nothing to do with the present, it’s got something to do with the future, which, unfortunately, I won’t be there to see, cos I’ll have to move on. That’s the way of life. And why I wear a seven on my neck every day, is based on a simple fact that if you follow your Bible right, you’ll see that God workds around the number seven. The alphabet itself, G for god is the seventh letter of the alphabet. The Israelites circled Jericho seven times and the walls crumbled. Christ is killed on the sixth day and the first day he rests on his grave is the seventh day. God creates Earth and Man and then he rests on the seventh day. So we wear a seven as a form of respect and a tribute to what God has given to us. And I could wear it in Gold and the reason I wear it in silver is because Christ was sold with silver coins. So for us it is a very tense spiritual thing that I cannot explain. So when I get on stage and I see 40 000 peole, I see beautiful black people all the way to the back there, and I got the microphone and I can hear them scream, I think I know exactly how soccer stars feel when they score goals, when people scream, when you’re in the final or maybe you’re Coby Brian (?) and you shoot the last basket, and your team wins and takes the league, I feel exactly that. And my struggle though is a very political one and a very spiritual one. We are doctors of the soul. And everything around us is guided and protected by God, otherwise I would have died at birth, I wouldn’t have survived. So the reason I am here is mainly to serve. And we strongly believe in one verse in the Revelations that says behold for a powerful nation shall rise in the South. That’s why we’re here. That’s why we do this. And if we get paid while we’re at it so be it because I’d like to say that the God that I worship has got the most expensive account ever. He’s more than a billionarie because he created all matters and all treasures. I refuse to be poor because there is this thing that if you believe in God and if you follow God you must be poor. There they hit us off guard. Because that’s how other people got rich and other people got very poor, right? And the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. I believe that if I drive a big nice car, if I live in a house that makes every boy want it as a dream house, that means I shift the mind of a four year old or a ten year old from looking at a drug dealer as an example to looking at somebody who does something good. So if you’re Christian or whatever religion you follow and it’s associated with God and you’re rich and you got money you can stand up and testify that I’ve got all of this because of God. You don’t have to do crime, you don’t have to kill another person. If I get money and I ended up being rich one day for me it would be testimony that God gave me kwaito as talent here I am and anybody can follow me instead of my young brothers and sisters looking at drug dealers as examples. I dream for a day when Christians and Moslems and all the people who do good will own all the houses and the big cars because basically this is god’s testimaony that a man who follows God can live a clean life. King Solomon, King David, they were billionaires of their time. And they were given their powers by God. Why shouldn’t we live like that now? My biggest bank is up in heaven.

lance stehr: It all happened by mistake. My name is Lance Stehr and I’ve been involved in the record industry for the last fifteen years. Started off initially working in tv and always had this thing about wanting to produce music and wanting to ge tinvolved with artists and expose South African music to the rest of the world. For about seven years we concentrated on one artist and that was Prophets of Da City which we managed to get out internationally and we toured Europe and did a lot things with them but it was more on a political level that we were focused then and then we decided when we came back from Europe in 1996 that we should look at other commercial music forms that were happening. It was our decision then to have a bash at kwaito. We actually didn’t really like kwaito at all at the time. We were more into hip hop, because at that time for us kwaito actually the lyrics that were happening were very repetitive, we didn’t find the music exciting at all, and in hip hop there were just more lyrics and there were just more things that you could say. And then we started with the first group called Skeem and we recorded them and we took Ishmael who was in Prophets of Da City, put him in Skeem and the main reason why Skeem was formed was because Ishmael was supporting his friends and it got to the stage where we said well your friends have got to do something and he said well why don’t we just get a kwaito group together with them and that’s actually how Skeem was born. Skeem came out with a track called Waar Was Jy? which actually went to number one and all of a sudden we found ourselves right in the mainstream of commercial music in South Africa and we’re very lucky because we followed up Skeem with O Da Meesta, a track called Wena U Bani? which went huge and it was all very fresh and exciting and we neglected Prophets of Da City, they actually went on a backburner and we decided to actually look at a lot of other groups and the label just suddenly burst out with about seven eight groups which we were very stupid in doing in terms of not focusing at all and we sit now with some very hot talents happening and over the last three years we’ve maanged to discover, manage, record and market new talent out to the rest of the country.

aryan kaganof: Such as?

lance stehr: Well we were very fortunate in looking at Zola. But Zola had approached us a year before but he had these huge fat dreads and the huge fat dreads for me it was a problem and the music which he was doing at the time, which was hip hop, was a problem, because we knew that in South Africa hip hop just doesn’t have the sales that kwaito has. And then when he auditioned for Yizo Yizo, cos we had done the soundtrack for Yizo Yizo, we were looking at taking an actor from Yizo Yizo and blowing them up. So in the middle of auditions we discovered Zola and Zola arrived, the same person, with no dreads, and this sort of really amazing energy, and although I can’t understand one word of Zulu, so people tell me, amazing lyrics. In the end it’s very difficult because you’re feeling the music you’re n ot understanding the lyrics and you just have to go with the feel of it. We’re fortuinate because I’d rate Zola as one of the best writers in the country. And then from Zola we did Mapaputsi which blew up as well which was great because that was also fresh, a fresh sound as well, and Mzeke Zeke. So for the last two years we’ve really had a good run. And it’s very difficult in this industry because the industry is really competitive and I think it’s like that globally in different regions where yoyu’ll only have X amount of artists selling records. You won’t have fifty aritsts selling records you’ll only have maybe four that are selling, that are actually bringing in the amount of money that you need to keep a record company going. This last year we were fortunate because we had three huge artists. We’re also fortunate now because we’ve got a new act called Matswako and it’s changing direction slightly because it’s not kwaito at all, it’s more a mixture of classical meets house meets African and it sounds amazing.

aryan kaganof: What influence did Yizo Yizo have on the development of kwaito?

lance stehr: I think that Yizo Yizo dealt with a lot of issues that people weren’t really prepared to talk about, especially at school. Whether it was sex, drugs, etc. I don’t think in terms of Yizo Yizo the lyrics really depicted that, I think it was more when Zola came out with his solo album that’s when he really hit it hard. And most probably made the character Papa Action, which he played, sort of like expanded from that and lyrically just sort of blew it up from there.

aryan kaganof: How is Ghetto Ruff different from the majors, like Gallo, EMI etc.

lance stehr: I think Ghetto Ruff as a small independent record company operates on a very different level to majors. I’ve had a long association with majors and the feeling is always yo9u’re much closer to the street and you’re much closer to the artists and also the artist’s well-being in terms of if the guy hasn’t got any place to stay, or the guy hasn’t got any food you actually there and you try and build the artist at the same time as building the music. Also I just feel that independent record companies more or less live the music and it’s sort of a life style, you’re surrounded with the music like 24 hours a day. I think it’s very easy in a major record company to be very comfortable, be an executive and have your office, you knoiw that you’ve got your meetings at this and this time and you actually lose a lot of catches because if you’re not listening to every single track that comes in which the majors just don’t have time for they’re looking at that huge machine that they’re trying tofeed all the time and the thing is just to get the product out there and to sell that volume. I’m very fortunate that the people that work with us and the partners we have, Ready D, KB, Zola, they are very in tune with the youth and ideas are always bounced around. And also if you’re fortunate enough to have ears that everybody else feels the same, it’s not like having special ears, there’s no bullshit like you have special ears to find a hit, it’s just having normal ears that you can hear wow this sounds amazing, I think another two million people will appreciate it. That’s the way we operate.

The music industry is notorious for hype and I think the hype actually extends to other areas as well, every record company wants to shift those units so what tends to happen is the hype is just so big that you give your buyers that they stock it in really huge believing that this is going to sell because in actual fact a lot of the buiyers donb’t have ears, they will sit there and they will believe what the record company tells them. What happens at the end of it is if the record doesn’t sell at all a lot of that stock is returned and it’s unfortunate because for me it doesn’t matter how much you can hype a song it’s about the song itself. You can do the hype, you can run around and tell everybody how brilliant this is and it can be spread all over the shops and that but if the song isn’t there that people want you’re not going to move those units out of the store at all.

aryan kaganof: What about taking kwaito into the rest of Africa as well as the rest of the world?

lance stehr: Kwaito has already gone over the borders, in Zimbabwe there is a huge market over there, even in Zambia and in Botswana. There have been kwaito concerts that have happened in London in Germany, Zola has done concerts over there, because there are a lot of South Africans that live all over the world and there are a lot of Africans that live all over the world. The crossover effect in terms of getting it into the mainstream by which I mean selling more than 25 000 copies in the German or Dutch markets, I think there is going to have to be some more work done to it. There are certain tracks at the moment that can do it, but it’s not strictly kwaito, it’s not your generic kwaito in terms of what is selling here. I think that we’re going to have to do some collaborations with different artists and that is actually what is going to break it into different territories. I think that all genres of music have got a lifespan as that particular genre and then they evolve, like you’ll still have kwela, which comes from sixty years ago, it’s still there, there are different strands of it but it has evolved in the same way that kwaito is going to evolve people are going to merge it with hip hop. At the moment the hip hop scene in South Africa is blowing up. It’s not blowing up in terms of sales but the market is ready for hip hop and we’ve been trying to sell hip hop in South Africa for the last fifteen years and it’s only now that it’s working out. Strangely the hip hop heads would rather listen to it on the radio or tape it from someone’s else’s cd but on the kwaito side people actually go out and buy the music. So the two genres are coming together. It’s interesting because on Zola’s album we had one or two hip hop tracks which were huge and the more sort of Zulu rap, that is acutally what is happening, not your English rap.

aryan kaganof: What do you think about the distribution deal Arthur cut with Gallo recently?

lance stehr: Arthur’s always been distributed by a major (EMI) so this isn’t a new thing at all, I think all the independents have to go through a major to get distributed. I feel very sad because I don’t think that it really worked out for Gallo as they wanted it to work out because he didn’t have any tracks over the Christmas period so there’s nothing that’s actually happening there, but you never know, his next hit might just be around the corner and he’ll bounce back again. I think it’s another business decision that’s been made on the level where they threw a lot of money down the drain. There’s nothing really that you can gain from a major record company except a ton of money. Otherwise msuically, sure they have a lot of muscle in certain areas, but a lot of the muscle they just buy.

the masked mystery man of kwaito: mzekezeke
(photo hens van rooy)

aryan kaganof: Who are you?

mzeke zeke: My name is Zakhele and in the township some of my friends they call me Zakes some of them they call me Mzekezeke. Just like if a person’s name is Joseph they can call him Joe or Joey, so Mzekezeke is from Zakes Zakhele. I’m just a normal boy 22 years old from the township, from the ghetto of Tembisa in the East Rand just about 30 km East side of Joburg. Me I’m from the East Rand but I represent any ghetto anywhere it doesn’t have to be east or west. As long as a person knows the struggle and the life of the township in the street and growing up difficult, I represent that, I’m the voice for the people in the township.

aryan kaganof: So why the mask?

mzeke zeke: The reason why I wear the mask, number one, I think when you look at the ordinary people in the streets like that man who’s walking there, the hobo, nobody listen to the hobo man, they look to him they’ll think he’s poor, he’s useless. And the people who just walk and they sell vegetables in the street and they can’t come to tv or they cannot voice their opinions or whatever they think so me I represent those people and I’m a voice for those people. Those people they are not famous, they are not known and they just want to speak how they feel, so I speak how they feel and I’m their voice that’s whjy I wear the mask cos I’m an ordinary people myself also. I’m not famous, that’s why I don’t want to become famous I’m just an ordinary people who is a voice for ghetto people.

aryan kaganof: Are you in any way a continuation of Mzwakhe Mbuli, the poet of the people?

mzeke zeke: Oh I did not think of it that way, that is very interresting because Mzwakhe was a very good voice in the times of the apartheid when we were struggling. I never think of it that way but you can say it’s similar, ja.

aryan kaganof: But you’re not going to end up in jail for a bank robbery?

mzeke zeke: No me I’m not a criminal. I represent for the people I n the street who are working hard who are sturggling and who have a positive mind, I’m not interested in crime or criminal things, no. I always encourage people not to get into crime and they listen to me because they understand the language that they speak and they are like me they struggle like me, they wear work clothes when they go to work, I also wear overalls just like them. I’m just like people, I’m ordinary. I’m not wear gold chains, gold rings, I’m not like that and I don’t like that bling bling thing. Even if I can have money to buy I don’t want those things because I’m just ordianry you see.

aryan kaganof: On your hit Sguqa Ngamadolo you rap that you don’t sing in English because it’s not your mother tongue.

mzeke zeke: I’ll tell you one thing, number one, in South Africa most people like the youth you see, the youth they watch too much media like tv , newspapers, magazines, tv shows, radio shows, music videos, so they like too much of the American stuff. So much that when they speak in the street or at school or on the radio they like to speak like they are Americans and when you speak like me with just a normal township English then they are not considered to be the man enough you see. So me, the thing that I’m trying to change by all means I’m trying to do is to try and get our many African brothers and sisters out there as many as them as I can to try and understand that knowing English ot speak like an American does not make you the man enough. If you don’t know English you don’t know it it’s fine you can teach yourself to speak it better but it does not make the next person better than you it does not mean if you cannot speak proper English you are a stupid. If you look at the overseas stars, the soccer stars, the music stars, they speak their nice French languages, they speak their Spanish languages, some of them they don’t know how to speak English, they have translators who translate for them. But people don’t look to them and say they are stupids but why do we have our own brothers here they look to us they say you don’t know English you are a stupid. So my song is saying, I’m not saying I’m not gonna sing in English, I’m saying guys don’t think that when you know better English or because you can speak with an accent you are better than me you are not better than me and another thing we must be very proud to the African languages of ourselves because here in South Africa we’ve got eleven official languages and you are allowed to speak any one of them. So me I encourage that let’s be proud of our languages and at the same time let’s be proud of our own African music before we can try and admire the music overseas. I don’t like this thing of South African people trying to make their music like Americans we must be original Africans or if you are from any country be original. Americans are original they are not trying to become like us. And Americans they don’t play our music and I think their media is corrupting our youth. That’s why the musicians of South Africa we always fight so that our music is played more on the radio than the overseas music but if you look at the case now they playing more overseas music than our music.

aryan kaganof: Lefifi Tladi from Garankuwa taught me that African languages are fourth dimensional languages, the way they deal with grammar is on four dimensions and English is a two-dimensional language so when African people lose respect for their own languages they lose a full two dimensions by mastering English at the expense of their mother tongues. And essentially you are a masked freedom fighter in the new liberation struggle, the war of the mind.

mzeke zeke:Of course, because even before I start to sing I’ve got the five minute program, just five minutes a day, on the radio, Monday to Friday, my show goes on quarter past four, just for five minutes, from quarter past four to twenty past four, but I tell you it’s the most listened to five minutes of the radio station, if you look to the rating it’s very high because people identify to what I say and those things that I talk about is happens every day and I represent them that’s why on radio, before I started singing, I’ve always been fighting all the negative things like but why do we have to look down to the African brothers and sisters of ourselves because they cannot speak better English, why do we not have to treat people from the ghetto ok like they are people from Sandton, why do other lives have to be expensive other lives is cheap because that person is a hobo, it’s not like that, God created everyone equal. So on the radio, me, I call people, like yesterday on the radio on my show the comedian he got a tv show, he speak bad about a different race group but it’s ajoke you see. But he say no Shangaan speaking people are like this, but it’s a joke that he made on tv, but I did not like that, but he apologized to the Shangaan nation, but I phoned him on radio to say why do you do like this? Are you teaching our children to go to school to the Shangaan children and laugh to them, it’s not good because we are all the same, we are all children of the same God you see. So I speak of issues that happen every day like in the taxis, right here in the taxi, the taxi drivers sometimes they drive not in good cars, they shout to the customers, they don’t treat them ok. I speak like that on radiio, I phone the taxi driver, I ask him why would you treat people like this and sometimes I call the hospital people hey why do the nurses have to shout to the patients because they are sick you can’t shout to them, what if they die? I also call celebrities and some of them who have got a negative way of treating people or negative way of thinking I call them and I shout them out on air that Hey! Who do you think you are? You not Michael Jackson, why you behjave like that like a superstar? You are a normal people like me and you. So you can not expect to treat people like nonsense. That’s why I say I am a liberator, I just fight for people in the township on radio, through my music, and everything I say all the time.

aryan kaganof: You spoke of people making fun of the Shangaan people, in Godfrey Moloi’s book, My Life, he describes how people in Soweto always used to make fun of the Shangaan people, calling them sausage eaters, so it’s nothing new. And of course in the townships people call each other mubi, mnyamane, mfene.

mzeke zeke: But why do you have to create open up for the old wounds. Those wounds are old of the old people making fun of the Shangaan, but we are changing with the times. But when people start making jokes to national tv, what are they saying about Shangaan people. Let’s say I’m a Shangaan children, I’m just a kid, my friends are going to laugh at me, they gonna kill the esteem of myself, I gonna have a low one because they laughed me. It’s not good, even if they do it in the 1930s I don’t encourage it. All the races, the Shangaan, Zulu, Xhosa, we are all the same, why you have to make jokes about Shangaan people, no I don’t like that.

aryan kaganof: So what is kwaito?

mzeke zeke: Kwaito is a music which was formed from the township, from the everyday things that happen in the township. It’s a township slang when we speak and we combine that with the beats. That’s kwaito. And then you get people that say no, kwaito people they cannot sing, they are just talking, but that’s our music. Why does it sell more than anything else here? Why has it employed too many people in this country? A lot of people are employed because of kwaito, a lot of radio stations they are what they are today because of kwaito. A lot of people are successful and a lot of people have got bread to their tables because of kwaito. So we speak it but we change it to a melodical form you see. And we mix it to a beat and people realte to it and they love it. And that’s how I am I grew up loving kwaito I’m kwaito I’m living kwaito. It’s the culture that I live. Loxion kulcha, it’s the music that I understand more than anything else. And for example a new artist like me I sell 100 000 copies because people identify to what I say. But once you get a person singing American style R&B in English check how many copies they sell, not even one of those artists for South Africa was ever selling 20 000 copies. Me I’m a new artist in just two months I sell 100 000. I believe in what I do.

aryan kaganof: Is it relevant to consider the day Nelson Mandela was released from prison as the birthday of kwaito?

mzeke zeke: It’s very relevant because for example Mzwakhe Mbuli was the voice of the people then, he mixed poetry with beats and we loved it we identified with it and that was the birth of kwaito, but after Nelson Mandela was released from jail we couldn’t cry about struggling this and that anymore, black people had found a black president and what was it time for now? To celebrate. Because all these years we had been making sad music, about wanting freedom, being the minority of ourselves, but after our black president started and our new government, we could not make sad music anymore, what for? We had to be happy. Because Mandela was out, it’s time to praise the lord he’s answered our prayers and we moving on with life, we celebrating, so kwaito was born. Mandela was born, a couple of years down the line we had to come up with something to make us happy. When you listen to kwaito we talk about parties, we talk about things that happen in the townships, but it’s no longer the struggle, it’s the way forward. It’s the music that was born for celebration, and yes, we’ve reached our freedom, but where to from now? But let’s not make any sad music anymore, let’s embrace God and let’s be happy, township style, youth style. And me being here is not the end of it, it’s only the start.

aryan kaganof: Tell us about the clothes label your wear, Loxion Kulcha.

mzeke zeke: Loxion Kulcha is a brand of the clothes that we are very very proud of which was started by two very talented young township guys, they are also from the ghetto. Loxion means township. The names of them is Wandi (??) and Sechaba. At first when they came with this label people were negative thinking who are these guys, what label are they bringing but a lot of township people they could identify to this thing and relate to it because if you look at the things they make it’s the things that you like in the township so we were very happy to get a label like that and if you see most kwaito artists eveywhere they are wearing Loxion Kulcha. And I didn’t want anything famous or expensive from overseas I just wanted Loxion Kulcha because it represents me, the township culture that we live, the clothes they make they are also from the township those guys, even the team of people they employed, they employ guys from the township and they don’t make them to work for them, no, the tell those guys here is the little we can offer you, work for yourselves, the sky is the limit. That’s how Wandi and Sechaba operate and they are so big now, no youth person in this country does not know Loxion Kulcha. It goes hand in hand with kwaito music.

aryan kaganof: In the Freedom Charter it specifically stated that the land would be shared by all. But now when is that going to happen?

mzeke zeke: You know one thing I’m gonna tell you is that number one, when I look at the present government of our self I think they have been able to do very well. I think me, I’m proud of what the government has done despite of the opinion of other people, everyone has got a different opinion but I think they have done so well to keep to their promises. It’s not possible to just do everything in two years or three years. Transformation takes years you see. But so far I think they have been able to prove themselves very good and the land issue, when you look at what people are saying, this and that, here and there, I personally think that we’ve been able to live together as whites, Indian, coloureds, yellow, Chinese people, Nigerian people are here, we all living in this country. Ok if you go in the townships it’s dominated by black people, but even if you look to the suburbs we live together everywhere, I think it is shared, the l and is ahred. But when you go to the rural areas at the same time, we say emaplazini, meaning the rural areas, there are still too many places that are still owned by those boere with big money. We understand that they own these farms but I personally feel that if I owned such a big land I would share it with the people. It’s up to them what they decide but it’s their lives and their money and their land because now they own it those people but as people of this country were created by the same god I think a lot of the farmers should divide the land or maybe sell it at a good price or whatever but so far I think we have at least being trying to get to that stage where we are living together you see. So the land should be shared and so far the government I give them good props I think they do a good job you see.

aryan kaganof: What is the relationship being poetry and kwaito?

mzeke zeke: I think poetry is growing very well because if you look to poetry like you were saying about Mzwakhe Mbuli who is a poet also, it is expressing what you feel, the environment that you grew up in, the everyday things that you see. Because poetry is mainly about that about what you feel and how you look at things in life. And kwaito is also like that. It’s the same thing, it’s just that kwaito has got music underneath, poetry you just speak it. But at the same time poetry goes deeper you see. Y FM is promoting African poetry in a very good way. And there are a lot of good kwaito artists who are poets, if you listebn to their rap they are talking about conscious things to their life and about what they see everyday you see.

aryan kaganof: What is your massive hit Sguqa Ngamadolo about?

mzeke zeke: Sguqa Ngamadolo is a dance. it means kneel down. The line Sguqa Ngamadolo means “we are kneeling down”. We’ve heard a lot of different dances in kwaito, we’ve heard a dance called Mnike, Mnike means give it to them, and we had a dance called Iminwe Phezulu (??) meaning fingers up in the air, we also had a twalaza dance, so Sguqa Ngamadolo was a brand new dance that just came for everyone and people were just enjoying it. Because no one can ever think of I cannot make a dance which makes people kneel down, how can people dance kneeling down it’s very difficult I’m gonna kill people but me I was like no, if it’s good enough they will kneel down, I’m starting it. And people loved it so much December time even now every weekend every party people there trousers are dirty. they also accuse for me they say their knees are broken because of me because the song is so good that they cannot ignore it. Everytime it’s played they Sguqa Ngamadolo, they kneel down and they dance, even old people which is a very good thing.

aryan kaganof: What’s Mzeke Zeke’s future in kwaito?

mzeke zeke: Number one, it’s not easy to last in the industry and to be consistent for people to like you forever like now there are a lot of people who don’t like me or don’t like my music or the way I speak or whatever, undrstand. But the way we planned it with my managers TK and DJ S’Bu, the managers of the label where I am, it’s called TS Music, it’s a brand new company it’s independent and they signed me and a friend to me, his name is Brown. So their plan where we’re taking Mzeke Zeke is number one, a tv show because when you look to tv right now they say it’s very cheap to broadcast American shows or overseas shows than to produce our own but I think we should have our own more local content to the tv than overseas stuff so I see the gap for a show like that what is going to represent the people in the twonship and adress those issues from a normal ghetoo boy’s point of view. because when people look to me they think I’m stupid they think I don’t know anything just because of the broken English I speak but from the point of view of people like that who represent millions of people like that I think there is a very big gap for a show like that on tv. So we’re taking Mzeke Zeke to tv, the Mzeke Zeke show and another plan in the pipeline, is it possible to take Mzeke Zeke to a national radio station, to go national.

Tape 13
Mzeke Zeke in Noord Street Taxi rank

mzeke zeke: In this country black people always used to wear a mask, in all their dealings with their madams and masters, in order not to let themselves be revealed, in order to retain their true dignity and sense of self. Now that people have won their struggle, have achieved their goals, they do not need to wear that mask any longer, so Mzeke Zeke wears the mask for the people, in order to remind them of what they have achieved.

Intelligent people in this country love Mzeke Zeke, they have so many explanations for the mask, they think it is the most brilliant thing to come out of the entertainment industry, even some of their explanations I don’t understand but that’s ok you see.

kb in the ghetto ruff mixing studio
(photo hens van rooy)

KB: My name is KB, I’m a music producer for a little company called Ghetto Ruff. It’s just an independent record label we strictly deal with R&B and kwaito and hip hop. I’m from Rustenburg which is about two hours away from Joburg. I started by studying sound engineering, it was a one year course then I started getting into the whole production thing after working in the studio. I actually grew up in a musical family. I used to listen to a whole lot of jazz and golden oldies, blues and stuff. My father used to work for a radio station, he was a compiler, so you can understand he had a whole lot of different music. So I actually got my influence from there growing up listening to all these records and it just got into me.

aryan kaganof: What is kwaito?

kb: My explanation, my definition of kwaito would be for South Africa what hip hop is to America because this is how this whole kwaito thing started. It’s street music, it’s street lingo, it’s young it’s exactly the same for South Africa as what hip hop is to America. It actually got to me when I started listening to Arthur, one of the mainstream artists of kwaito. Before him it was more of just dance music but kwaito came about when Arthur started to incorporate the whole street lingo thing.

aryan kaganof: Your production of Zola’s first album Umdlwembe made it an instant classic, tell us how that came about.

kb: Actually Zola was one of the main characters in Yizo Yizo which was the most successful tv series in South Africa and they asked me to come and do something with them and I met him and they actually wanted someone from the series to participate in the music album. So a whole number of the actors did auditions and Zola got through and that’s how we got to meet and he really impressed me and we started working from there. We build these things up over a period of time together. What I do is I try to come up with something fresh, something new, like I would take elements of ragga on Woof Woof, or elements of hip hop or even house music. Every time when I come up with a new album I try not to copy the previous style but just carry on inventing new and different styles. Kwaito is very fluid there are no rules and the audience appreciates that. Sometimes we use live bass and live guitars in the studio hardly ever live drummers. I would love to see kwaito exported to the global market. We did a little tour in Germany and the reception was pretty awesome I didn’t expect that from them so I’m looking forward to taking this whole kwaito thing to the international level. I’ve worked with Ishmael, I’ve worked with Skeem, with O Da Meesta, Getto Luv, in fact everything on Ghetto Ruff records I’ve actually worked on.

aryan kaganof: Was Mzeke Zeke wearing his mask in the studio when he recorded SGuqa Ngamadolo?

kb: Of course not!

Thursday 13 February 2003

aryan kaganof: How is it possible that someone as young as you can already be a kwaito star?

mzambiya: The thing is more than anything the township that I’m from because more than anything there are a lot of artists which are coming from that township where I used to stay, the township that inspired me. Because there are a lot of kwaito artists which are coming from that township which is Zola. So Mandoza is from there, M’du is from there, Chiskop is from there, a lot of artists, a lot of popular artists and those guys gave me inspiration so I followed them.

aryan kaganof: What is so special about Zola as oppposed to other areas of Soweto, other townships?

mzambiya: The thing is Zola is known as a rough township, more than anything, there are a lot of bad things which are happening there, so we as artists we decided that because a lot of bad things are happening, beacause there are a lot of tsotsis and thieves and stuff, so we should change that. Because even now we should put something on top of that as musicians to talk about where we come from.

aryan kaganof: What is kwaito?

mzambiya: Kwaito I think started with a genre by the name of bubblegum, so kwaito is something like a township thing, it’s talking about a lot of things that are happening around you , in fact you’re tallking about your environment, and it’s not R&B, it’s something specific to the township that you must talk about. In kwaito actually me I’m using Zulu but for it to be known internationally I think you have to put some kind of lyrics in English you know? But I’m doing kwaito in Zulu.

aryan kaganof: Do you write your own lyrics?

mzambiya: I do write some lyrics but because we work as a company, as members of a company, in fact we work together, me and my producer we make up some ideas together and work as a company.

aryan kaganof: How old were you when you started?

mzambiya: I think I was eleven years old. I went for the auditions at a youth program and that’s where they discovered me.

aryan kaganof: Isn’t it strange being a schoolgoer and a national star at the same time?

mzambiya: Well I’m happy that my managers arrange time off school for me but more than anything school is an everythday thing so I’m doing my music thing on weekends and stuff, holidays, you know. The thing is I spend a lot of time in school so it doesn’t disturb my concentration, I’ve also got time for music. But I’m taking my time to finish my schooling, even now I gave you just thirty minutes for this interview so I can get back to school.

aryan kaganof: Don’t the girls at school go crazy for you?

mzambiya: Well as a young artist people expect someone who is regular and does his schoolwork so I don’t see any use for girls. Because if you are well-known they will be next to you and stuff so as a young kid for my reputation I have to ber straight and be a kid.

aryan kaganof: What are your ambitions?

mzambiya: Yeah the thing is I want to achieve a lot of things. I want to take my music internationally I want to go to Hollywood some time because I want to put my music out there so I think I have to work hard more than anything. I want the whole world to know what I’m doing here in South Africa. And I also do films, because there’s one that we’ve done by the name of The Wooden Camera so maybe we will be shooting that movie at the end of March. I went for the auditions and I think I went well.

aryan kaganof: How do you find the process of doing video clips?

mzambiya: Yeah it’s hard you know but more than anything I’m happy that my managers are there because they’ve been in showbiz for long and so they’ve given me ideas and also given me some time to relax. But doing videos is hard more than anything because it takes the whole day and you have to focus and stuff. There’s a lot of things about the cameras and stuff but I’m used to it because I’ve done a lot of videos.

aryan kaganof: Which producers do you like working with?

mzambiya: In the future I would like to work with Gabi LeRoux but now I’m working with Bonjai (??) and TeknoP (?) and my manager producer Bra’ Uzi because he also gives me some ideas, how to put there, what what what. Oscar and Nimrod ne. So it’s a nice company but in the future I would like to work with Gabi Le Roux because he’s a nice producer, he can play hey, he’s cool big time.

aryan kaganof: Who did you listen to when you were a kid coming up?

mzambiya: There was agroup in my township, the first group, by the name of Chiskop, I was looking to do what they were doing so I tried my luck and it went well. After they rleased I was next to them saying well guys can you help me and they gave me some ideas, like hey boy no take your time and stuff and then you’ll be ok. Then I went for the auditions so more than anyone Chiskop inspired me. You see we artists from Zola it’s like a family thing because we give each other ideas and stuff, we support each other, share ideas, it’s tight like a family thing.

aryan kaganof: How do you feel about hip hop?

mzambiya: Actually I would like to mix hip hop with kwaito, because there is another artist from our company, GP Gangster, they’re doing hip hop so I would like to take them to my next coming album and do something hip hop with them. I would like to mix hip hop and kwaito.

aryan kaganof: And house?

mzambiya: I do listen to house. Because more than anything I rhyme with house music if I haven’t got my beat. I listen to DJ Fresh more than anything and I also can write lyrics with his music.

aryan kaganof: Are young people of your age still interested in traditional music?

mzambiya: In fact they do a lot. You know I wanted to do something like that because I don’t want to move from my culture because you know in primitive days there was music to listen to they were playing some heavy beats so I think I should go back there and start afresh mixing my traditional thing up with kwaito so that people can see that I haven’t forgotten where I am coming from.

orrack tchabangu: I’ve been in the music industry for about eighteen years now. My background is that I’m a teacher and I quit teaching because basically there was not enough room for one to play around in teaching you know so far as remuneration is concerned. I’m a person who works hard and the harder I work I feel I’ve got to be remunerated accordingly. I do not imply that there is a lot of money in music however I branched because it was something that was exciting, that I felt was challenging and I joined EMI as a Sales Representative and four years later I moved and I actually joined a company where Blondie Makghen (??) who was one of the freedom fighters and we did a lot of music that was anti-apartheid government at the time, but we did it instrumentally because we wouldn’t be allowed to put any l yrics, but people knwe the lyrics, so they were chanting while they played that music in the background. They knew exactly what the songs meant. Because most of them were freedom songs. I progressed to become a Sales and Marketing Director of our company. Later on, when the recession started hitting the country in the late eighties, we then sold the company to a company called Tusk and I worked at Tusk music until I moved and I went to BMG when they came into the country for the first time. From there I was recalled back to EMI as a Promotions manager and I moved and became Marketing Manager until I ws promoted to be Marketing Director of CCP Records. CCP means Clive Calder Productions, Clive Calder is the guy who sold CCP to EMI Music South Africa and moved to become one of the biggest independent record company owners in the world, Zomba, the one that has artists such as R. Kelly, Joe, Justin Timberland. He then sold that company to BMG as everybody is aware. At the moment I’m the marketing director of a company called CCP, which has quite a lot of history in so far as developing kwaito music. The way I understand kwaito music it is music from the streets in the townships. It was formed exactly the same way as hip hop in America where kids were hanging around the streets you know they started composing songs which were relevant to what they were doing in the streets, you know naughty guys, tsotsis, like little hooligans and it developed to be a force to be reckoned with and there are quite a number of artists at the moment like Mandoza who has got crossover music, it’s a combination of township feel with a flavour of rock because his producer/composer is Gabi LeRoux and he’s a white South African from an Afrikaans background and he palys piano and his music has been very much influenced by rock. And Mandoza coming from the township is hardcore coming from an area in Soweto called Zola and their combination has actually created music that today is actually being appreciated by everybody in South Africa across colour lines.

aryan kaganof: What is the significant difference between kwaito and earlier forms of popular music in South Africa?

orrack tchabangu: To be honest popular music in South Africa has been influenced by outside music like, in the seventies and the eighties we were consuming quite a lot of American music , mostly coming from Motown and the difference is kwaito music is a complete sort of music that has been brewed in South Africa. It’s a South African cultural mujsic, let me put it that way, there’s no kwaito anywhere else in the world. For example the music that we had in the seventies and eighties here, the music was really influenced by American music but kwaito’s rhythms are its own. Hip hop culture and kwaito culture is the same culture in the sense that it’s guys coming from the underprivileged classes in society so there is a similarity between kwaito and hip hop however, hip hop is American music completely and kwaito is South African music completely, it is in our own indigenous languages, it is ours.

aryan kaganof: Who are the important kwaito artists to watch?

orrack tchabangu: I have an artist called Jamila, he’s completely new, he’s got fresh ideas, he’s an artist that I’ll be pushing and I have another artist called DJ Twassa, she’s actually a dj and she’s a presentor on one of our most popular televsion programs and she’s gonna rock. Those are the two that I’m actually working on at this point. Besides the ones that are established like Mandoza.

aryan kaganof: Is there a real chance that a kwaito star will hit the international scene big time?

orrack tchabangu: The advantage with kwaito music at the moment is that it’s a completely South African brew. A lot of people overseas are taking notice of what kwaito is and of the musicians who are producing the music. We have done shows all over the world, in clubs all over and we strongly believe that the kind of music that will be coming from South Africa that will hit will be kwaito. It’s going to take time, that’s true. Kwaito is a youth music but you must not forget that the youth of today are going to be the parents of tomnorrow and what will happen is that the music will grow into different formats, even right now if you listen to a lot of kaito albums some of them have got real adult messages and the music will grow with its audience so the percentage share kwaito has of the local market is going to increase in the future.

aryan kaganof: What’s your favourite music for listening to at home?

orrack tchabangu: I listen to Bach, Beethoven, I listen to Mahlatini, I listen to Mambazo, I listen to Mandoza and I listen to R&B. In my business I’ve got to listen to everything.

LEBO MATHOSA

Lebo Mathosa is one of the hottest female singers in South Africa. Her professional dance act, sexy look and unique sound, which is a fusion of R&B, African music, dance and funk, has set new standards in the local music industry.
Lebo shot to fame in 1994 as front vocalist and dancer for the multi-Platinum success story, Boom Shaka. In 2000 she launched her solo career with her debut single Intro, a track that features on her debut solo album Dream. Four weeks after the launch of Dream, the album went Gold and in 2001 Lebo won Best Dance Album for Dream, Best Dance Single for Intro and Best Female Vocalist at the coveted South African Music Awards.
In 2001 Lebo performed at the South African edition of the North Sea Jazz Festival in Cape Town, the Celebrate South Africa concert in London’s Trafalgar Square, on tour in Malaysia and Singapore and for the Malaysian queen. Back home she performed to over 16 000 people at Nelson Mandela’s 85th birthday bash, to thousands of fans on Youth Day and Heritage Day. In 2002 Lebo performed at an Aids benefit concert in Botswana and Swaziland, for the showing of The Vagina Monologues and on tour in the United States.
Most of her performances have been broadcast nationally and internationally. She has shared the stage with world class musicians and recorded tracks with local and international artists, including with Keith Sweat on his Africa only album release. Lebo is known for her acting and singing roles in top South African television shows Generations, Backstage and Muvhango. She won the 2001 Style Best Dressed Woman of the Year Award and was nominated by FHM Magazine as one of Africa’s sexiest women. Lebo has been on the cover of almost every local magazine and is regularly in the society pages of South African newspapers.

lebo died tragically in a car accident on the morning of 23 october 2006.
Lebo Mathosa: I started off at the age of seven, I started singing at church and at the age of fourteen when I moved to Joburg and boarding school that’s when I got involved in the music industry and at first it used to be called bubblegum music. And we actually changed the whole thing I was involved in a group called Boom Shaka we were one of the groups which started the whole controversy about the changing of the music which we call kwaito. At first it was Gong but then they said no we want a better name so it was kwaito and I guess I took it from there. I’ve been in the industry for ten years now and I’ve recently just done my solo project which is totally different from kwaito so I don’t classify myself as a kwaito artist at all. With Boom Shaka yes, we did kwaito music but what I’m doing now it’s totally different from what I used to do. I do a mixture of everything, which is African rhythms and house beats and a little bit of R&B and pop in it.

aryan kaganof: In what way was Boom Shaka different from the bubblegum music that came before it?

lebo mathosa: The difference was with us, like I say, we were the most controversial group in the country. The first thing is we changed our national anthem, and we put a dance beat in it. No one is allowed to do that but we were able to pull that off so that actually shows you how much power Boom Shaka had behind the music scene itself. We sang in our African languages and when you added a little bit of house to the mix of African melodies and rhythms it became kwaito. It was kwaito because we didn’t want to be categorised with the old artists who sang bubblegum music, people like Brenda Fassie, Kamazoo, Senyaka, they were the top people in the music industry before we came up. So the youth wanted to have something totally different from what the others had done before. And kwaito was also different from any international music, so it was something the youth could represent themselves as. Kwaito has been going for as long as I’ve been in the industry now, it’s been more than ten years. If I had to change anything about kwaito music it would be the lyrics in order for the foreign countries as well to be able to understand. They call it kwaito because it is more of the kasi music, I mean the kasi tongue, we speak in our tsotsitaal, and different languages according to how you grew up. So I would change it into something that everyone would be able to relate to and understand and they would be able to sing and say the words that we are singing. Most things that we sing about are more fun things, it’s nothing seriious, nothing political, nothing out of this world that you wouldn’t understand. It’s the same thing that you hear over and over again from other different types of music but now the difference is that we’re doing it in our own language, in our own mother tongue, our own tsotsitaal, the way we were raised in our loxion kulchas. So we’re trying to change things now because the language that most people speak is English so if I spoke my tsotsitaal in English you would be able to understand it.

aryan kaganof: What is loxion kulcha?

lebo mathosa: I would say it is more the youth that have grown up in the ghettos, we have our own kind of life that we live and we call it our kulcha because only you can be that or live that even if they take you out of that loxion, I mean loxion means location, even if they take me out of that location of Soweto or Daveyton or whatever, and put me in the suburb, but you can’t take out what I’ve always lived as out of me. So I will always be that loxion kulcha because I was raised and born in the ghettos. It’s the taal in a way. It’s the youth kind of way of talking.

aryan kaganof: There has been a boom of pride in the past decade among black South Africans.

lebo mathosa: Yes. If you check out old musicians from the fifties, the Kofifi time, they were doing almost exactly the same thing that we’re doing now but the difference is that theirs was more original than ours because now we’re trying to modernise everything.

aryan kaganof: How do you feel about the increasingly dominant influence of America on our South African youth culture?

lebo mathosa: Well I can say the whole world is influenced by different cultures, it doesn’t matter whether it’s American or African or European or Asian, it’s not that exactly. It’s what people like out of what they see, if you come and present something that the people love that they want to listen to and that they get interested in the whole world will love it. Like now most South African artists have never gotten the opportunity to explore their talents and to teach the world about how we make our music. This is because our industry is a very small industry, not as big as the European and American industries. So we have less and they have more. We are original Africans that actually have something to share and show to the world.

aryan kaganof: Kwaito seems to be a male dominated form on every level.

lebo mathosa: Yes yes yes. I can say years ago it was very difficult for women to get involved in the music industry whether you wanted to be a producer or whatever, because you’d get some kind of harrassment in a way, it could be sexually or it could be moneywise or mentally. It all happens in different ways. So most women here at home aren’t very much exposed to the industry and the ones that have made it are the ones who have stood up for themselves and I must say it’s very very difficult because every producer that you meet in our country is male there isn’t even one female producer that you could say ok I like that record that is produced by so and so. But it’s not such a problem for me because I have made it through ten years of the industry and looking up to women like Miriam Makeba and Brenda Fassie that have made it before me. Miriam Makeba has made it all over the world, but she’s the only one you see and Busi Mhlongo has made it all over Europe but not back here at home. Only now that she has come back home has she started making it big here. And if you look at all the musicians who have made it overseas they are all old musicians, like Hugh Masekela and Ladysmith Black Mambazo.

aryan kaganof: But isn’t the sexism in the music industry merely a mirror of the general societal trend?

lebo mathosa: As you know South Africa is the country with the highest figures for rape and women abuse, I mean we have issues like that. I mean in this industry you have to sleep with someone to get into a recording studio so when you came up in my days you were very lucky because at that age I was like fourteen years old and the people who produced the album that I worked on it was old musicians like Don Laka and Oscar who had been in the industry a long time before me and I think Thembi (Thandy) and I were the only two girls in kwaito at that time. But we kept Boom Shaka in the public eye because of our controversial dancing, of the way we dressed, the sexy way of dancing. It was not easy for people to accept that because I think the elders found it very dangerous because of their past experiences.

aryan kaganof: You mentioned earlier that your new material is not kwaito, is this just a temporary move or are you leaving the kwaito scene for good?

lebo mathosa: Kwaito is one two three music, it’s like those three words kind of songs, where you sing “ai wena uh uh uh ai wena uh uh uh” and then it’s a beat and it just carries on until the song stops. It’s just little things, short phrases. But I’m more of a writer, I sing and I write my own songs. I love R&B, I listen to all kinds of things, I love jazz music I love Gong and my voice doesn’t allow me to stick in the limitations of a vocal style that only allows me to sing three words at a time. I like to explore my voice’s potential more than just singing an ABC song. I can do kwaito but my voice is versatile and I can do so much more, I can do deep African soul sounds, jazz, ballads. Lately I’ve been given the opportunity to perform on stage with people like Puff Daddy and I have a dream as an artist to qualify to be a world artist. A song is a very important thing to me, if I have to sing a song it has to be good lyrically, musically, in every kind of way. Kwaito is too limiting for the international audience to get into. African music and African rhythms that express the spirits of our ancestors, now I get that kind of feeling when I’m onstage, that’s what I can give international audiences. That African beat that comes through me onstage, well I’m a totally different person onstage from the person that you see sitting in front of you right now.

aryan kaganof: Who is your favourite kwaito artist at the moment?

lebo mathosa: I would mention somebody who says he is a kwaito artist but I think his music could fall under any other category, pop, R&B or maybe house with an African mix in it, call it what you want, it’s Kabelo. Kabelo has made a huge difference in his latest album, Rebel With A Cause, and he’s really pushing the kwaito sound way out of its limits. I don’t know what Kabelo’s music is but I don’t think that it’s kwaito because it’s too good to be kwaito. I recently asked him to write me a song, because he’s a good writer. What I love in Kabelo I can listen to his songs and learn from them because he doesn’t repeat his lyrics over and over again, for me he’s on the same level as Ja Rule, Puff Daddy, any of the international well known rap artists. Kabelo delivers in his own African way the way we can understand and no one can do it that way, except maybe some of the older musicians who did bubblegum before, and actually Kabelo is taking us back and telling us that music is not just about getting in the studio and singing the ABC but you have to live it, you have to be in it, you have to write music that will be able to heal people and m,ake them want to share the experience with the rest of the world. His music is not just for dancing, not just for kids, like most kwaito artists write music for young kids. Kabelo has set a great example in his album, he calls it kwaito music but I don’t think so. I think it’s way better than kwaito, way better than bubblegum, but you can see that it was taken from bubblegum.

dj fresh: My name is DJ Fresh I do the breakfast show on Y FM. Y FM is an urban youth radiio station in Johannesburg, South Africa. I’ve been at Y FM since 1997 and I started on the afternoon drive show then I moved to the morning drive show and I’ve also being deejaying since about 1985 so I’ve been in the industry for quite a while. When I started in 1985 I covered everything from pop to rock to Bon Jovi to George Michael, basically anything that was ahit in the eighties but lately I focus more on kwaito which is a local dance music in South Africa and house music.

aryan kaganof: Kwaito’s been around for about thirteen years now. How did you get into it, how did it get into you?

dj fresh: Basically what happened was that I think kwaito is almost a child of house music, just in terms of the influence of the groove. If you were to listen to a kwaito song and speed it up a little bit you’ll notice that it sounds similar to house music. Having played a lot of house music myself I immediately was able to relate to kwaito. I started playing kwaito around about 1993. That’s when I really started getting into it. Also because prior to 1993 there wasn’t a lot of kwaito to play in the first place. So from 1993 production started stepping up more people started producing kwaito, more artists came up, more producers came up and it’s where it is right now where people from overseas want to know about kwaito now.

aryan kaganof: Is kwaito more than just a music form? Is it a cultural expression in other media?

dj fresh: I think kwaito has helped youth express themselves in South Africa the way hip hop helped black youth express themselves in America in the late seventies early eighties. I think it was a way of, now I can express myself in my own language, to my people, I don’t have to sound American, I don’t have to imitate anybody in America to speak to my own people. So I think it was an expression of the new freedom that people gained in 1994 when the democratic elections came. We reached a point where we felt I’m now part of the country. Previously I couldn’t vote, previously I couldn’t live in certain areas, previously I couldn’t use certain toilets. All of a sudden I can do what I want and I think that in itself is worth celebrating. I think kwaito is almost a new form of liberation, another reason to be proud to be in South Africa I mean previously you didn’t have a reason to be proud to live in a country where you couldn’t even vote. Now I can vote, I can go where I want, I can wear what I want, I can say what I want, all of a sudden I can watch movies that previously were banned on tv because they spoke out against the old South Africa. So it is like we have something to be proud of, something that’s ours that is our own. And I think that is the way kwaito has been embraced.

aryan kaganof: But is kwaito culture also capable of deeper analysis and of critical analysis?

dj fresh: I think unfortunately kwaito, just in terms of lyrical content, has been more about the good time as opposed to social commentary at the level where maybe policies could change, where maybe you start singing about empowerment, you start singing about giving young black kids the chance to be part of the economy. It has not reached that level yet of consciousness, I think it’s still in its infantile stage, where it’s still about we’re having fun, it’s still about we’re young and there’s nothing wrong with being young and having fun but I think it will reach a point where it adresses social issues, where it says to the government I’m not happy about this, I’m not happy about that. And I think music has been one of the biggest vehicles in this country for getting messages across. And I believe kwaito will eventually reach that level of consciousness.

aryan kaganof: Yet on the ground kwaito has in fact become the very vehicle of black empowerment that so many academics and theoreticians only bleat about from their comfortable offices.

dj fresh: I think that is one of the biggest things kwaito has never been credited for, the employment it has created. The dreams it has realized for certain people, now you are having people living in areas they could never afford to live in if they maybe just had a regular day job, you are having young people driving their dream cars, young people hiring other young people, creating jobs. I mean there are about at least a hundred independent record labels, some kwaito some house, but just to give you an idea of how people want to get into the industry and if I’m not going to do it through one of the big multinationals I’m going to do it myself, I’m going to establish an independent, maybe hire one or two people, and just take it from there. You’ll find that a lot of independents have actually said we’re not going to wait to be empowered by government or big business, we’re going to do it ourselves. So I think kwaito has literally taken the msuic industry by the scruff of the neck and said we’re going to do it our own way. Even if you look back at the history, the multinationals were not interested in kwaito initially, it blew up and all of a sudden they are interested. That’s one of the similarities between kwaito and hip hop. I mean hip hop at one stage was outselling country music, and country music sells! And I think kwaito will reqach the point in the country that it will get the respect that it has been sking for for the last ten years.

aryan kaganof: So Gallo have signed a deal with Arthur because they have to jump on the bandwagon before it is too late?

dj fresh: Money is starting to talk. And record companies are starting to realize that they can make a lot of money from some of these young cats. For me it’s sad, because now looking at local hip hop , it has never really been given a chance, but lately Y FM is almost playing more local hip hop than kwaito and that is now starting to emerge. Young people are starting to spend money on local hip hop , they are starting to go to the concerts that the young hip hoppers like Skwatta Kamp are setting up. So once again like with kwaito, until they are sure there is money to be made the record companies are not going to be interested. Now we find in kwaito that Arthur is bought by Gallo and people are being given huge advances just to ensure that they deliver five or six albums.

aryan kaganof: Does radio still have the impact that it used to have, given that there are now more television channels and given the rise of the internet media?

dj fresh: I think radio has more impact now in that people thought radio was dying but in fact I’m seeing that more and more people prefer radio as an information and entertainment medium to any other medium. You can listen to the radio without really listening, tv you have to sit and watch, the newspapers you have to sit down and read, but radio is a good background medium. So I think radio is still a big shot in terms of exposing music and in terms of entertaining and informing people.

aryan kaganof: Who is the kwaito generation?

dj fresh: For me the kwaito generation, if I was to give an average age, I would keep it at 22 because 22 for me is eiether still at varsity or about to leave varsity. I’ve got money I can spend. And I can now realize what my dreams have always been. And I think kwaito for me is symbolic of that. Kwaito symbolises a new sort of freedom. And your average 22 year old is leaving university to be free, so to speak. And those are the people who are spending money because they have money to spend, they are no more a student. And just to give you an example of this new pride, even with local clothing labels, a lot of young people now are turning to local clothing labels as opposed to your FUBU’s, your ADIDAS and all the other big brand names. The one that is standing out right now is the likesof LOXION KULCHA, but if you look at the Y FM shop there’s at least about twelve new designers whose stuff is on show. And it is being sold literally every week. They are bringing in new stock all the time. I think people are almost coming back home, before I didn’t feel like I was part of the country because I didn’t have a voice. Now goodness, let me be proudly South African, let me buy South African, let me support South African. So there’s this whole new almost renaissance going on in South Africa.

aryan kaganof: Do we still say South Africa or do we say “mzansi”?

dj fresh: Well that depends on where you are and who you are speaking to. Also just in terms of the way people speak, I mean for me nobody now just speaks one specific language, it’s almost like a melting pot of everything and each and every week there are new words being added to the vocab. It evolves all the time.

aryan kaganof: Given the nature of this melting pot of languages which is reflected in kwaito, do you think this music form has a chance of making it in the global market?

dj fresh: I think the biggest hits in the world were sold on a hook as opposed to whether people could hear what was being said or not. So for me if there is a hook , if it’s catchy, if I hear it and the next day I’m humming it, for me it’s sold. So it’s not always about the vocals or what they say. To give you an example there’s a song by Mafikizolo called Loot. They sing in, you can either call it Sotho or Tswana, depending on where you come from, but Masters At Work released that single and Louie vega says he was playing it all over the world and people from all over the world, from Japan from Australia to the United Kingdom were singing along to the song, they don’t know what they are singing but the hook just says hey I’m in your head, if you like me hum along. I think that’s what very important, the hook. The song basically means “he’s won the lottery”. But the people were humming that, like I said, they didn’t know what they were saying. I was at the Miami Music Conference last year and people were humming that song all over every dance floor we went to at the conference. I found that amazing.

aryan kaganof: In terms of music icons, Bob Marley in reggae, Tupac in hip hop, do we yet have such a figure in kwaito?

dj fresh: To tell you the honest truth for me there’s no god of kwaito yet. I think there are people that have earned respect, the likes of M’du, M’du I think has paid his dues. Arthur has been around for a while, Brothers of Peace who are part of Kalawa Jazzme Records have played their role. I think between those three they’llk be competing for that title. For me there is no real god but those three, yes, ‘nuff respect, they’ve done enough for kwaito.

aryan kaganof: What’s the direction you would like to see kwaito go and what’s the direction you think it will go?

dj fresh: What I’m seeing happen lately is that a lot of producers are going the house route where the beats per minute have also upped. I mean kwaito was about 110bpm. What’s being produced nowmore often than not is at about 120, 122 bpm. So I’m seeing it go that wayand perhaps that’s another way of exporting itsuch that it can bump on any dance floor anywhere in the world because for me at 122bpm that’s on average what people are dancing to all over the world. Outside of electronic music which goes up to a million bpms. I think that’s the future of kwaito, to make it more accessible, more exportable, make a re-mix, make a house re-mix. There’s nothing wrong with making house re-mixes, if Madonna releases a song she has seven re-mixes for every market on the planet, so why can’t we do that with kwaito?

aryan kaganof: Are we going to have Fresh re-mixes for every region on the planet?

dj fresh: I’m busy building a studio at my house as we speak. My studio will be up literally first of March so I should be sending you a couple of songs, yes.

Wednesday 12 February 2003

rude boy paul: I’m Paul Mnisi a.k.a. The Rude Boy, that’s sort of my stage name, my radio name. I started in the industry round about 1995 when I worked for a community radio station called The Voice of Soweto which broadcast to the masses of Soweto, the South Western Township of Johannesburg. I worked there for about a year and for me that was a stepping stone because I had the opportunity to learn everything within the radio field from being a field reporter to being anewsreader and ultimately landing a gig as a dj. In 1997 I joined Y FM at its inception from day one and that was a great opportunity for me. It was a young station going on air for the very first time. I was young, I was 19 years old at that point so what better opportunity? And I’ve done a couple of tv shows since then but at the end of the day radio will always stand as my first love. That’s where I give all of me.

aryan kaganof: Were you a colleague of Penny’s at Voice of Soweto?

rude boy paul: Penny Lebyane yes, in fact there were a lot of us that came from that school so to speak; the likes of Bond Nduli who is with us at Y today, music managers who have gone on to work for other SABC radio stations, so for a lot of us that was a great stepping stone.

aryan kaganof: There is talk today in the city and indeed, the entire country of the Y Generation.

rude boy paul: Yes, the Y generation does exist, and part of that I’m glad to say, has been formed by Y FM and the personalities upfront, on the frontline of the battle. It’s about lingo, it’s about lifestyle, it’s about dress sense, it’s about being hip, being happening and we like to educate young people on how to achieve their dreams, get up in the corporate world if that’s where you want to go, so that’s what the Y generation is all about and it’s a pity it only exists in the Gauteng Province of South Africa because we’re only a regional radio station. We would like to see a scenario where the broadcast authority gives us a larger footprint so that we can get to all four corners of South Africa. And once that happens we will have done our bit.

aryan kaganof: What does get to all four corners is the magazine, Y mag.

rude boy paul: Y Mag kicked in a year after the radio station kicked in. It was devised to have a sister brother relationship with Y FM. Obviously being nationwide and it hits other countries such as Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe as well, so that was devised to give other regions an idea of what we’re trying to do, this youth revolution that is different because we’re not throwing sticks and stones and petrol bombs anymore, it’s about uplifting ourselves as young people. Y Mag is now wholly owned by a company called Yired (Pty) Ltd. which owns Y FMwhich runs Y Mag, so everything is internalised, the Y shop as well would form under the Yired Group. I jumped aboard in 2002 as editor of Y Mag and I’ve just been having fun ever since.

aryan kaganof: Is it a black owned company?

rude boy paul: Yes, a large percentage of the company with the rules and regulations in South Africa about black empowerment is basically sort of more or less a larger percentage of black people who sit up there. We do have one or two you know a couple of white people who sit in there but I mean generally it’s about black empowerment.

aryan kaganof: So Y is not like traditional magazines such as Bona and Pace which are directed at a black audience but owned by white companies?

rude boy paul: Yes Y is distinguished from these magazines, I mean we won an award just towards the end of 2002, Best Consumer magazine in the country and Best Youth Publication and for us coming in under Yired which is a company that’s basically unknown within the media circles or publication circles, for us it was wow! What have we done? But I think at the end of the day we can attribute those two awards to the content because we speak directly to the youth in a language that they can understand and we serve their interests very well.

aryan kagnaof: I notice that in the magazine you never use “South Africa” but always “mzansi”.

rude boy paul: Mzansi is actually a Xhosa word, one of our eleven official languages that we have in this country, when you say mZansiAfrica in Xhosa you say Southern Africa, so umzansi means down south. So we like to use that term because again it’s become some sort of a slang term that is used within the townships in and around Gauteng. So it makes more sense to say mzansi than say South Africa. Young people can identify with that. So it’s little phrases like that I think that make YFM and YMag what they are because young people can identify and say when I talk to my friends and I refer to our country I say mzansi.

aryan kaganof: So there’s no relationship between that word and Azania?

rude boy paul: Not really. That’s just a straight cut Xhosa word that means Southern Africa. But in the townships it’s always referred to as a slang term.

aryan kaganof: Now what is kwaito?

rude boy paul: Kwaito is a platform that serves to drive thoughts, ideas, gives kids from the township a voice in which to speak on what their concerns are, social ills happening around them, the fact that they can’t find jobs out there, HIV and AIDS awareness as well. It really kicked in round about 1995 when the likes of Oscar, Arthur, M’du, who are the main kwaito producers in this country, came about and there were all these sorts of messages around young people on what their aspirations are really. It has since taken off and filtered through to overseas, I can mention a few groups like Bongo Maffin, who are great, who have spent the better part of last year touring overseas. In fact I bumped into them in the Netherlands at the Lowlands Festival and I didn’t even know they were there, I was like, what you guys doing here? They were like, we’re here to perform! So kwaito is a voice of the youth and really it serves to voice out their concerns about what’s happening around them. Obviously being a form of music that has taken the country by storm.

aryan kaganof: Where does the name kwaito actually come from?

rude boy paul: If I think back as far as I can, not that I’m too old, but back in the Sophiatown days where a lot of musicians and sense of dress code and the cars they used to drive was influenced by this American culture. You had certain gangs within the Alexandra township they referred to themselves as the Harlems and whatever, there was one particular gang or segment of people which was referred to as Amakwaito. They loved to have a good time, they would mash up anyone on the street at any point in time so they were rough you know they were pretty much well respected within the community and I think that’s where these guys derived that name from because really kwaito is not refined in any way. It’s rough it’s rugged but at the end of the day it’s mission is to get that message across to the masses and especially to the young people.

aryan kaganof: It seems obvious to me that kwaito first emerged in the townships around Joburg and Pretoria and then spread to other townships in the country.

rude boy paul: True enough. It had to have started within the realm of Gauteng as a province within South Africa which would be Pretoria, it would be Johannesburg, and maybe just a little bit further afield, because a lot of these producers, though coming from other areas, they were able to connect within Johannesburg, within Gauteng. This was the connecting point because this is where all the record companies are and this is where they were trying to hustel and get this music through to the people. At first I think they had a difficult time because doors were being shut right in front of their faces and they had to ultimately go to the taxi ranks with their cars and sell their product out of the boots of their cars. So as you can see it started with a very humble beginning but I think at the moment it is a force to be reckoned with and a larger part of the revenue that the music industry locally in South Africa generates can be attributed to kwaito.

aryan kaganof: What is the relationship between kwaito and on the left hand house, and on the right hand, hip hop?

rude boy paul: In the South African context kwaito is very big and obviously kwaito has been somehow derived from the house music element because back in the day in your early nineties that’s what we were listening to. And a lot of producers began to sample the house music that was coming through, maybe from the UK, maybe from the States from Chicago where house music was big. But what they did is they began to slow it down just a little bit because it was too fast in terms of tempo and pitch for South African audiences and that’s how they started putting across the element of our lingo of our township talk to be able to get that message through. As far as hip hop is concerned in this country I think it’s still a genre that is not really well grounded at the moment, we’re still trying to find that formula that will kick start it and I think we’re on our way there because the formula really is to rap in our own languages. You know we’ve got eleven official languages so we can play around a lot. You find a lot of mc’s or rappers coming in here and they want to twang like DMX does or they want to rap like Jay Z does and they want to talk with a bit of a twang in their voices and for us really we see it in a context that you can’t do it better than the Americans so maybe try and get inspired but do it in Zulu, you know what I mean? And so far I think we’re well on our way there because they understand this sense that people have got to identify at grassroots level with the message they’re trying to bring across. If you’re twanging and trying to be an American no one will give a fuck about you.

aryan kaganof: Talk about the nineties and Yeoville please.

rude boy paul: Yeoville I think for many years stood as a very rich night life circle within Johannesburg, obviously that would stem from your Hillbrow area, it soon was run down with crime and people starting moving, there was an exodus of people moving from that end to Yeoville. There were great clubs such as Picadilly’s, and Tandoor to name but a few. Tandoor was well respected for their ragga sessions which they hosted every Thursday night. Any international act coming to South Africa you had to take them through to Tandoor and most of them came out of there sort of amazed. But within the streets of Yeoville that’s where you see the true street culture and diversity of South African youths about their business, whether it’s business, whether it’s play, whatever. They are there, they’re hustling, they trying to do something. It’s a pity at the moment a couple of the hot clubs closed down in the Yeoville area but I’m sure with the whole rejuvenation of Johannesburg City and what the government is doing putting in money to rejuvenate it from your Newtown Precinct which is a cultural centre within the City, where there are theatres, there are dance factories, where there are venues for huge live gigs, I’m sure that rejuvenation will move on and at the end filter into Yeoville and rejuvenate that whole street culture again. If you looked at Yeoville ten years ago just the diversity in terms of racial circles, their were white people and black people living in Yeoville and then there was an influx of black people you know getting accomodatio, renting flats, and somehow I have a feeling that white people began to feel a bit insecure about petty little things like the crime rate and whatever and they started moving out. That’s why when you look at Yeoville at the moment it’s not as diverse as it used to be. And I think that is part of what killed that rich street culture within Yeoville because back then you would see black kids skateboarding with white kids on the streets you know, that’s where I saw my first couple of interracial relationships going on where a black man and a white woman were just strolling down the street holding hands and for me it was like, wow where am I, is this South Africa? But slowly that’s changed because a large number of white people have sort of moved out and that’s why Yeoville sort of lost its touch.

aryan kaganof: So how come thousands of white kids identify with Mandoza’s Nkalakatha but they don’t want to live around black people?

rude boy paul: You see that’s what beats me and it’s great that you mention Mandoza because he’s been one kwaito artist who’s managed to break ground in terms of having a mass appeal with white people and black people as well. We see him getting a lot of airplay on white radio stations in this country he is featured on white tv shows in this country and really they love him to bits. What I can’t stand or understand is the fact that how can we not you know, being black people and white people, get together in one place and have a good time, listen to a bit of Mandoza, little to a bit of Springbok Nude Girls. There’s one element though that I’ve seen in the past two years, it’s a festival called Oppikoppi that takes place in Pretoria every year. It was initially a white festival but we’ve been seeing a bit of diversity lately and last year you sw the likes of Mandoza, and Zola performing there, amongst groups like Just Ginger, rock groups you know. Just being there within the grounds and seeing the diversity of black and white people together for me was great and we need to stage more and more of such festivals in this country.

aryan kaganof: Let’s get back to radio. Is there a parallel to be drawn between what Y FM does now and what Radio Freedom was doing back in the day?

rude boy paul: Radio Freedom was the underground station of the ANC, it used to broadcast into the country from transmitters in Tanzania and Zambia and of course listening to it was not legal. Its main purpose was to broadcast information through to the masses of South Africa on the struggle, on projects which were being undertaken by the liberation movement and basically to mobilise young people at that time to come in and be part of the struggle and I think it helped a great deal because a lot of people would listen to it underground but you knew that at a certain point in time you’re there with your comrades an you’re listening to certain messages that were filtering through and I think Y FM is similar in that context but then it’s a different fight that we are fighting now. It’s ironic because before Y moved into this glamorous mall in Rosebank our studios were in a place called Bertrams where the Radio Freedom institute used to operate from. Somehow technical people that we used to work with were fully involved with the running of Radio Freedom so for us as deejays it gave us some political mindset of saying you know what we’re here and we’re not these glamorous deejays but we need to make a seerious contribution out there for the development of the country and the youth. I mean we would sit there for day listening to old tapes of radio Freedom when they used to broadcast underground and it was amazing we used to hear the freedom songs, we used to hear the chants and the slogans, speeches by some of the greatest politicans today. So for me personally this gave me a sense of listen we’ve got to take on the struggle now as young people. It’s a different struggle but we’ve got to take it to another level.

aryan kaganof: Let’s get back to the print media. Traditionally always the role allocated to black people has been music culture and sport. So how does Y Mag broaden the spectrum of what black people allow themselves to become good at?

rude boy paul: As much as there is a sister brother relationship with Y FM, Y Mag is aabout developing young people, not only within the music and the arts field and sports as you’ve mentioned but we’re trying to broaden that whole corporate scenario. For young people to say you know what there is a corporate industry out there and we can make our way in there. Because at the moment if you look at black people in this country , pollitically yes we might have attained that liberation and the power, but economically really we’re not running corporate industry. Thewre are only a chosen few like your Cyril Ramaphosa’s and your Tokyo Sexwale’s who were both part of the ANC and have diverted to business, having shares within the gold industry and whatever. But that’s only really just a tiny segment I think economically we need to still make inroads and attain that sort of economic empowerment and I think we are well on our way in doing so. As far as Y Mag is concerned I think those are the type of messages that we need to bring across.

aryan kaganof: Let’s go back to the early days of the magazine when it used to be edited by Ithumeleng Mahabane and S’busiso Nxumalo, it seemed in that year that it was more political, more overtly political and somehow when S’bu left writing and Thumi moved to the Financial Mail Y Mag became more fashion orientated and less political.

rude boy paul: Yes that’s correct. S”busiso Nxumalo, as far as I know him, is a really sort of politically orientated being, so quite naturally there was a more poltiical stance. He’s of a generation slightly older than I am so 1976, and I was born in 1977, so 1976 he was there and well aware of what was going on and I think from that end from his experiences he still had a lot to let out, a lot to question through his experiences at the time. Ithumeleng as well age group wise they were more or less on the same level, so that was their drive, it was a pollitical drive, when they jumped ship Y Mag turned around and it was this whole fashion Elle magazine thing, and as soon as I came in we tried to balance things out in saying ok you know young people like to look good and feel good and have the trendiest clothing but let’s not forget the messages, so at the moment we’re still just trying to strike the right balance in saying yes we still have political problems in this country, we still have to obtain economic empowerment but then again you can look nice.

aryan kaganof: Who are the kwaito writers, the kwaito novelists, who are the people who are going to deliver the great literature of this period?

rude boy paul: There’s one gentleman that springs to my head at the moment he’s a journalist and his name is Bongani Madondo. He’s a youth activist, he provides certain workshops around the Windybrow Theatre in Hillbrow. I think he’s been very instrumental as a scribe in trying to uplift kwaito in a sense. He’s an elder but he’s able to come down to our level and so you know here’s a musical genre that is spreading positive messages to the youth and somehow it’s helping in developing the youth. The likes of Themba ka Maathe as well is contributing although he’s more diverse you know.

themba ka maathe: What can I say about myself? I’m Themba ka Maathe, cultural activist, journalist and free lance writer and I’ve written for probably everybody in South Africa.

aryan kaganof: What’s the particular direction of your writing?

themba ka maathe: I started from the community newspaper background so my writing was very much informed by the issue of development in the mid-nineties. My beat was housing and then I moved on to do arts and culture writing and also to reciting poetry, this was in the late nineties. From there on I’ve done some films and my poems have been in many anthologies. Last year I won the Arts and Culture award for journalist of the year.

aryan kaganof: Essentially you’ve come up as a writer in what might be called the kwaito period.

themba ka maathe: Yes. The nineties up to now, this has been the kwaito era. Kwaito has become an industry within an industry.

aryan kaganof: How would you explain what kwaito is to people who don’t know the music or the culture?

themba ka maathe: Even here in South Africa I don’t know if there are many people who can break down this word kwaito. You know you get a guy like in the music industry telling you what kwaito is and then you’ll get another guy, a musician, giving you a different meaning altogether to this word. But kwaito, according to my own knowledge, when I started listening to this music, we’re talking 1991 to 93, the time of Seebee (??), for me the guy who really started this thing, so kwaito is like township slang. Kwai is Afrikaans for something that’s hot and then to for township and so together it become kwaito, anything that was hot was kwaito. And then you get other guys telling that kwaito was coined by Amakwaito. You remember there was pantsula music? Pantsula being a way of life, it was about how you were dressing how you were dancing how you were walking in the townships. Everybody embraced pantsula, not just the youth. In the way somebody walked and dressed you would say he was pantsula, it was very stylish, wearing Brentwood trousers and so. So kwaito started off as dance orientated msuic but then it soon developed into something more as the artists used township slang in their rhyming. You see guys were not singing in the beginning, they were just taking house beats and slowing them down and chanting over those house beats. So kwaito was a way of saying things in the township style, chanting things. In the apartheid days the various languages of South Africa were kept separate on the radio and any recordings were only made in one language or another. But kwaito fused all these languages together, like if you look at the music of Arthur when he started, Don’t Call Me Kaffir, there was Afrikaans, Zulu, Sotho and township slang. Everything was just there in one. This in itself was apolitical statement given the way the apartheid state had previously determined what we could or could not do. So you could say that the transformations in the state, on the broader political level, laid the ground for what happened culturally in the form of kwaito music itself. If it had not been for the excitement that the people had about the new democracy, kwaito would never have happened. The music was and even now still is, a celebration.

aryan kaganof: What can you tell us about the Tandoor and about Rockey street in general?

themba ka maathe: The Tandoor in Rockey Street is the place were a generation of kwaito stars were born and came up. But not only the Tandoor. The whole of Rockey Street was where everything happened in the nineties. In about 1993 everybody started moving into Yeoville, from Hillbrow and from Berea and also from the townships. Boom Shaka used to hang out in the clubs in Rockey Street. M’du used to own a club at Record Palace there in Rockey Street, and everybody used to come to the Tandoor after the other clubs closed. Although it was more of a ragga thing upstairs but downsstairs they palyed kwaito and house and other dance music. You see everybody moved from the townships when they could, they rushed into the suburbs because it was the first time that they had had access to these spaces. So Yeoville was one of the few spaces that really allowed for them to come in and integrate. This was in the period just before the democratic elections of 1994. At that time there were a lot of writers here, a lot of political activists, and even some Ministers were staying here. So Observatory and Yeoville were some of the few places in the country that actually became integrated. But you can see now that it has changed altogether. The texture is entirely different, it is more African now. Basically the whites all left. There are no simplistic answers as to why that happened. The crime is used as an excuse mainly.

aryan kaganof: There is crime everywhere.

themba ka maathe: Exactly. Moving to Sandton there is crime there too. Hijackings, shootings etc. But you see certain people still have their fears and they don’t want to really really integrate, they would rather move to other neighbourhoods. That’s the truth. Crime is used as a smokescreen to cover up the fact that whites don’t want to live next door to blacks. Then you also get the blacks who feel that because they have moved to a nother class level in society they can’t afford to be shopping in Checkers or mixing with black people poorer than they are. But people still come in to Yeoville, a lot of kwaito musicians hang out in Time Square, Eric Miyeni holds his Tuesday poetry night there. But what is deceving about Time Square is that a lot of people hang out there but do any of them live in Yeoville? You see where most of them live, be it Randburg or be it Norwood, they can’t really get themselves together, there are no cultural centres there so they have to come back to Yeoville to have a scene. Time Square is a very influential cultural centre in Joburg. South Africa is still in transition, I don’t know how long this transition is going to take, and people are still experimenting with the direction the country must go. So even kwaito itself is a mirror of this, it is experimental music. So people are just experimenting. For example a lot of people are moving out of the suburbs now and back into the townships. They had gone to the suburbs when they were not yet ready, they got their houses repossessed. But I think everybody want to have access to a better life style and that is symbolised by these plush houses and designer clothes, flashy cars. You see the spirit of collectivism has been replaced with one man for himself now. It is a necessary phase.

aryan kaganof: And at the end of this materialist phase there is a rainbow with a bucket filled with lotto tickets.

themba ka maathe: There is nothing in that bucket. Just the promise of tata ma chance tata ma millions.

aryan kaganof: But people always lived on the promise in this country. The promis of liberation. One day. But that day has come and gone.

themba ka maathe: Now the promise is different, there has been a change of focus. The promise now is the 23 million rollover jackpot. But you have to buy the ticket. And how many times are you going to buy that ticket? A weekly investment on the promise and the hope.

aryan kaganof: But the real investment is education. Let’s get back to talking about kwaito.

themba ka maathe: For me a lot of kwaito music is more about the Self than about social issues. The artist, his environment, that is the club where he hangs out. It’s about the girls that he wants to hang around with. The subject matter of kwaito is still too limited. They really need to explore deeper issues, bigger political questions of the day.

aryan kaganof: But won’t that happen naturally as the music form grows up and develops?

themba ka maathe: The problem is that once the ghetto musicians have the money they forget about the issues. At the moment now every Tom Dick and Harry wants to make a kwaito record and break into that industry. Grab and run. But of course there are kwaito musicians that have been around for the past ten years and look at Arthur, when he started he was heavy but now it’s just “mnike mnike mnike”, “give him give him give him”. What is that? “Haai bo haai bo” it’s just uncomplete phrases. Just fragments of phrases that don’t even say anything. But then again is it the role of the kwaito musicians to do art? To do pollitics? You see poetry is big now at the moment. Every community hall, every café, has a group of people meeting and reciting poetry. And most of them aspire to record their own music. But does this record industry which is so obsessed with making a quick buck really accommodate these people? The companies don’t believe that the poetry people have got a market and so they won’t invest in them. I think that Saul Williams and Sara Jones’ coming here really inspired a lot of poets to take their art form seriously. Kwaito unfortunately contributes to people just feeling happy and forgetting about the problems that they’ve got. So it is almost the opposite of the hardcore poetry scene.

aryan kaganof: But don’t people deserve to just dance and be happy?

themba ka maathe: Yes of course. But how much does it cost them to be happy? Sometimes you have to be drunk to be happy. You see every kwaito hit comes with a dance style of its own. Because that’s what pushes it. It becomes a little phenomenon. Like Mzeke Zeke’s Sguqa Ngamadolo which means get down on your knees, so everybody was dancing on their knees.

aryan kaganof: We’ve talked a lot about dance culture but what are the kwaito kids reading, what are they writing, what movies are they watching?

themba ka maathe: Today thirteen years ago Mandela got out of prison at four in the afternoon. And people have changed, as we were saying they have been living on promises for a long time, and I think there is a wave of consciousness that is going around and quite honestly I don’t think kwaito is really on the level of that consciousness. Kwaito has inbuilt limitations because it is associated with all these major record companies. What kwaito lacks thus far is an underground of the underground, within itself. Kwaito ultimately is just about sounds, danceable sounds. You know I was at the bus terminus at Ghandi Square one friday afternoon and I was watching hundreds of young boys running around and they told me they were slamming, and some were rapping, and I think rap or hip hop is the way for kids at high school to imporve on their English or to get a social consciousness. Hip hop is a kind of literacy. It’s the oral poetry tradition, different from the late nineties youth, concerned with different things. If you look at most of the kwaito stars, like Mandoza, he was a carjacker, so kwaito helped those guys to get out of the traps of the township, the crime the drugs. In and out of jail, being chased all the time, at least they found a credible way to make a living. It is sad to say this but we are living in a society that is celebrity crazy. The various industries thrive and feed on the celebrities. The drugs industry, the fashion industry, you know if you are a celebrity BMW will come to you and they will just give you a car, and this is how the consumer culture sustains itself. It sells itself through the images of the lifestyles of the celebrities that black people look up to.

aryan kaganof: Could it be that the very people who used to own the country explicitly, now have retained their economic stranglehold on the country by putting up the camouflage in the media of the celebrity culture; showing them in their Houghton houses and their BMW’s and thereby masking the fact that not all that much has actually changed for the masses. In other words the media and the entertainment industry serve to take people’s minds off the fact that the urgent issue of the land question has not yet been adressed?

themba ka maathe: There is an element of truth in what you say. If we look at the media, who is still owning the media? Y magazine has a black editor and black staff but it is still published by a white man. So Y is ultimately Yite. And who owns the land? So that’s why the record companies don’t bring these kids from Orange Farm in to record them, because they are angry and their messages will upset the apple cart. So that’s why they don’t get record deals, no matter how on point their raps and music may be. So essentially the media is still in the hands of the forces who are served by the status quo. And those who own the entertainment industry are serving the status quo by making people happy and unquestioning and stupid. The government even wanted to make the lotto an every day event. So people would have no time to think about anything. People are basically diverted from the real things in life, they think about playing the lotto, they think about watching crap on television, listening to the radio, reading about the celebrities on sunday in gossip columns.

aryan kaganof: But as a poet surely it is up to you to supply the antidote to this culture of escapism.

themba ka maathe: But how much influence do poets have in a society that is obsessed with nonsense? Poet are you driving? You can coin those words, but can you coin the money? You need to be able to coin the money and it should be seen that you are coining it before people will listen to you.

themba ka maathe: I’m Themba Ka Maathe, 28 years old, I come from Mpumalanga, got to Joburg in 1989, stayed in Tembisa for some time, got to the inner city. It was rough then in the early nineties. And I’ve been on the streets for some time, you know a lot of people have been on the streets, getting into Joburg it wasn’t easy because there were very few people that I knew. So I had to find a way of either being in the clubs until early in the morning or sleeping rough, sleeping on the streets, so you can then sleep during the day. Then I started with the poetry and I was peeling every day of my life and I was giving it out to the people to consume, I was giving it out to the whole world. Taking out every layer of myself. I was saying this is what Themba is, this is how Themba lives, I was making things up , it was my reality, so that’s how I started as a poet. And when I started out I believed that I was going to publish my poems and become this BIG poet but then you know going from one publisher to the other I found out the truth about poetry and making a living. You can’t make any living out of poetry.

00:37:06
Kwaito. Some people break it down into two roots. You know, kwaai, as in something that’s hot and to you know, coming from the township, then you get kwaito.

00:38:00
I think that’s one good thing that kwaito has done to the languages. ***** People speak this township lingo much more better than their mother tongues. Kwaito is for many people a way of getting out of the ghetto. You know you get 30% 40% levels of unemployment. What’s the way out if you don’t have an education? You can either do crime or live straight. And what’s living straight? But if you do a record or two and then you could be a millionaire. Chances are. Because people are taking chances now. You could get yourself out of the ghetto and out to the Northern suburbs and live large. Become a celebrity overnight.

aryan kaganof: What is the spiritual future of our people as they increasingly choose for the green bucks?

themba ka maathe: I think we are actually at the crossroads. I am not sure what’s going to happen. Maybe once this bling bling phase is over the musicians will start to comment on the bigger issues of the day. But as long as the recording companies are going to keep it tight that’s another story. At the moment kwaito is dominated by glamour, sleaze and entertainment values.

aryan kaganof: But aren’t the people tired of the struggle? Don’t they need something different? Don’t they just want to enjoy themselves now?

themba ka maathe: The revolution is actually permanent. The struggle is always a permanent fixture. You can’t be tired of changing your surroundings, you have to be changing it all the time otherwise it’s going to change you. And when it changes you, you go down, six feet. For me what is so important about having a music genre like kwaito is that young people, it was actually a platform for them to get themselves heard , expressing themselves, rather than having adults or academic people pushing messages down to them. But now all they are talking about are themselves, you know their aspirations, girls etc. Nkalakatha, Godoba. You get to the music scene you want to be the king of kwaito. So you forget about the challenges that are actually facing your cousins, say in Orange Farm, there is no water, there is no electricity, now you are not talking about all those kinds of issues.

aryan kaganof: Shouldn’t those social issues be talked about by the poets, leaving kwaito to the entertainers?

themba ka maathe: No. I don’t think so.

antos stella: I’m the Managing Director of Gallo South Africa. Gallo is a record label that has been in the South African industry for 76 years, it’s the oldest label in South Africa, and probably in Africa. I started there in the legal department, 19 years ago, assisting with artist’s contracts and went through the gambit of being public relations manager, but I’ve always had a passion for South African music so I inevitably found myself in the South African music dividsion. I spent four years promoting South African music to the rest of the world and now I run the Domestic Division and I still run the International Division which takes care of promoting South African music to the rest of the world.

aryan kaganof: Are you an exception to the Old Boy’s Club rule in this sexist industry?

antos stella: I don’t thing it’s only in South Africa. having travelled extensively around the world I think that the music industry I n general is still very sexist, not intentionally so, I think there’s just a perception that women don’t have ears so A&R is normally left to men. And also you find that the vast majority of the artists and the producers are male based. What is fantastic now is that we have people like Missy Elliot that are not only sinigng in front of the mic but are producing behind the desks as well. South Africa being a little bit behind is a male dominated industry. It’s probably just the passion that’s driven and not fighting with the boys saying look here I’m a woman, I often say that I’ve got to this position by default because I can’t say that I ever wanted to be Managing Director of a record company. It was always just the drive to see South African music develop locally and internationally, that’s where the reward comes. To see that it is music that can be exported to the rest of the world and see the appreciation for South African music around the world. I am unique in South Africa as the only female Managing Director of a major company.

aryan kaganof: Why did Gallo get involved with Arthur Mafokate’s 999 Records?

antos stella: Gallo has always been at the forefront of the new music. Unfortunately kwaito kind of came at us by surprise. We were the pioneers of reggae music, we were the pioneers of township pop and we went through a period when we were perceived as a bit of an old label because we’d been around for a very long time and we do represent the legends of South African music, Miriam Makeba, Lucky Dube, Ladysmith Black Mambazo. And I think in terms of A&R, Artists & Repertoire, our eyes were taken off what was happening at grassroots level. So we like to make a reference that we possibly missed the kwaito bus. A lot of people were talking about the young producers and this thing was happening but it took us by surprise. We realized that kwaito was being created by a band of producers that were generating this music and the buzz. My personal opinion and the opinion of Gallo as well is that Arthur was one of the founders of kwaito, he came out with some very controversial songs at the time, he’s had a lot of hits and we started discussions with him. The one thing that we had a huge amount of respect for is that he wanted to retain the identity of his own label being 999 Records and we saw an opportunity for us to do a label deal with him whereby he had the freedom to retain his identity as 999 Records and continue to generate this music from the youth, but within a bigger infrastructure that Gallo offers. It took about a year of discussions on and off with Arthur before we struck the deal, which is still in its infancy, it’s only been a four, five month deal now. Certainly for me I think Arthur is one of the few artists that can export kwaito to other territories.

aryan kaganof: Are you only distributing or do you own his company?

antos stella: No, it’s a license deal where Arthur has creative control in terms of what he records and then we sit down as a team with Arthur and talk through the marketing aspect and the distribution aspect. We’re not tapping into his creative abilities. He signs the artists and we license the product from him. Gallo is now owned by a black empowerment company, Johnnic Entertainment, one of the biggest black empowerment companies, it’s a media entertainment company.

aryan kaganof: How is Gallo redressing its history of exploitation and non-payment of artist’s royalties?

antos stella: It’s a Truth and Reconciliation process, the country went through it as well. Look, it’s a very controversial subject. I think that in defence of Gallo, a company that started out 76 years ago in a country that was very rigid in an apartheid era worked in that environment to the best of its abilities. We worked through a lot of third parties being producers, there was never a direct dealing with the artists. But certainly since I’ve worked with Gallo there’s always been a very transparent relationship with its artists. If there are problems, as I’m sure everybody’s read in the media, we’ve resolved our issues with Miriam Makeba, and they are ongoing. But it is all far more complex than it sounds. There are deeds of Assignment, there’s the composition side, there’s the sound recording side, there’s the publishing side and there are people who aren’t around anymore to say this is why I did it and this is How I did it. We’ve had to go back through historical documents, but certainly even before Johnnic came on board, and more aggressively since Johnnic have become our shareholders, we are reviewing all those legacy issues.

aryan kaganof: Cynical observers of the music industry would say that two things are happening, 1. Gallo is desperate to jump on the kwaito bandwagon that left them standing and that they need Arthur to legitimize themselves in this new music climate and 2. the old style policies of exploitation will merely find new jackets to garb themselves in.

antos stella: I will defend Gallo in both of those views. Music is music. Every record company wants to be where the youth are. Arthur is one deal that we’ve done. We have signed, certainly since I’ve been Managing Director of the South African music divisiion, a number of kwaito artists direct to us, tried and tested. Kwaito is moving.I think we’ve just had the first Christmas where the biggest seller wasn’t a kwaito artist but more what we would term an African pop artist being Mafikizolo, not definitely defined as kwaito. The A&R process is always to find right throughout the industry, what is going to be the next big sound. Gallo is just one of many record companies that will continue to chase the youth market. The fact that we’re exploiting artists, absolutely not! The deal with Arthur and a lot of the other artists is very transparent. Arthur comes into the relationship as a partner, he’s not an artist signing, none of his artists are signed direct. Not that there’s anything wrong with the artists that have signed direct. The one thing that we haven’t done in terms of our relationship with our old school artists is walked away from that. We continue to record artists like Lucky Dube, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, with whom we’ve had relationships for over thirty years. There’s certainly no exploitation there.

aryan kaganof: What percentage of the local music market is taken up by kwaito sales?

antos stella: I would say close to 40-50% of the sales last year (2002) would have been through kwaito artists, Mandoza, Arthur etc. But this Christmas things have changed. We’ve now had a new phenomenon with Mafikizolo, I mean there track is not necessarily defined as a kwaito track but it’s something that has appealed to the youth market. If you look at Brenda Fassie, she’s not a kwaito artist, but she holds the record in the past two years as having one of the biggest selling albums. Mandoza is kwaito. An area that people just ignore completely is traditional music. Some of the biggest selling records are still your truly traditional mbaqanga, maskandi, iscatamiya.It’s a very complex market. But certainly the youth are driven by kwaito and house music.

aryan kaganof: How is Gallo going to export this hip saleable South African commodity? What is your plan?

antos stella: We have spent quite a bit of time with our international counterparts, with our partners, some of them new independent labels, and there is a buzz around kwaito. I’ve just come back from MIDEM, the biggest music conference in the world, it’s held in Cannes, and everybody’s talking kwaito. What appears to be from one on one feedback is that kwaito is right, there’s something happening, but there’s still work that needs to be done in the production. And that is exaxtly where we are at. We’re saying if we had a Graceland of kwaito if there was a merging of hip hop artists, or rap artists or ragga artists, from America, with kwaito artists it’s the one platform that is needed, as Graceland did for South African traditional music. But there’s definitely more week that needs to be done in the production and that is not necessarily my personal opiinion, that is the feedback that I’m getting from producers and deejays and people internationally. We are fast tracking that and we are not only saying it’s Arthur, we are saying you know what guys, if it’s Mandoza, if it’s Oscar, tell us what it is that needs to happen in order to get the music exported internationally because we do believe that kwaito is going to be the next big sound internationally.

aryan kaganof: The level of the kwaito music videos is extremely shoddy. Poorly conceptualised, put together on shoe-string budgets, very often by people who do not understand the language of the music they are filming.

antos stella: I obviously work a lot with the production houses in terms of doing videos. Video budgets are relative to sales, as it is worldwide. Unfortunately there is also an issue in South Africa that needs serious adressing and that is the opportunities with broadcasters. We are very limited in terms of the number of music videos which get broadcast on the South African Broadcasting Corporation, Channel O which is a fantastic 24 hour music channel is pay tv. There are possibly a maximum of three programs on SABC that flight music videos. This makes it very difficult for a record company to justify a big budget video if that video is not going to be broadcast on the local broadcasting corporation. And so it’s a catch 22 situation.

aryan kaganof: Unless you’re thinking of the global market of course.

antos stella: Unless you’re thinking of the global market and then it becomes another issue. We do it all the time. We make big budget videos of our big artists like Ladysmith Black Mambazo or Lucky Dube who have big sales internationally. But very seldom do we see those videos get onto MTV and VH1, because of the format. Can we go to MTV and ask them whether they know about kwaito? And would they play a kwaito video?

aryan kaganof: Well they would is Missy Elliot was rapping on it, for example.

antos stella: Exactly. That’s where we’ve got to go. If we’ve got an Arthur doing a collaboration with Missy Elliot then we’ll make a big budget video that’s going to go onto MTV. I personally think that maybe we shouldn’t only look at kwaito merging with mainstream western pop, I think that if you had a top rai artist collaborating with a kwaito artist there is a lot of synergy in the sound, and those are the type of things that we are currently investigating. It doesn’t have to be that we have to collaborate with an American artist, we also want to retain some of that unique flava from the continentand I think that rai music has proved itself. In the UK there is a huge banghra hit in the charts. There has to be some synergy with kwaito.

aryan kaganof: Do you think we yet have a kwaito star with the potential international significance of say Bob Marley or Tupac?

antos stella: Yes. I think we’ve got a couple. I think that Arthur has the suss to get there, he has the determination and the drive, and he’s always managed to come back with a hit and to see him in the studio is amazing. I think that Oscar from the Kalawa stable is potentially, and I’m talking producers here. But then I have to look at the Brothers of Peace who had the biggest hit in kwaito last year with a re-vamping of an old Mahlatini mbaqanga hit and this is what I think is going to drive kwaito, merging it with traditional iscatamiya and mbaqanga which is music which the ears of the rest of the world are familiar with and putting it into a kwaito sound. Then Mandoza. I think that Nkalakatha was one of the best songs. It’s phenomenal to hear that song on white radio in South Africa, it was amazing to hear Mandoza when the South African cricket team came on to the stadium, they had chosen to play Nkalakatha, which is now like the unoffical national anthem of South Africa. If we could only get Arthur, Oscar and Mandoza to merge and come up with something it would be phenomenal. And I think that those are the three kwaito artists and producers that can generate its internationally.

aryan kaganof: Do you listen to kwaito at home?

antos stella: Well it’s very difficult. I have to say by preference it’s not always been my favourite genre of music. I’m probably a little bit more of the old school. I like the more traditional and world sound. I really really enjoy the debate around it, I enjoy people telling me but this has got a hook. The problem is there is so much kwaito music at the moment and there are so few songs that stand out. So, do I listen to kwaito music? I do listen to it but if I had to sit at home and make a choice I would probably have Mandoza and Oscar and Arthur in my selection of music that I’m going to play for the night but it would be the top kwaito albums that I would listen to not necessarily everything.