kagablog

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.

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.

m’du: Yebo.

aryan kaganof: How did you get to become the Godfather of kwaito?

m’du: This kwaito thing, the genre of music, it started in the early nineties. But I grew up in a musical family. A gospel family, my grandmother played organ and piano in the church so that’s how I got into the music. I started the professional side, just backing all those top artists in South Africa, at the age of twelve. But I at school so we had a problem with my mother, but my granny siad that’s fine you must do what you want, but my mother was not impressed. She wanted me to focus more on education. But I was doing both but I loved music most, because I grew up listening, my mother likes to buy music, and my granny likes to play it. From about 1987 I started to do sessions I was a session piano player, and this was the apartheid times. Early nineties you know we decided to come up with something that’s going to, because we as youth in South Africa we were very angry, it was this chaos thing of fighting and stuff, but as a musician just to calm the youth down, I decided to, I mean I recorded some of the umzabalaza songs then, late eighties, I call them toyi toyi songs. When you’re having like boycotts and stuff, there’s certain songs that you sing to send the message across you know, so I recorded those songs just to spread them around, for other people to know about the songs that we used when we did that mzabalaza thing. So later we knew that Dr. Mandela was going to be out of jail so I just had to come up with something that’s going to calm the youth down. To look forward to the future. It was early nineties. So when Dr. Mandela was out the youth thought we were gonna fight but I like what he said, let’s not look back, let’s not fight, let’s look forward to the future. Let’s just educate ourselves with knowledge. Because most of the time we were interrupted at school you know. That’s another thing that made me love music, because while school was interrupted with demonstrations I would go to rehearsals and stuff. So this kwaito thing started early nineties, and the reason for it was as I say to bring the youth down, and look forward to the future to get the youth to conecentrate on the future of the country as well. And we kept that going until such time as deejays, South African deejays, brought out their own house compilations, now they’re trying to kill kwaito. But kwaito is our culture, so I fought for that. Kwaito is South African. It is music that you only find in South Africa. And the difference about kwaito and other musics is that it relates to the townships. How we live in the townships. So some of my colleagues said let’s change it to house music and I said to them no I’m sticking to this kwaito genre because we are the kwaito generation. And kwaito is about looking forward to the future it is encouraging us not to look back you know. In 2000 I came up with a song called Chumiyababa (???) which means Friend To The Kids, and there was a lot of competition then because deejays wanted to be musicians but not musicians creating something just taking songs from Europe especially, just compiling them, si I fought them I said why don’t you come up with something? You can make African house because that’s what most of the French and German guys do they sample African music so why don’t you do that here, you have the ability, but I think the deejays here were lazy they are not creative. So that’s when I got the name Godfather because I started the kwaito and I fought for it to be where it is and there is now an entire young gneration in it and it has the future. The only thing that I am working on now is to introduce it internationally. It will be better if we collaborate with other international mujsicians just to expand the kwaito culture. It’s more of being proud of your language, proud of being African, it has a pride.

aryan kaganof: Let’s talk about kwaito in terms of traditional African music forms. Where does it fit in? How does it fit in?

m’du: Talking about music then. You get Philip Thabane and Ladysmith Black mambazo and stuff. And today’s music which is kwaito. Firstly we are still keeping the culture. But in a modern way. As you know recording is much easier than it was in the past when it was with all those analogue tape reels etc, now it’s digital. But we are still keeping and sampling some of the old African music. And we still use live instruments as well you know. Like for example if I did a cover version of Philip Thabane, instead of sampling it I would like him to come and play the guitar, of the same song, just for him to feel part of the song you know. Revamping old music, kwaito is all about that you know, whereby we take old music and traditional music and fuse them together.

aryan kaganof: Digital technology has revolutionised the position of artists such as yourself in terms of the record companies.

m’du:I remember in the past when I first did a demo tape and I took it to several big record companies and it was kwaito but no one from the A&R understood, it was like, what is this you know? That’s when I decided to form my own company. I wanted to do what I feel. In the creative world you have to do what you feel but you have to have the guidance from someone. The I started M’du records. Because no one wanted my stuff. And then suddenly when the big companies hear that it’s big then they started knocking, saying listen we want to sign you and stuff. But that’s what happens all over the world, every time when you come up with something new they reject you first until they see that that type of music has a potential you know. So we are collaborating a lot with older musicians. My plans are to work with Ladysmith Black Mambazo and Hugh Masekela as well, Miriam Makeba just to mix kwaito and the old style heavy African traditional music. I’ve done a couple of songs with Jabu Khanyile and it was so nice. African and kwaito. I came up with this kwaito rap and he sings African. In music you can take any elements, classical music, mix it with anything, there is no apartheid in music. As a creative person I like coming up with new ideas and new elements all the time.

aryan kaganof: How does hip hop relate to kwaito?

m’du: I should say kwaito and hip hop is the same thing. The difference is hiphop is the American culture, they singing about the ghetto about how they live, the way they talk. To them swearing is normal but to our culture swearing is like, you don’t respect or something. So it’s exactly what we’re doing here in kwaito, keeping the township culture going.

aryan kaganof: Clearly kwaito is a mirror of the township culture but as the country slowly transforms itself, more and more successful blacks will not be living in the townships, they will make the move to the suburbs. What does that mean for the next generation who will not be of the township culture, how will kwaito reflect their lifestyles?

m’du: I think in the past black people were not allowed by law to be in the suburbs. But to us it’s still our country. That’s what we fought for, to live anywhere where we want to. Not for someone to decide to put us in a corner. It’s our country. I don’t think that township culture will die out. It’s still here in the suburbs, to us it’s still the same. We’ve got a whole lot of black people living around here and to us it’s our country South Africa.

aryan kaganof: African people never chose historically to live in ghettoes. That was a choice imposed upon them. So there’s a kind of glorification of the ghetto but essentially people want to live in dignity and surely the music must reflect that basic human urge and right, to live a dignified life?

m’du: The only dignity is your own culture and what you believe in. I can go and live anywhere but I’ll still keep my culture. It doesn’t mean when I’m out of the ghetto I will have changed. we are moving on of course, especially by being more knowledgeable and being more educated, and having skills to improve our country and to share this culture with other countries. Yes there are still shacks and stuff but we are working so hard to change that. The only way to change the fact that our people do live in shacks is through education. I’m the ambassador for the kids you know, that’s the information that I give them; reading, knowledge. You don’t have to steal to change your life, like we used to do in the past, because we were never allowed to come to town or something so we ended up stealing and doing all those negative things but today we are just pumping this knowledge of looking forward to the future. You must work hard at school in order to change your life.

aryan kaganof: You grew up in Zola.

m’du: Yes.

aryan kaganof: How come so many great kwaito stars come from Zola?

m’du: Firstly as you say, Zola people, the language, you know, how we speak. In New York you know there’s a certain language that they speak that everybody’s interested to know so I think our influence was the language that we’ve created within the neighbourhood. It was a unique language and everybody wanted to speak that language. From kwaito’s point of view I think that’s what made most of the kwaito artists who were born in Zola.

aryan kaganof: Let’s talk about language. In the apartheid days music on the radio and on recordings was strictly compartmentalized by ethnicity. Kwaito changed all of that.

m’du: Firstly, in Zola we were Sothos, yes there was a section for the Sothos, but to us we could live in the offically designated Sotho section if you were Sotho or not, so that’s when this mixing of languages started. At school guys who spoke Sotho guys who spoke Shangaan guys who spoke Zulu guys who spoke Afrikaans, so we mixed all these languages you know in order for us to communicate with each other. And yes the radio stations had separated those languages but to us we are South African, we are one. Even though we speak different languages we are one. If you are South African now you live where you want you speak what you want, we’ve changed that, we fought fo it. We are one. You see kwaito started as a tsotsitaal, a thug language, they call it a thug language but even the grandmothers are speaking it. And we have to put some English in it for it to be understood by white South Africans, by all South Africans.

aryan kaganof: How will kwaito be understood in the international arena?

m’du: Well firstly music speaks a universal language. We love North African music, I love Salif Keita, I love Bona(?), I love to listen to Youssou Ndour, we don’t understand the language but you feel the music, music is all about emotions you know. Yes, some of the soungs, in order for Europeans to understand it will be better for us to colloborate with the top musicians and for them to interpret what we are saying in our languages, Zulu or whatever, then the Europeans will understand our music. By doing so together as musicians we will be taking it to another world. I like what Black mambazo did. They collaborated with all the top musicians in the world and it worked. And South Africans love to see their musicians working internationally, not only in South Africa.

aryan kaganof: So can we expect The Godfather to be collaborating soon?

m’du: Yes sure. I worked with Jean Michel Jarre, I’ve re-mixed two of his songs. I’ve worked with Kenny Latimore I’ve worked with Quincey Jones and they are all saying the same thing: collaborating is the key to the world!

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 oper