{"id":96018,"date":"2017-07-04T22:47:45","date_gmt":"2017-07-04T20:47:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/from-the-margins-reggae-in-south-africa-continues-to-struggle-for-human-dignity-the-conversation\/"},"modified":"2017-07-04T22:47:45","modified_gmt":"2017-07-04T20:47:45","slug":"from-the-margins-reggae-in-south-africa-continues-to-struggle-for-human-dignity-the-conversation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/from-the-margins-reggae-in-south-africa-continues-to-struggle-for-human-dignity-the-conversation\/","title":{"rendered":"From the margins, reggae in South Africa continues to struggle for human dignity | The Conversation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/theconversation.com\/from-the-margins-reggae-in-south-africa-continues-to-struggle-for-human-dignity-80419\">From the margins, reggae in South Africa continues to struggle for human dignity<\/a>: <\/p>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.theconversation.com\/files\/176593\/width496\/file-20170703-7743-13e9e81.JPG\" \/><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">Cape Town reggae artist, Teba Shumba.<\/span> <span class=\"attribution\"><span class=\"source\">Tuomas J\u00e4rvenp\u00e4\u00e4<\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Anthropologist Carole Yawney has documented how on the eve of South Africa\u2019s first democratic elections in 1994 the African National Congress (ANC) distributed an electoral leaflet in townships with the following message:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Greetings I&#8217;n&#8217;I! \u2026 The ANC recognises that Rastas are part and parcel of the oppressed masses. We all know of the important role the international Rasta movement has played in the liberation struggle in bringing to the attention of the world the message of our struggle through music.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The ANC was trying to acknowledge and capitalise on the role reggae music and the Rastafarian movement played in the struggle against the apartheid regime. Jamaican reggae was essential in bringing international attention to the South African political struggle.<\/p>\n<p>Jamaican artists addressed their lyrical messages directly to the liberation movements of southern Africa. Some of the most notable examples include \u201cFight Apartheid\u201d (1977) by Peter Tosh, \u201cZimbabwe\u201d(1979) by Bob Marley and Bunny Wailer\u2019s \u201cBotha the Mosquito\u201d (1986).<\/p>\n<figure>             <iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"440\" height=\"260\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/uOFy6-oeaBI?wmode=transparent&amp;start=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">Bunny Wailer with his song \u2018Botha the Mosquito\u2019, from the album \u2018Liberation\u2019.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>As early as the 1970s young people in South Africa\u2019s townships had adopted Rasta beliefs and reggae music as a part of their anti-establishment counterculture. The first wave of homegrown reggae followed quickly. Artists such Carlos Djedje, Colbert Mukwevho and Lucky Dube managed to defy the state censorship. They launched the genre as one of the most popular music styles in the country in the 1980s and early 1990s.<\/p>\n<p>During the second part of the nineties in democratic South Africa, reggae lost much of its former visibility and commercial potential. This was partly because it was so deeply and specifically connected to the struggle years and the protest against apartheid. <\/p>\n<p>Yet, the Rastafarian counterculture continued to hold relevance in marginalised urban settings. Those are the areas where it had initially been rooted back in the 1970s. In this new post-apartheid era, the protest spirit of reggae turned to voice concerns over the socioeconomic inequalities that continued to escalate throughout the 1990s and 2000s.<\/p>\n<p>Reggae and Rastafari are currently flourishing especially in the Western Cape province and its capital, Cape Town. <\/p>\n<h2>Township reggae circuit<\/h2>\n<p>I first started doing anthropological research on Capetonian reggae in 2013. I assumed somewhat naively that the township reggae circuit of the city would be relatively closed from outsiders, especially from white foreigners like me. But it soon became apparent that I was actually travelling along a well beaten path during my field research. <\/p>\n<p>Reggae musicians held wide social connections to foreign artists, producers and managers across the city as well as across the world. Many were using online platforms to collaborate with individuals, some of whom they had never met.<\/p>\n<p>This shouldn\u2019t have come as a surprise. After all, I\u2019d embarked on the research partly because of the international circulation of South African reggae music. Four years earlier I had become fascinated by Capetonian reggae music in Finland, my home country. There a Finnish reggae band, Suhinators, had released an album featuring two Capetonian vocalists, Teba Shumba and Crosby Bolani. <\/p>\n<p>I remember being captivated by their music, particularly their militant lyrical style that seemed exotic and out of the ordinary to me. In Finland reggae music isn\u2019t politicised in similar fashion.<\/p>\n<p>In Cape Town, I learned that this collaboration between Capetonian and Finnish reggae artists wasn\u2019t an isolated case. Teba Shumba also works with a Brazilian music producer, for example. Crosby Bolani further collaborates with hip-hop legend DJ Krush. Daddy Spencer voices tracks with the Italian production team Segnale Digitale. Black Dillinger tours European music festivals. These are just a few of the recent intercontinental ventures of Capetonian reggae musicians.<\/p>\n<figure>             <iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"440\" height=\"260\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ZcYVHDUV_aI?wmode=transparent&amp;start=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">Crosby Bolani collaborating with DJ Krush.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>In addition, well-established Capetonian singers Zoro and Vido Jelashe emigrated to Europe some years ago, but they still draw from township reality in their lyrical storytelling. <\/p>\n<h2>Street cred via the ghetto<\/h2>\n<p>In fact the lyrical and visual depictions of Cape Town\u2019s ghetto conditions are central in rendering the artists with street credibility in all of these collaborations. In this sense, Capetonian reggae music is a part of a broader musical trend, where the metaphor of the ghetto has become central in the formation of transnational musical connections.<\/p>\n<p>Cultural anthropologist Prof Rivke Jaffe states that,<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>ghetto-based identifications allow the mobilisation of a broader, transnational belonging against the injustice of this immobility, helping to undermine the stigma of poverty and social marginality. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Identification with Rastafarian reggae music and its visual and lyrical narratives has indeed offered South African musicians inclusion in a global story of exclusion and injustice.<\/p>\n<p>Rivke continues:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Ironically, it is the collective frame of immobility\u2026 which connects ghetto dwellers worldwide. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>This rings true for the Cape Town reggae scene. It\u2019s practically invisible and inaudible in the main music venues of the city where the township audiences are not seen as a lucrative target group. Instead this township scene has formed a vibrant existence in YouTube music videos and in foreign music festivals. <\/p>\n<p>Based on my experience as a researcher it seems that the main political significance of reggae music in general does not lie in its explicitly political lyrics. Instead it\u2019s in the grassroots cultural connection that it has enabled. <\/p>\n<p>Yet the question remains whether these international cultural connections are able to sustain solidarity between marginalised groups of people. Or is South African reggae music, for example, consumed abroad in ways which enforce stereotypes about the \u201cnotorious hoods\u201d of the African cities among middle-class white audiences? <\/p>\n<p>In addition, the financial rewards from these collaborations and tours are often very modest or non-existent for South African reggae musicians. <\/p>\n<p>The musicians are very aware of the risk of financial or symbolic exploitation in the international circulation of their music. But what they find worthwhile are the symbolic rewards, such as the possibility to share a festival stage with Jamaican artists. Experiences like these are powerful because they once again grant outside recognition for the struggle for human dignity in South African cities.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/counter.theconversation.edu.au\/content\/80419\/count.gif\" alt=\"The Conversation\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" \/> <\/p>\n<p class=\"fine-print\"><em><span>Authors&#39; fieldwork in Cape Town was realized as a part of the research project \u201cYouth Music and the Construction of Social Subjectivities and Communities in Post-apartheid South Africa\u201d led by Tuulikki Pietil\u00e4 and based at the University of Helsinki in the discipline of social and cultural anthropology and funded by the Academy of Finland (grant number 265976).<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p><small><strong>Source:<\/strong> <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/theconversation.com\/from-the-margins-reggae-in-south-africa-continues-to-struggle-for-human-dignity-80419\">The Conversation \u2013 Articles (AFRICA)<\/a><\/small><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<p>Read more on <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/theconversation.com\" target=\"_blank\">The Conversation<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Join the fun:<\/strong> <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/add-your-event\/\">Add Your event<\/a> | <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.mypr.co.za\/submit\">Submit a Press Release<\/a> | <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/directory\/\">Add your listing<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From the margins, reggae in South Africa continues to struggle for human dignity: Cape Town reggae artist, Teba Shumba. Tuomas J\u00e4rvenp\u00e4\u00e4 Anthropologist Carole Yawney has documented how on the eve of South Africa\u2019s first democratic elections in 1994 the African National Congress (ANC) distributed an electoral leaflet in townships with the following message: Greetings I&#8217;n&#8217;I! [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4584],"tags":[428,9528,8890,5018,3445,3392,21957,12335,3576,2346],"class_list":{"0":"post-96018","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-africa-news-2","7":"tag-africa","8":"tag-continues","9":"tag-conversation","10":"tag-dignity","11":"tag-from","12":"tag-human","13":"tag-margins","14":"tag-reggae","15":"tag-south","16":"tag-struggle","17":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96018"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96018\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}