You may not know what the townships actually are, but don't be fooled; there are actually people out there who do buy expensive clothing and shoes only to dance around a fire to burn these items. Now whilst this ritual may seem positively stupid, it's the music they dance to that I'm going to talk about; Kwaito.
Arthur Mafokate, the Britney Spears or the Elvis of Kwaito, describes the relationship between Kwaito and gangsterism as music revolving around ghetto life. To me, its the most ironic or contradictory form of music ever, the name being derived from the Afrikaans word for angry ("Kwaai") and then it being used post-apartheid as a way of the ghetto, because apparently them being oppressed was not enough credit. If you read what other people have to say about Kwaito, the believe it's the ghetto way of saying "house music". So let's just 'ghetto' everything because we can.
Alright, so moving on from the fact that kwaito is the music of "rebelling" and "renaming", I have a few examples i thought I'd share with you as I need to get those of you who have "never" (you have, you just didn't acknowledge) heard.
Musication
DJ Cleo's Kwaito
Is Kwaito not just house music?? Then what is house music??
Why would you want to superimpose this onto SlipKnots Duality??
Let me know what you think
As much as it could be classified as house music in general terms, in my opinion it is still there to express a way of life that is slowly dying thanks to commercialism. Allow me to explain, this was music that was used to express the oppression of those stuck in the Townships during the apartheid era. Now that it is over it is only fair that it evolves with the times into something new. Please don’t get me wrong, by no means am I saying that House and Kwaito are the same, all I’m saying is it is no longer an outlet to show the oppression suffered. It needed to evolve to a new generation that no longer knows the true suffering that the apartheid era entailed. As with every form of music, views change and so should music. My issue is commercialisation is slowly forcing artists to become more mainstream to be popular. We are seeing less lyrical genius and more ‘bubble-gum’ music that lasts a month and then no longer exists.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comment Anton, I do see where you get your point from. Do you perhaps think that there are no longer reasons beyond just being popular to produce music?
ReplyDeleteI do believe that there still are artists out there that are producing good music; the sad part to it is they are not making radio and therefore not being recognized.
DeleteHowever, do you then think that people may want to "feed off" other types of music to then bring their music into the industry?
ReplyDeleteAs with every industry there is a lot of sharing and ‘stealing’, if you will, of ideas and concepts. I think that Kwaito is changing slowly because of what people like in terms of music today (going back to my comment previously of commercialisation). Think of it, today the only way music becomes popular is if its tune is catchy. If it can be danced too it gets put in clubs which keeps it popular. So yes music genres are feeding off each other to remain popular.
DeleteYou have a point of music being liked with a catchy tune etc. There have been artists where collaborations of the unimaginable have been made and successful too. But true hardcore music and kwaito isn't exactly as readily available, do you really think that by them collaborating it would become popular or just another mess?
ReplyDeleteI wouldn’t go as far as to say it’s not readily available, if you know your artists and you keep your ear to the ground it is possible to find true Kwaito or Rock. Them collaborating will take some kind of genius though.
DeleteSorry for the late reply. Yes, I agree with you when you say that should one have a psion for a genre, they will keep tabs on it
ReplyDelete