Is Kwaito South African Hip Hop? Why the answer matters and who it ...

Is Kwaito South African Hip Hop?
Why the answer matters and who it matters to

Sharlene Swartz
14 May 2003


Introduction

Black youth in Soweto are proud to be South African. Lukas and his friends talk
township tsotsitaal (gangster slang), wear street credible clothes replete with spottis (floppy
sun hat turned into an icon of street culture), listen to kwaito music and hang out on the
streets in All Stars (cheap canvas shoes, sometimes known as three-fives, because they cost
R351). On a Saturday night they attend street bashes where they dance to a raucous beat – a
mix of slowed down European house with African urban rhythms and sounds liberally
sampled into the mix. The dancing is sexual, the lyrics raw2. Is this the South African
version of hip hop? Lukas would argue not. Mandla, wearing a KRS-One t-shirt agrees with
him loudly, but others, especially the media aren’t convinced.

This paper will examine the reasons why kwaito is considered an indigenous form
of hip hop by some and a spectacular vernacular3 by others. Using Stuart Hall’s (Hall,
1997) concept of the “circuit of culture” it will analyse kwaito culture in five localities of
meaning, namely representation, production, consumption, identity and resistance. By
interpreting or “reading” (Du Gay, 1997) some of the cultural artifacts associated with

1 At the moment $1 equals roughly R8, although a better equivalency in terms of buying power would be to
equate $1 with R4.
2 Maria McCloy calls many of kwaito’s lyrics “vulgar” – in an interview with the BBC
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/africa/features/rhythms/southafrica.shtml . I would describe rap lyrics
from the US as sexual, violent a nd political. Examples of sexual lyrics include Ice Cube’s “Make it Ruff,
Make it Smooth”, 2 Pac’s “ Still Ballin” and Dr Dre’s “Fuck You”. Violent lyrics include B.G.’s “Hottest of
the Hot”, 50 Cent’s “What Up Gangsta”, while Eminen’s “White America” and Public Enemy's “Don't
Believe the Hype" and "Rebel Without a Pause" are primarily political.
3 Phrase borrowed from Robyn Kelley’s book by the same name about hip hop (Kelley, 1997).

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kwaito street culture, this paper will answer this primary question. It will also document the
ambivalent relationship between young South Africans and the various dominant groups
against which they rail; define what constitutes a culture as opposed to musical taste or a
style, and finally will consider the importance of identity to style, especially in the context
of the South African racial taxonomy and political history.

The five cultural artifacts which will be examined include the spotti, All Stars, the
kwaito music industry, the Virgin/Earthworks CD Kwaito: South African hip hop and the
South African television series Yizo Yizo. Paraphrasing Du Gay et al (1977) “To study…
[Kwaito] culturally one should at least explore how it is represented, what social identities
are associated with it, how it is produced and consumed, and what mechanisms regulate its
distribution and use” (p. 3).

The kwaito music industry

No one is quite sure of the origins of the word kwaito. Some say it means “cool” or
“angry” from the Afrikaans kwaai, or that it is named after a legendary Soweto gang of the
fifties – the Amakwaitos. In its nascent form, kwaito has been called D’Gong, S’Ghubu, or
simply Local. Kwaito is in fact the de facto pop music of South Africa by virtue of the fact
that black youth compromising 80% of the country’s population, are united in their
enthusiastic support4 of it. There are some signs that kwaito has begun to crossover into
coloured and white youth markets, but not in large numbers. If Hebdige’s analysis (1979) is
to be believed, white youth will eventually begin to appropriate it, but will be late adopters,

4 Yfm, is a kwaito radio station started 6 years ago, and has a listenership of 1.5 million a week. It is the
largest regional radio station in the country. Source: http://www.yworld.co.za/pebble.asp?relid=336.
According to the Case (2000) youth survey, it is the favourite musical genre of black South Africa youth.

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and most likely kwaito will already have begun to be replaced by a new street style, when
they do. Already South Africa has a rising white kwaito star in Lekgoa (seSotho for ‘white
man’). The parallels with Eminen and American hip hop are unavoidable.

The kwaito music industry is described predominantly by two types of people: the
first international and non-youth culture journalists, and the second, local producers and
artists. Mostly these two groups agree on what kwaito is: a fusion of slowed down
European house music played at 90bpm rather than 130 bpm, with a liberal sampling of
world music styles such as reggae, soul and ragga. Kwaito artists and producers5 add more
detail to the description however and include piano, percussion, bubblegum (South African
disco), mbaqanga (stomping jive), kwela (penny whistle), and the South African gospel
style known as iscathamiya. In addition, South African artists are quick to maintain
continuity with the past and cite older black South African musicians like Brenda Fassie,
Yvonne Chaka Chaka and Chicco as influences.

Billboard magazine calls kwaito a South African innovation, “aggressive township
music” (Williamson, 2002), “a genuine world -fusion vibe” (Vleck, 2002), although adding
that kwaito is influenced by hip hop, but much in the same way that other world music
styles have influenced each other e.g. ragga, bhangra and ska. Journalists from Newsweek,
CNN, The Economist and local South African newspaper, the Financial Mail however
invariably begin an article on kwaito by comparing it to hop hop, essentially saying it is the
same as hip hop but uses indigenous languages. South African producers and artists have a
different take on kwaito though and while they say that kwaito is comparable to hip hop,
what they mean is that kwaito, like hip hop has become more than music. It has become an

5 From numerous articles on Rage: South African Street Culture website www.rage.co.za.

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entire youth sub culture, and provides youth with the means for creating an identity,
establishing new societal norms and economic opportunities. In an interview with the
Financial Mail, Gabi Le Roux, producer for kwaito icon Mandoza says kwaito “has become
to SA what hip hop is to American youngsters. It's not just a genre of music, it’s a lifestyle”
(Pile, 2001). Kwaito “is about showcasing our African-ness, about showing off our
continent, our culture and our country” says Thandiswa of Bongo Muffin (Pan, 2000). After
so many years of oppression and denigration, it’s exactly what South African kids need.
The distinction between hip hop and kwaito is important to South African youth, who
oppose “imported pop music fads” (Swink, 2003) but who were forced to listen to mainly
US music because there was no contemporary local dance music in the early nineties.

According to many kwaito artists the mpantsula style has been a major influence on
kwaito. The clothes, dance and even tough gangster attitude from the fifties (which
persisted through the eighties and even now has some expression in the eastern townships
of Johannesburg amongst older people), is evident in kwaito. Junior, of the group Boom
Shaka, says: “The mpantsula era was like the breakdance era whereby it was the only
culture we could relate to, it was what everybody wanted to be. It was like the B-Boy of
South Africa… it’s the only culture we can relate to that’s ours, that’s local” (Rage, Issue
2). Junior makes four very important points. First he asserts strongly that kwaito has South
African roots and South African history. Second, that kwaito is historically South African,
not historically American. Third, he draws a strong distinction between the America hip
hop mode of dressing and the kwaito mode. In hip hop baggies are de rigueur, in South
African “townships they call you a punk if you’re into the baggy pants and all of that”

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(Rage, Issue 2). Finally he makes a strong case that mpantsula style has evolved into kwaito
style thereby affirming the continuity and uniqueness of black history in South Africa.

But why is the origin of kwaito important to South African black youth? In contrast
to those who write about the demise of the nation state (Giddens, 2002; Suarez-Orozco,
2001), Gilroy (1993) writes about the growing Afri-centricity (evidenced by music styles in
particular) in the US and Britain, but I would argue that Afri-centricity is strong and re-
emerging in Africa itself. Africans are desperately seeking their own renaissance, both
politically6 and culturally. While Gilroy connects it with a “new found fervour for purity”, I
would argue it is the pent up frustration of having being made to be subservient through
decades of colonisation and deprivation that is finally finding expression in the emergence
of a dominant youth culture. Just as “hip hop culture emerged as source of alternative
identity formation and social status for youth in a community whose older local support
institutions had been all but demolished” (Rose, 1994, p. 78), so too has kwaito emerged
and is in the process of establishing itself as a unique youth sub culture, creating an
identity for young post apartheid black South Africans.

Identities in transition

Not satisfied to simply capitulate to the hegemony of the US, the cultural and
political nation state is not dissolving. Instead it is re-emerging as an important
phenomenon as youth renegotiate their national identities. Are youth from all over the
globe in fact colonising the grooves, styles and techniques of dominant music and

6 The Organization for African Unity’s July 2001 New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) and
the formation of the African Union (lead by South African president Thabo Mbeki) are indicators of an
African renaissance.



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producing a new identity? This is certainly true in South Africa, where since 27 April 1994
there has been a serious commitment to local music and style, in opposition to the
“colonisation of mind and identities” which has been rampant in the world (Hebdige, 1979;
Liechty, 1995). After interviewing numerous young South Africans, Leggett, Moller and
Richards (1997) conclude that “South Africa is a country in search of an identity” (p. 97),
and kwaito is beginning to fulfill the need for a new identity – one based largely on
authenticity and materialism. Which is why kwaito’s relationship to hip hop is so important
as South African youth “build… culture out of remembered fragments” (Potter, 1995, p. 7)
and prove Hebdige (1979) right when he says that “the material which is continually being
transformed into culture can never be completely ‘raw’. It is always mediated: inflected by
the historical context in which it is encountered; posited upon a specific ideological field
which gives it a particular life and particular meanings” (p. 80). South African young black
people have been denied a history by the legacy of apartheid. Older black South Africans
have played a part in the struggle for liberation, but younger South Africans experience
theoretical freedom without the privileges of a shared culture or access to the economic
benefits of a free country.

Fusion, eclecticism and hybridity
That there are many functional and structural similarities between kwaito music and
hip hop music is in no doubt, but there are also important differences, in both history and
substance. Like hip hop, kwaito does not want to “have its histories obscured” (Potter,
1995, p. 146), which can so easily be done by producing a genealogy of music styles and
attributing not just influences but originations, “since the whole point of vernacular art

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forms is that they come from a particular place at a particular time, and are sites not only of
invention and creativity, but of history and resistance” (p. 145).
Like hip hop, kwaito music is performed to pre-recorded backing tapes. The dance
routines that have emerged to compensate for the lack of a band, have become one of the
most compelling features of kwaito (Stephens, 2000, p. 269), but with its overtly sexual
dancing and objectification of women as sexual objects, it has courted controversy. Like
much rap in hip hop, kwaito lyrics are often filled with misogyny, sex, money and some
violence. South African youth however do not think that it is nearly as ‘bad’ as American
hip hop. And after reading some rap lyrics on the internet, I am of the opinion that they are
mostly right (see footnote 1 for examples). Unlike some elements of hip hop, kwaito music
does not glorify murder and violence “perhaps because life for the average young black
South African is much more dangerous than it is for the average young black American,
songs glorifying murder do not sell well… The threat of violence in South Africa is
omnipresent. People do not like to be reminded of it” (Economist, 2000). When young
women are asked about the misogyny in kwaito they maintain that they try not to listen to
the lyrics, which they find degrading, but which they say, simply reflects the sexism
inherent in South African society (Stephens, 2000, p. 270). On the other hand, like hip hop,
kwaito has also been harnessed as edutainment in the service of social interventions against
violence, AIDS, rape and substance abuse by groups like Bongo Muffin, TKZee and
Trompies.
Like rap and many types of music, kwaito makes use of liberal sampling of music,
over which lyrics are spoken or chanted, which clouds “the distinction between
‘consumption’ and ‘production’… with profound implications for questions of audience

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and authenticity” (Potter, 1995, p. 53). Like rap7 music, kwaito is the style and music of the
streets. Both employ call-response in their singing, but this similarity can be explained by
understanding some of the history of South African music. The music of the seventies was
the mournful and aggressive chants of freedom songs. Black (and sometimes coloured)
South African youth grew up with the chants and toyi toying8 of people marching towards
freedom. The call response style was a staple of these freedom songs. In 1994, when
freedom songs were put to rest in the ballot box, call response re-emerged in the feisty
music of kwaito. Call-response is not borrowed from hip hop, rather it emerged along a
different pathway. Unlike hip hop, kwaito lyrics9 are fairly straight forward and do not
employ the signifying characteristic of hip hop music

Is kwaito eclectic, fusion, hybrid? Yes. Is it original? Not technically, but since
meaning is constructed and produced (Du Gay, 1997) it can be argued that kwaito has an
unique meaning and role in the lives of young black South Africans, indeed for all South
Africans, since it re-arranges the hierarchy of dominance, by including those who have
been previously excluded and by shifting the balance of economic power.

The commodification of meaning

Lyotard (1996) asserts that eclecticism and fusion of tastes is all about making
money. He is joined by Stephens (2000) and others in his critique: “As a musical hybrid,

7 Call response is not unique to rap music though, Kelley maintains that rap music borrowed call response
from go-go music (Kelley, 1997, p. 59).
8 Toy toying is a slow rhythmic like dance-march, where participants hop from side to side in a controlled yet
deliberate fashion. It was the chosen way for people to march through the streets of South Africa in protest to
the apartheid regime.
9 Unlike US rap lyrics kwaito lyrics are not available on the web and even if they were, I must confess that
they would be inaccessible to me as a white South African, since they are in a multiplicity of South African
languages in whom I have little literacy.

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kwaito is mediated in the same ways as Western and international popular music to fulfill a
commercial demand that has resulted from changes in channels of media and
communication technology, synchronous with the changing socio-political environment”
(p. 257). Stephens argues that economic factors make it necessary for traditional or
indigenous music to become diversified, more understandable and hence more marketable
to a larger audience. It seems a pity that South African youth are building their identity on
such an ephemeral base. Of course, perhaps an economic identity is critical to a group who
have long been excluded from the market. Or is it yet another irony?

In many ways the emergence of Kwaito can be compared to the production of a
local, hip teen culture magazine in Kathmandu, where “local merchants project their
dreams of a local ‘youth culture’” (Liechty, 1995 p.174), and whose producers stand to
make huge sums of money in the process. Economically kwaito is the biggest thing that has
happened to black empowerment since the end of apartheid. The $130 million dollar a year
industry is almost entirely black – artists, record labels, production companies, clubs, and
Yfm, an almost exclusively kwaito radio station. Says Newsweek, “the [kwaito] industry
offers a way out of the township and into the money” (Pan, 2000, p. 72).

There are more ways in which kwaito is “complicit with consumerism” (Rose,
1994). Many kwaito groups are manufactured by music producers who bring artists, singers
and dancers together and train them to fill niches. There is an almost exclusive domination
of the genre by a very small number of producers. Established artists like Oscar, Arthur and
M’du form and reform groups and find new talent. Arthur has 15 bands which he has
founded and who are currently recording. Large corporations such as Pepsi and Vodacom
have colonised kwaito artists in the marketing of their products, and the image of success

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for many young black South Africans is the kwaito star with their Sandton homes and fleet
of German cars, an image not recently occupied by the white oppressor. Dolby astutely
comments that identities are constructed through commodities and that “race and racial
identity, is no longer tied to apartheid driven cultural absolutes, but instead rotates around
the axes of political and social change” (Dolby, 2001, p. 63). Yet according to young black
South Africans, kwaito is avowedly apolitical. New York based South African journalist
Mark Gevisser, comments “If [young black South Africans] have any kind of oppositional
identity, it is generational rather than political” (Gevisser, 1999). But the difference is
subtle.

The politics of kwaito

Unlike some genres of hip hop rap music, kwaito claims to be apolitical and young
South Africans say they like it that way. They are tired of politics, the beat is what its all
about. But there are many ways in which Kwaito is in fact an act of politics. South African
youth from the 1970s to the 1990s have been at the forefront of the political struggle to
topple apartheid. After the South African democratic elections in 1994, kwaito emerged in
welcome relief and with it a drive for economic prosperity, a fact which “disturbed black
South Africans over 30, who grew up on protest songs, [and who] found kwaito’s apolitical
materialism disturbing” (Economist, 2000). A local kwaito radio station manager captures
the drive “There's no young person in this country who didn't start the millennium thinking:
How am I going to get fucking rich?” (Economist, 2000).
This drive for prosperity however is a political act. It is an attempt to reclaim that
which was stolen and to rebuild a country ravaged by separatism, inequality and injustice –

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