SANDILE MEMELA | Kwaito artists missed opportunity to help redefine the future

It was not kwaito music that made some people mad but that its infectious melody did not come with consciousness-raising lyrics. This is part of the theme that will be explored in the much-anticipated Netflix series, Kalawa Jazzmee documentary that will be flighted from August 13. While kwaito made the youth dance, former Rivonia trial prisoner, Walter Sisulu was concerned that it did not nourish the mind and soul of the youth and “lacked political relevance”.

In fact, Sisulu advised the late ANC Youth League leader Peter Mokaba to engage kwaito artists to conscientise them to be part of the Struggle. The music was expected to advance the post-apartheid transformation agenda for the sought-after society.

Thus, the creative tension between kwaito artists and Struggle-conscious politicians and journalists was made by the realisation that we did not dream the same dreams. Looking back, that was how some media personnel knew that the Kalawa Jazzmee founder and leading kwaito artists like Oskido Mdlongwa would turn against critical thinkers, especially journalists.

For the oppressed, the early to mid-1990s period was a turning point. It was an opportunity for new and fresh young artists to make a difference through musical magic. Kwaito was preceded by what former arts journalist and editor Sipho Jacobs, aka Zaid Khumalo, dubbed “bubblegum” music. He was dismissive of its leading artists like Brenda Fassie, Yvonne Chaka and Chicco Twala, among others, for lack of meaningful lyrical content.

Significantly, the kwaito generation was born and raised post-1976, a Black Consciousness-drenched era. They were expected to take the frivolity and triviality of bubblegum and turn it into something real, right and relevant before the dawn of democracy.

But the likes of Oskido pushed back and felt that the media were negative and did not quite understand who they were and what they were about. However, the media felt that they were self-indulgent with what they were showing through their music. And the artists did not want to hear the criticism when Boom Shaka, for example, sexified the national anthem, Nkosi Sikelela. They felt offended when anyone pointed out that Bongo Maffin’s Thath’Isgubu was devoid of meaning.

Self-styled kwaito king Arthur Mafokate released Don’t Call Me Kaffir, which was mistaken for a revolutionary piece. But it was an overreaction to predictable Afrikaner racism, and it did not define and assert a new pan-African identity.

The early 1990s transition was a perfect opportunity for kwaito artists to espouse Pan-Africanism, if you like. But a popular artist like Junior of Prophets of Da City was the first to introduce anti-African sentiments through his hit song, Kwerekwere. Mandoza’s Uzoyithola Kanjani was neither a call for the return of the land nor demand for redistribution of the wealth. Instead, it urged unemployed and poverty-stricken black youth to be hustlers in an unjust economic system.

All this was happening precisely now when kwaito artists were destined to be pathfinders and trendsetters that would shape and influence their own future. They lost the chance to rescue and reinvent bubblegum to make it real and relevant with meaningful lyrical content.

Kwaito artists did not realise that they had the power to eclipse politicians as “leaders of society” and, at the same time, redefine the future they would live in and raise their own children.

Worse, kwaito artists reduced themselves to this slavish mirroring and imitation of the American hip hop superstars.

At that point of our history, kwaito should not have been an imitation. History demanded that it reimagine the future that the struggle was for.

It was an imitation of American lifestyle, fashion and social culture of suicidal levels. Many of the artists were high school dropouts who had been spewed out by a poor education system. Despite that, kwaito should have helped and guided and prepared blacks to enter a different world we did not know.

Many people confess to love to listen to music, to forget about their day-to-day misery. If truth be told, most people do love to listen to sing-along songs that nourish the souls, heal hearts, and uplift the mind. Yes, kwaito held the potential and power to be a pioneering force that could transform society, in a way.

Sadly, it did not live up to that expectation.