SA Rocks

Bellville, Rock City is a DVD/CD/Print project that documents pieces of the life and music of some of South Africa’s most phenomenally influential Afrikaans Rock bands; Fokofpolisiekar, Springbok Nude Girls, Foto na Dans, aKING, Jax Panik, K.O.B.U.S!, Van Coke Kartel, New Holland, Ashtray Electric, Thieve, Lukraaketaar, Tatum and Die Heuwels Fantasties who are all from Bellville.

I’m assuming that the idea for this project came from the surrounding friends/fanbase of these bands as many of the people I know who are fervent fans are very creatively endowed. It’s quite admirable to see this collective creative development around young Afrikaans people exploding in so many dimensions. Other local artists would be lucky to have the same loyalty and dedication to their ideas.

The package Includes:

• A 13-track audio CD featuring 13 of Bellville’s most prominent Rock Groups/Artists.
• A 30 Minute documentary short film about the Bellville Rock Scene. Fokofpolisiekar, aKING, Ashtray Electric and others on tour.
• 8 MP3’s from the archives of Bellville bands throughout the years.
• 10 Music videos.
• A 48 Page booklet in which the musicians share their photos and experiences.

More details and tracklistings can be found here.

Due for release on the 28th of November through Rhythm Online.

Popularity: 4% [?]

We all know that there are 11 national languages in SA. But can you name them all? I couldn’t until I had researched and written this post.

So let me list them for you:

• Afrikaans
• English
• IsiNdebele
• IsiXhosa
• IsiZulu
• Sepedi
• Sesotho
• Setswana
• SiSwati
• Tshivenda
• Xitsonga

Before I delve in to the intricacies of each language above I’d like to point out a fantastic resource over at southafrica.info: A local slang word dictionary.

Here a couple that I enjoyed:

bagel (bay-gell) – An overly groomed materialistic young man, and the male version of a kugel.

hey - The popular expression hey can be used as a standalone question meaning “pardon” or “what” – “Hey? What did you say?” Or it can be used to prompt affirmation or agreement, as in “It was a great film, hey?”

is it (as one word: izit) – An expression frequently used in conversation and equivalent to “Is that so?”

just now – If a South African tells you they will do something “just now”, they mean they’ll do it in the near future – not immediately: “I’ll do the dishes just now.”

shame – Broadly denotes sympathetic feeling. Someone admiring a baby, kitten or puppy might say: “Ag shame!” to emphasise its cuteness.

Now let’s get back in to it:

The 2001 census is widely used at the moment as the main source of information relating to languages in SA.

Let’s break it down language by language:

ISIZULU

Zulu has 10 677 000 speakers in SA and that makes up 23.8%. It is widely spoken in KwaZulu-Natal (81% of the province’s population are Zulu first language speakers), Mpumalanga (26%) and Gauteng (21%).

ISIXHOSA

Xhosa is spoken by approximately 7.9 million people, or about 18% of the South African population.

Xhosa is the most widely distributed African language in South Africa, while the most widely spoken is Zulu. Xhosa is the second most common home language in South Africa as a whole. As of 2003 the majority of Xhosa speakers, approximately 5.3 million, live in the Eastern Cape, followed by the Western Cape (approximately 2 million), Gauteng (671,045), the Free State (246,192), KwaZulu-Natal (219,826), North West (214,461), Mpumalanga (46,553), the Northern Cape (51,228), and Limpopo (14,225)[3].

AFRIKAANS

Afrikaans is spoken by 5 983 000 people in SA or about 13.3% of the population.

A majority of South Africa’s population uses this as their first or second language. The language is widely spoken in Namibia and spoken partly in Zimbabwe, Botswana and other countries. According to many English South Africans, Afrikaans is said to be a language that is dying, but this language has made its mark in society and the culture backing this language is rich.

The word Afrikaans in Dutch means “African”. Afrikaans was created in Cape Town, which is home to various nationalities.

NORTHERN SOTHO / SEPEDI

Sepedi is spoken by nearly five million—4,208,980 people (2001 Census Data)—in the South African provinces of Gauteng, Limpopo Province and Mpumalanga.

ENGLISH

English is spoken by 3 673 000 people in SA or about 8.2% of the population.

English has been both a highly influential language in South Africa, and a language influenced, in turn, by adaptation in the country’s different communities. Estimates based on the 1991 census suggest that some 45% of the population have a speaking knowledge of English.

SESOTHO

SeSotho is spoken by 3 555 000 people in SA or about 7.9% of the population.

Sesotho, or Southern Sotho, is spoken in the country of Lesotho, which is entirely surrounded by South African territory, as well as in the Free State province, southern Gauteng, and in the vicinity of Pretoria and Brits.

XITSONGA

XiTsonga is spoken by 1 992 000 people in SA or about 4.4% of the population.

Xitsonga is spoken in eastern Limpopo and Mumalanga, areas near the border of the country of Mozambique, as well as in southern Mozambique and southeastern Zimbabwe.

SISWATI

SiSwati is spoken by 1 194 000 people in SA or about 2.7% of the population. SiSwati, the language of the Swazi nation, is spoken mainly in eastern Mpumalanga, an area that borders the country of Swaziland.

TSHIVENDA

Venda is spoken by 1 022 000 people in SA or about 2.3% of the population. Venda is generally regarded as a language isolate. Its is the language of the Venda people, who are culturally closer to the Shona people of Zimbabwe than to any other South African group.

Spoken mainly in northern Limpopo, an area bordering the country of Zimbabwe, Tshivenda shares features with Shona and Sepedi, with some influence from Nguni languages. The Tshipani variety of Tshivenda is used as the standard.

ISINDEBELE

Ndebele is spoken by 712 000 people in SA or about 1.6% of the population.

IsiNdebele is mainly spoken in the provinces of Limpopo, Mpumalanga and Gauteng, around the towns of Mokopane, Polokwane, Pretoria, Bronkhorstspruit, Middelburg, Witbank, Delmas, Standerton, Marble Hall, Groblersdal, Hendrina, Belfast and Bethal.

SETSWANA

Setswana is spoken by 3 677 000 people in SA or about 8.2% of the population. The language of the Tswana people is spoken mostly in Botswana, a country on the northwestern border of South Africa, as well as in the Northern Cape province, the central and western Free State and in North West.

And there you have it. Those are our eleven national languages. Now you should know what percentage of the population speaks which language and where those people are situated in SA!

References: Wikipedia, southafrica.info, sa-venues.com
Maps: Human Sciences Research Council

Popularity: 7% [?]

This is the last of the SA Rocks Heritage posts. I know that I broke the mould for this weeks theme with a few posts, but they were unavoidable and topical.

Today’s post focuses on the proud, diverse and eclectic history of music in SA. I have tried to create as diverse a list as possible. But if there is something that you truly feel should be in this post please comment and let me know!

Here goes…

Early christian missionaries provided the first formal music training in SA. Enoch Sontonga, who wrote the national anthem Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika was one of the musicians that were successfully trained in this time.

We all know that music has close ties to politics in various ways and SA was no different. In the early 20th Century when government restrictions on blacks became more aggressive marabi was born:

Marabi was played on pianos with accompaniment from pebble-filled cans, often in shebeens, establishments that illegally served alcohol to blacks. By the 1930s, however, marabi had incorporated new instruments, guitars, concertinas and banjos, and new styles of marabi had sprung up. Among these were a marabi/swing fusion called African jazz and jive, a generic term for any popular marabi style.

A blog post about SA music would be incomplete without looking at Afrikaans music in the past and good old Seve Hofmeyer in the present (we love Steve!). Afrikaans music was quite obviously influenced by the Dutch. This progressively became more interesting as time passed Sokkie Sokkie became a firm Afrikaans favourite. From Wikipedia:

A sokkie is a social dance with a partner popular with some Afrikaners. It is also referred to in Afrikaans as “langarm”, a term used to describe the style of dance at a sokkie.

I am personally a big fan of the langarm. It is incredible to watch people that can do it properly. What a joy!

More recently we have seen the rap, RnB and Kwaito scenes pick up with force. I have found that SA rappers have tried a bit too hard to emulate the American rappers that are successful. This hasn’t really struck a note for me to be honest.

I absolutely love the Kwaito vibe that has taken off in SA. I love the feel, the approach and the groove that the Kwaito stars in SA.

Idols has recently created SA pop stars that the public support which I think is great!

And then my personal favourite is the fantastically South African approach to rock that has emerged of late in SA. Freshly Ground and Harris tweed are two of the bands that I associate with a new breed of distinctively SA rock music. The great oldies like Mango Groove cannot be forgotten.

Brilliant muso’s such as Johnny Klegg and the Soweto String Quartet are also unforgettable. Grammy award winners Ladysmith Black Mambazo partnered with Paul Simon over the years to create some phenomenal music.

OK, that’s it from me and my views/thoughts on the topic. Let me know what you think and if you have a better knowledge on the topic.

Popularity: 5% [?]

So Heritage Day rolled around recently, while I was 10 000kms away from my home, and left this Saffa-in-the-UK feeling more than a little homesick (which I guess is natural), and somewhat bewildered.

Firstly, “what was my heritage?” I pondered, and am still unable to find an answer that fits 100%. I am a white, English speaking South African. Technically, I am of European extraction (English, Dutch and French), but my family have been in the Eastern Cape of South Africa since around 1800. There’s even a book about them. It’s called The Frontier Family. I wish I could tell you where to find this book, but Google has failed me. My entire family tree, however, is in it [excluding me as it was published about five years before I was born] tracing my lineage back to a settler family called Miles.

Now if you’re an Eastern Cape local, you’ll understand if a Thompson, a Cloete or Miles says they couldn’t reproduce with anyone born in the Eastern Cape, but suffice to say there’re a lot of us about.

And here I am in the UK, never been closer to my ancestral home, and I feel no link, no attachment. This place and its people, and their ways, bear very little resemblance to my South African life and values. Is this my heritage? And if not, what is?

A friend said to me this weekend that it must be hard being Afrikaans in South Africa on Heritage Day, and when prompted went on to say that she sees a lot of people conflating proud Afrikaaners with racists. I think she has a point.

We are so keen to be PC and be recognised as “proudly South African”, but can you not be if you went to Stellenbosch Uni and count “De la Rey” among your favourite songs? Sometimes I think that is the message politicians are sending out. Surely, the best move forward for our country is to be as inclusive as possible now? No, we don’t want racist afro-pessimists, but you cannot label an entire group under that heading because the nationalist government of our ugly past was largely Afrikaans.

Moving on, I feel disconnected from my European heritage. It is too far removed from me and my experience and even my grandparents’ lives to have any daily significance. I feel that I am South African, and take offence when the implication is made that I am not because of the colour of my skin.

So what is heritage? I think it is the answer to this question: What of my past do I carry with me into the future? I carry knowledge, not just from my grandmother, but from news, history and friends. I carry hurt, for my once divided nation. I carry hope, to live in a safe, equal society with majority rule and minority protection. In this way, I claim a South African heritage – and one you cant take from me.

“It’s my home it’s where I’ll stay and where I belong
I didn’t choose to be here I was born I might seem out of place
but everything I hold dear is under the African sun”
-Hog Hoggidy Hog.

Popularity: 4% [?]