Kwaito's Promise: Music and the Aesthetics of Freedom in South Africa 9780226362687

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Kwaito’s Promise

CHICAGO STUDIES IN ETHNOMUSICOLOGY

A series edited by Philip V. Bohlman, Ronald Radano, and Timothy Rommen Editorial Board Margaret J. Kartomi Bruno Nettl Anthony Seeger Kay Kaufman Shelemay Martin H. Stokes Bonnie C. Wade

Kwaito’s Promise Music and the Aesthetics of Freedom in South Africa

GAVIN STEINGO

The University of Chicago Press

Chicago and London

G A V I N S T E I N G O is assistant professor of music at the University of Pittsburgh. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637 The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London © 2016 by The University of Chicago All rights reserved. Published 2016. Printed in the United States of America 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16

1 2 3 4 5

ISBN-13: 978-0-226-36240-3 (cloth) ISBN-13: 978-0-226-36254-0 (paper) ISBN-13: 978-0-226-36268-7 (e-book) DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226362687.001.0001 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Steingo, Gavin, author. Kwaito’s promise : music and the aesthetics of freedom in South Africa / Gavin Steingo. pages cm — (Chicago studies in ethnomusicology) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-226-36240-3 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-22636254-0 (pbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-226-36268-7 (e-book) 1. Kwaito (Music)—Social aspects. 2. Kwaito (Music)—Philosophy and aesthetics. 3. Kwaito (Music)—Political aspects. 4. Musicians, Black—South Africa. 5. South Africa—Social conditions—1994– I. Title. II. Title: Music and the aesthetics of freedom in South Africa. III. Series: Chicago studies in ethnomusicology. ML3503.S6S74 2016 781.63096822'1—dc23 2015035019 This book was published with the support of the AMS 75 PAYS Endowment of the American Musicological Society, funded in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Parts of Chapter 4 were published as “Sound and Circulation: Immobility and Obduracy in South African Electronic Music” by Gavin Steingo, Ethnomusicology Forum 24, no. 1 (2015): 102–23. ♾ This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).

Contents Preface vii Acknowledgments xiii A Note on Language xvii A Note on the Language of Race xix 1

The Struggle of Freedom 1

2

The Experience of the Outside 27

3

Platform, or The Miracle of the Ordinary 57

4

Immobility, Obduracy, and Experimentalism in Soweto 90

5

Acoustic Assemblages and Forms of Life 124

6

Black Diamonds 161

7

Times and Spaces of Listening 188 Epilogue 213 Notes 221

References 269

Index 293

Preface In 1994 people around the world turned their eyes toward South Africa to witness the official demise of apartheid and the inauguration of Nelson Mandela as the country’s first democratically elected president. At that critical moment, the urban black youth developed a new form of music called kwaito (roughly pronounced “kwy-toh”).1 This book traces the political history of South Africa alongside the musical history of kwaito over the first twenty years of democracy (1994– 2014). It investigates the often contradictory relationship between political processes and musical processes during a period that began with a euphoric and hopeful moment in the mid-1990s but that quickly led to disenchantment and even despair. Contemporary South Africa is marked by high rates of unemployment, extreme inequality, endemic crime, and the increasing sedimentation of political corruption. Politicians, journalists, and intellectuals often complain that kwaito has largely failed to provide any meaningful contribution to a post-apartheid society that desperately needs direction. Kwaito has been variously described as immature, apolitical, disconnected from social issues, and lacking any meaning or purpose. Its practitioners and listeners have been accused of irresponsibility in the face of major social problems and of ignoring the conditions in which South Africans— and black South Africans in particular— live. Based on extensive research in South Africa, this book shows that if kwaito’s musicians and listeners ignore their conditions, they do so deliberately in order to invent another way of perceiving the world. I argue that kwaito is less a form of escapism than vii

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an aesthetic practice of multiplying sensory reality and thus generating new possibilities in the midst of neoliberalism’s foreclosure of the future. Employing this idea as a guiding thread throughout, the book’s chapters engage a range of issues, including practices of musical circulation, the performativity of racialized and gendered bodies, valuation and economies of exchange, and the experimental construction of new forms of life. From a theoretical standpoint, I reinvigorate a politics of aesthetics at a time when aesthetic judgment is often dismissed as mere ideological mystification. With an ear attuned to kwaito’s promise of freedom, my aim throughout the various chapters is to explore the ways that musicians in post-apartheid South Africa engage multiple realities, experiment with the thresholds of knowledge, and challenge the partitions that structure contemporary South African life. I will get to all of these arguments in due course. Here, I want only to respond to another set of assumptions promulgated largely by international culture brokers, particularly those in Europe and the United States. When I first began working on kwaito in the early 2000s, the study of hip-hop was becoming firmly entrenched in the academy, and I could not present a single paper without someone asking me to connect the material to American hip-hop. “Isn’t this just South African hip-hop?” people would ask. The conflation of hip-hop with kwaito was exacerbated, in turn, by the “world music” market, and in particular by a CD compilation simply titled Kwaito: South African Hip-Hop (Stern's/Earthworks, 2000). A number of newspaper and magazine articles soon followed, each of which pronounced the emergence of a homegrown version of South African hip-hop. From a certain perspective this analogy is somewhat justified. After all, many kwaito musicians cite hip-hop musicians as influences, and kwaito songs often feature “rappers.” But the comparison obscures more than it reveals. In fact, the vast majority of kwaito musicians and fans insist that this music is anything but hip-hop. They have repeatedly emphasized a number of distinctions: hip-hop is overtly political whereas kwaito is largely “apolitical”; hip-hop is didactic whereas kwaito is party music; hip-hop deploys asymmetrical break beats whereas kwaito is typically based on symmetrical four-on-the-floor rhythms. Those who remain tempted to conflate kwaito and hip-hop overlook another important fact: there is a robust hip-hop scene in South Africa, and this scene is usually opposed to kwaito.2 Most kwaito musicians actually align themselves closely with a different genre of African American music: house. House music was pioneered by gay African American producers in Chicago in the early 1980s, and viii

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unlike hip-hop— yet very much like kwaito— house music’s lyrics are sparse and seldom explicitly political. Yet house music was slow to take off in the United States, and it remained largely “underground” in the early 2000s— at the very moment when hip-hop went “mainstream” and gained a foothold in the academy. And so it was that the words of kwaito’s practitioners were largely ignored. Based on superficial characteristics in the music and— let us be frank— the fact that these were black kids making the music, American and European audiences decided that “kwaito = hip-hop.” International culture brokers also devised a strategy of continually interviewing a group of musicians who were sometimes labeled as “kwaito” in South Africa but who were known to acknowledge hip-hop influence if explicitly asked. And then everything changed. Sometime around 2012, “electronic music” finally took off in America. Middle-class white youth began listening to derivatives of house music— to genres falling under the general rubric of “EDM” (an acronym for “electronic dance music”). Hipsters began losing interest in “indie rock” and discovered deep house. And then in 2014 longtime Chicago resident Barack Obama mourned the death of house pioneer Frankie Knuckles in an open letter that was widely circulated on the Internet. From around 2012 onward, it became impossible for me to deliver a single paper on kwaito without a member of the audience asking: “Isn’t this just South African house music?” What a strange turn of events! For reasons I have outlined, this question is more reasonable than the earlier one about hip-hop. More importantly, though, these questions— “Isn’t this just South African hip-hop?” and “Isn’t this just South African house?”— illustrate clearly the fickleness of international audiences. After careful consideration, and in light of my experiences just described, I have eschewed simple “translations” of kwaito into international genre categories. I ask the reader to avoid easy comparisons and to instead read generously and with an open mind. One other “assumption” (or cliché) I must respond to is the claim that kwaito is dead. There is of course some truth to this claim— as there is in all clichés. At the same time, saying that kwaito is dead is not particularly meaningful in my view. Although people do not use the word “kwaito” as much as they used to, electronic music genres very much like kwaito remain extremely popular in South Africa. Furthermore, anyone who enjoys pronouncing the death of genres should remember that jazz, rock, and hip-hop have also been pronounced dead countless times. Interestingly, though, the popular-music scene is changing quite significantly in South Africa today. While electronic music has been the mainstay of South African popular music since at least 1990 (and considix

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erably earlier than that, if one includes 1980s disco or “bubblegum”), in the last few years live bands have begun vying for audience attention. To be sure, there have always been rock, reggae, jazz, and Afro-fusion bands in South Africa, but for the past twenty or so years electronic music has dominated the market, and particularly the black music market. Now, for the first time since the early 1990s we are witnessing the emergence of a robust live-music scene in South Africa— led by young black musicians— with bands like The Muffinz and The Brother Moves On (TBMO) making a major impact. It is impossible to predict the future of South African music, but it seems that electronic music’s thirty-year dominance is finally being seriously challenged. Two additional points need to be made. First, this book focuses on music in South Africa and not on the circulation of South African music to other places. Of course, there are instances when the reception of South African music in other countries impacts local music production— I describe several such cases in these pages. Nonetheless, I remain focused on what happens in South Africa and largely elide discussions of international reception. This has very real consequences on the book as a whole, because the South African musicians who are commercially successful in the United States and Europe are not the most popular musicians in South Africa. Many of the musicians discussed in this book receive only two or three thousand views on YouTube, while far less locally popular groups such as Die Antwoord receive as many as sixty million views for a single song. In short, there is a disjuncture between the South African musicians who “make it” oversees and the musicians most popular within the country— particularly in the townships surrounding major cities. I felt that it was important to tell the story of South Africa’s local “heroes” and not simply to write about musicians adored by scenesters in Brooklyn and Kreuzberg. Second, an additional note on “theory” is in order: while this book takes a somewhat polemical stance on music, I do not intend this as an antagonistic gesture. Rather, my aim is twofold. I hope to contribute to the development of ethnomusicology as a discipline and I also hope to elaborate an understanding of music that lives up to the challenges of the contemporary South African political situation. It is a truism in music studies that talking about “the music itself” is not only wrong but also problematic and even “dangerous.” We all know that music does not exist in a vacuum and that it is always connected to society, culture, gender, politics, power, and so on. I can only hope that on completion of this book the reader will be sufficiently generous to acknowledge that I understand this argument and have taken it seriously. At x

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the same time, I hope to inject some doubt into this “safe” position. To anticipate my argument, I want to shake our confidence that all claims about musical autonomy are the result of ideological mystification. Instead, I take a cue from the philosopher Jacques Rancière and suggest a different relation to knowledge than that assumed by the concept of ideology. Following Rancière, I argue that musical autonomy is not so much an illusion that hides reality than it is a way of doubling reality. Or perhaps it may be useful to state my argument another way by considering a typical pedagogical encounter. As an ethnomusicologist, I often tell my students that music is always political. I used to believe that this statement communicated a profound insight. But in recent years, I must admit, telling students that music is always political sometimes rings hollow— not because it is untrue but rather because I have learned to wield the statement like a weapon against enthusiastic and bright-eyed eighteen-year-olds. I used to delight in crushing a student’s belief in “music for its own sake.” After all, is it not my job as teacher to educate or even enlighten? Perhaps. But anyone who has ever “demystified” a student’s supposedly naïve attitudes about music will also probably have noticed that the student was not as satisfied by the demystification as we— as teachers— are. Should we continue to attribute the student’s dissatisfaction to her inability to grasp difficult concepts? I am not convinced. This book takes the question of music seriously, not as a universal category but rather as a historically situated modality of experience. The consequences of this experience remain underdetermined but also, and precisely for this reason, compelling to think with.

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Acknowledgments This book benefited from the support and generosity of many people. I am grateful to my teachers, colleagues, friends, and family, all of whom contributed to my thinking and writing in countless ways. I received a great deal of support from the University of Pittsburgh. I must thank my colleagues in the Department of Music for the engaging conversations and for helpful comments on my work. In particular, I owe a debt of gratitude to Adriana Helbig, Neil Newton, and Andrew Weintraub. An Internal Faculty Fellowship at the Humanities Center provided me with valuable time and peace of mind at the final stages of writing— a million thanks to Jonathan Arac for his unwavering support. I also owe thanks to Susan Andrade, Brenton Malin, and Patrick Manning for being excellent interlocutors at the center. Much of this book was penned during a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship at Columbia University. My thanks to the faculty of the Department of Music for making my time at Columbia so memorable. I reserve a special word of appreciation for the brilliant Ana María Ochoa, who has inspired my work in innumerable ways. I would also like to add a note of thanks to my New York friends (ca. 2010–12) for their encouragement: Charlie Frohne, David Gutkin, Yoon-Ji Lee, Daniel Linden, Trisha Low, Keith McNight, Stephen Potter, Kirsten Saracini, Jonathan Singer, Nadine Vassalo, and Emily Yao. In Philadelphia, I benefited from the support of some amazing teachers who taught me most of what I know. A special thanks to Carol Muller, who has offered crucial guidxiii

ACkNOwLEDGMENTS

ance since the earliest stages of the project and who has always treated me like family. Special thanks are due as well to Gary Tomlinson, who has consistently challenged, stimulated, and encouraged my thinking. I additionally learned a great deal from Rita Barnard, Mark Butler, Emma Dillon, Guthrie Ramsey, and Timothy Rommen. I have had the good fortune of meeting several other excellent teachers and mentors along the way. I must give thanks to Étienne Balibar, whose generosity amazes me; David Coplan, whose sharp wit, encyclopedic knowledge, and political conviction I greatly admire; Manuel DeLanda, for inspiring me to take intellectual risks; and Louise Meintjes— seldom has a wiser mind and more magical spirit inhabited this earth. A number of friends have also “unofficially” influenced this book. Thanks to my “newer” friends, Wills Glasspiegel, Jessica Schwartz, and Noam Yuran. And to Bill Dietz, Andrew Smith, and Hervé Tchumkam— I thank you for a lifetime of support. I have been lucky enough to share the material in this book with audiences at various institutions in the last few years, including at Carnegie Mellon University (with gratitude to Wendy Goldman and Joe Trotter), Duke University (with special thanks to Louise Meintjes), Northwestern University (thanks, Ryan Dohoney), and Oberlin College (my thanks to Ian MacMillen). I am additionally grateful for similar opportunities at the Apollo Theater (with thanks to Jamilla Deriah and Shirley Taylor) and at Columbia University’s Heyman Center for the Humanities (thank you, Hagar Kotef ). Several individuals offered invaluable comments on chapter drafts. I am very grateful to Brian Beaton, Michael Gardiner, David Novak, Benjamin Piekut, Thomas Pooley, Michael Birenbaum Quintero, Martin Scherzinger, and Emily Zazulia. For Zulu language instruction, my thanks to Audrey Mbeje (USA) and Godfrey Tshabalala (South Africa). Bongani Mmbatha, Daniel Nakedi, and Joseph Napolitano assisted with translations in the text. Jonghee Kang did a fabulous job re-notating and polishing the music transcriptions. Her meticulousness throughout was very impressive. Thanks also to Brian Riordan for stimulating discussions about the transcriptions, to Bill Nelson for producing the maps, and to June Sawyer for preparing the index. Having grown up in South Africa, I cannot of course thank all the people who have contributed to my knowledge of that country. In terms of this book project, I am particularly grateful for the generosity I experienced in often challenging circumstances. In Soweto, my heartfelt thanks to Emmanuel Manie Chirwa, Ralph Miya, Azwindini Munonela, Daniel xiv

ACkNOwLEDGMENTS

Nakedi, and Ndivhuyafhi Nemungadi (DJ Davic). I am also grateful to a number of individuals who are not named directly in this book, and whom I have referred to with pseudonyms in order to avoid embarrassment or unwanted attention. In the greater Johannesburg area, I owe an immense debt of gratitude to Zwai Bala, Hudson Bongani Chauke, Jonathan Ziggy Hofmeyr, Dan Joffe, Kabelo Mabalane, Gao Mokone, Nonhlanhla Ngwenya, Cassandra Steingo, and Kgotso Gabriel Twala. A huge thank-you also to my parents, Sally Steingo and Leonard Steingo, for their constant support. At the University of Chicago Press, I am extremely grateful to the formidable Elizabeth Branch Dyson for her advice, guidance, and encouragement throughout the process. Pamela Bruton was a most excellent copy editor— thank you, Pam, for lending your exacting eye. Thanks also to Caterina MacLean and Ryo Yamaguchi for their hard work. I additionally greatly appreciate the assistance of the series editors. In particular, I must thank Ronald Radano for his sustained support and for initially shepherding me toward the press. Tim Rommen also provided swift and astute feedback. In terms of the publication process, I am grateful for two publication subventions— one from the American Musicological Society and one from the Richard D. and Mary Jane Edwards Endowed Publication Fund— that helped this book see the light of day. Finally, a few singular thank-yous. To Tigger Kim, for the friendship on many lonely days. To my intellectual companion, Jairo Moreno— words cannot express my gratitude. To the spectacular and unmatchable Roger Grant, for believing in me and for reading countless drafts, and revisions, and revisions of revisions . . . To Helen Kim, the one and only— for making my days bright and my life full— I cannot imagine a world without you. And to Sizwe, the most gifted person I know: your brilliance inspires and shakes me— this book is dedicated to you.

xv

A Note on Language South Africa has eleven official languages: Afrikaans, English, Ndebele, Northern Sotho, Southern Sotho, Swazi, Tsonga, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa, and Zulu.1 In addition to these, other African and European languages such as Shona, Tonga, Lingala, French, and Portuguese are commonly heard in the urban soundscape. These languages are mixed in creative ways, both in kwaito’s lyrics and in everyday discourse among black South Africans. The process of language mixing has a long history in South Africa. The best-known and researched creole is tsotsitaal, which emerged in the freehold township of Sophiatown in the 1940s. There, tsotsi referred to the slick urban hustler, modeled on characters from American films like The Street with No Name (1948). The word is derived, in fact, from the attire worn by dapper Hollywood heroes— zoot suits.2 Tsotsitaal is a creole that incorporates strains from many languages but is constituted primarily by Afrikaans, English, and Zulu.3 It is commonly used throughout urban areas in South Africa and forms the basis of most kwaito lyrics. Some linguists have argued that in the greater Johannesburg metropolitan area a new creole, isicamtho, has replaced tsotsitaal. Bonner and Segal take a longer view, observing that the difference between the two language-varieties is based on their respective historical origins. Tsotsitaal, they maintain, was transported from Sophiatown directly to the Soweto township of Meadowlands after black residents of the former were forcibly removed. Isicamtho, by contrast, “spontaneously evolved in the slightly older areas of Soweto, such as Orlando East and West” (Bonner and Segal 1998, 59). The latxvii

A NOTE ON L ANGUAGE

ter language-variety, by their account, evolved in the 1960s and is based on Zulu, unlike tsotsitaal, which is based on Afrikaans. What does it mean to say that a language-variety is “based on” another language? As Dumisani Krushchev Ntshangase explains, both tsotsitaal and isicamtho are used “through” other languages. Like tsotsitaal, he observes, isicamtho “has no structure of its own since it relies heavily on the language structures of the languages from which it ‘operates.’ This means that it has not yet developed its own syntactic base which will make it linguistically independent of the base languages” (2002, 407). Ntshangase suggests that the main difference between tsotsitaal and isicamtho is the syntactic base, which is Afrikaans in the former and Zulu (or sometimes Sotho4) in the latter.5 Ntshangase’s comparative analysis of tsotsitaal and isicamtho confirms my own research in most respects. There is, however, one important aspect where our work diverges: I found that in Soweto many people use the word tsotsitaal as a general term referring to any urban slang.6 In other words, my interlocutors refer to the Zulu-based creole that they speak as tsotsitaal and not isicamtho. I am not arguing that they would refuse the designation isicamtho, but only that they seldom use that term.7 In this book, then, I use the term tsotsitaal when referring generally to urban creoles. Although I took courses in Zulu and continued to study the language during fieldwork, I was not prepared to follow conversations that continually mix and move between four or more languages— as is frequently the case in Soweto and other parts of the Johannesburg area. The conversations I understood best were those in Zulu-based tsotsitaal, because I was able to draw on my Zulu education from university and my twelve years of Afrikaans study in school (grades 1–12). Still, I relied on friends in the field for help understanding conversations and for translations into English when necessary. I am very grateful for their generosity and goodwill. One final small point is in order. For the sake of convenience, and to avoid confusion, throughout this book I omit prefixes of Zulu noun stems when referring to languages or ethnicities. For example, I refer to the languages Zulu and Xhosa, and not isiZulu and isiXhosa (the latter being technically more accurate by some accounts). I also simplify plural forms, referring to Zulus and Xhosas (rather than the amaZulu and amaXhosa) and to more than one “traditional healer” as sangomas rather than izangoma.

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A Note on the Language of Race I use the terms “black” and “white” as racial designations throughout this book. This is not an essentialist gesture but rather seeks to recognize the historical, material, social, and psychic realities of contemporary South African life. While the parameters of race have shifted considerably since the end of apartheid, South Africa remains intensely segregated, and the emic categories “black” and “white” continue to function on psychological and affective levels. Additionally, there are solid sociological reasons for employing these terms, not least of which is the fact that inequality in South Africa remains highly racialized: while an estimated 54 percent of blacks were living under the poverty line in 2011, fewer than 1 percent of whites were poor by the same definition.1 I am uncomfortable describing white South Africans as “Europeans” and black South Africans as “Africans” for several reasons. For one thing, the terms “black” and “white” (rather than “European” and “African”) are more commonly used by the South African government— for example, when it refers to Black Economic Empowerment (BEE). Second, the terms “black” and “white” are more commonly used by South African citizens themselves (although considering the country’s immense linguistic diversity, it is admittedly difficult to assert as much with any confidence). Finally, I insist on the real possibility— even if currently unrealized— of a multiracial (and, yes, ultimately nonracial) South Africa. If people have no problem accepting the idea of a “white Ausxix

A NOTE ON THE L ANGUAGE Of rACE

tralian” or a “white American,” then I do not see why one should reject the idea of a “white South African.” What needs to be acknowledged and addressed in each of these cases (i.e., South Africa, Australia, America) is the long history of systematic oppression and continued inequality. This is not achievable through nativism. It should be noted, finally, that “Coloured” and “Asian” identities complicate the white/black binarism.2 Nonetheless, because this book focuses on “black” music, I take up the issue of Coloured and Asian identities only piecemeal and when relevant.

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ONE

The Struggle of Freedom As I write, kwaito is booming all around me in the office, blasting through the walls and out of our souls. Everything about my surroundings seems to give you the jitters, as if it’s society’s worst nightmare. REVOLUTION”

G E O RG E H I L L , “ T H E KWA I TO

1

In 2008 I returned home to Johannesburg, South Africa, after seven years of studying in the United States. The first thing I saw when exiting the plane at Oliver Tambo International Airport was a newspaper headline, accompanied by a photograph of the city center, that read: “Welcome to Hell.” In the weeks and months that followed, I would lose friends to AIDS, gun violence, and poisoning. I would experience a place, a time, and a people reeling under the weight of poverty and joblessness, anguished by political corruption, and deeply traumatized by a wave of xenophobic attacks against Africans from northern lands. Recurrent power outages and rolling blackouts resulted in dark and eerie urban nights, and the sheer frequency of motor vehicle accidents rendered the very word “accident” meaningless.2 Cultural critics Sarah Nuttall and Liz McGregor (2007, 12) summarize the situation as follows: “[t]o live in South Africa is to be subliminally primed for major loss, the most common causes being traffic accidents, crime or HIV/AIDS.” Fourteen years earlier, South Africans had witnessed the formal demise of apartheid. On April 27, 1994, people of all races went to the ballot box in the country’s first ever democratic election. In the spirit of reconciliation, my family’s longtime domestic worker, Johanna (who is black),

1

CHAPTEr ONE

accompanied my mother (who is white) to the voting station.3 Nelson Mandela was inaugurated as South Africa’s first black president a few weeks later, and for a moment people of all backgrounds bathed in the glow of our nascent democracy. For just a moment, anything seemed possible.4 At this critical historical juncture, and in unison with the democratic transition, the urban black youth developed kwaito, a form of electronic music commonly understood as the expression of freedom in the postapartheid period. Songs like Boom Shaka’s “It’s About Time” and Trompies’ “Celebrate” clearly marked the beginning of a new, democratic society— a “Rainbow Nation,” as it came to be known. In an early article about kwaito, the ethnomusicologist Angela Impey (2001, 45) wrote: “No longer restrained by the need to comment on racial injustice and political freedom, it expressed a new set of dreams.” But by 2008 the thrill was gone.5 Johannesburg, I was told upon arrival, was hell. What had happened to freedom? According to activist and kwaito musician Zola 7: “As much as the children of the ’70s and ’80s had to be violent to make a point, the generation of the ’90s had to deal with freedom and that is hard. Whoever says the struggle continues didn’t tell us how. Kwaito came out of that” (Neate 2004, 142). Dealing with freedom is hard: if music during apartheid expressed the struggle for freedom, then kwaito expresses the struggle of freedom. How does one struggle, not for freedom, but with freedom, in freedom, or perhaps against freedom? How does one struggle freely? And if such a struggle is indeed possible, then what are the vicissitudes and parameters of freedom in the first place? Most importantly, how did kwaito “come out” of this struggle? And how, in this context, might we understand musical expression and the role of the sonorous more generally? I have spent the past ten years researching kwaito in an attempt to answer these impossible questions. Between 2008 and 2009 I spent a year living in Soweto, South Africa’s largest township, a key site of anti-apartheid activism and the birthplace of kwaito. Since then I have returned frequently to Soweto and other parts of South Africa, including the northern suburbs of Johannesburg where I grew up. Taking a cue from Zola 7, I have long considered kwaito a suitable medium through which to understand the calculus of political freedom in a country ravaged by record levels of inequality, crime, and AIDS. As Zola suggests, in post-apartheid South Africa people struggle precisely because they are free. In order to understand how things came to be this way, it is necessary to return to the moment of South Africa’s democratic transition. With the

2

THE STrUGGLE Of frEEDOM

failure of “actually existing” Socialism in the late 1980s, intellectuals and activists around the world recognized the need to rethink radically the concepts of freedom and emancipation. Although the triumph of neoliberalism has clearly not brought emancipation for most of the world’s population, the search for alternatives has been strikingly unsuccessful.6 When criticized for abandoning its initial Leftist project, the African National Congress responds with the Thatcherite slogan: “TINA!”— There Is No Alternative.7 Against this assertion, the response from the Left has been mostly unimaginative. In the place of TINA, activists such as Patrick Bond (1992) have suggested THEMBA, There Must Be an Alternative. In Zulu, the word themba means “hope,” but this leaves us with the questions “what political forms might this hope take?” and “what kind of economic and political reconfiguration can we expect in the ‘postrevolutionary’ era?” The turbulent and at times euphoric transition of the mid-1990s was undermined from the start. The democratic dispensation actually contained assurances that white South Africans would not have to give up their property, and as the important anti-apartheid activist Mamphela Ramphele (2001, 11) observed: “The outcome, brutally stated, is that white South Africans got away with murder.” In one of the most lucid analyses of the present conjuncture, Achille Mbembe (2011a, 10) affirms that since the end of apartheid, South Africa has been marked by the “apparent foreclosure of any form of radical politics” and, therefore, of any real transformation. Granted, one can easily point to political, social, and economic changes over the past two decades. In terms of official politics, Mandela’s vision of a multiracial Rainbow Nation gave way, to some extent, to President Thabo Mbeki’s continental view of an African Renaissance in 1999, which was replaced, in turn, by President Jacob Zuma’s “populism” in 2009. But on closer inspection, the political scene has not changed in any fundamental respect since 1994. South Africa is stuck in a kind of deadlock: the major achievement of liberal democracy has been the suspension of revolution and the suspension of war. In this sense, the post-apartheid period is best characterized as a time of radical stasis. Against and beneath this stasis, I will argue, kwaito continues to sound an alternative sensory reality. After the fall of apartheid, South Africans listen to the song “Celebrate” with hope and nostalgia, with nostalgia for hope— a hope that refuses to be fully muted. Over a steady electronic drum track and repeated four-chord sequence, we sing along with the group Trompies:

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CHAPTEr ONE

Let’s celebrate It’s time to celebrate Ifikile into yam’

[My sweetheart has arrived8

Ufikile ushushu baby!

My sweetheart has arrived!

Sifikile esikhatisam’

My time has arrived]

It’s time to celebrate9

Although the song will be over in five minutes, for its duration kwaito sounds the promise of freedom, a “long walk,” a mirage, a secret. But this promise comes at a price. Politicians and cultural watchdogs never tire of complaining that kwaito’s musicians and fans ignore actual social conditions— that they are not socially responsible— and that, although South Africa has dozens of social ills, all they can do is party. South African journalists have described kwaito variously as “higgledypiggledy music,” “music with no meaning or purpose,” “music that infects our youth with a sense of recklessness,” and music that is analogous to “a piece of bubblegum that one chews for a bit and then throws away after it has lost its sweetness.”10 Former president Mbeki famously called kwaito a “distraction” from real political issues, and echoing that sentiment, political commentator Joel Pollak asserted: “Kwaito music is particularly apolitical, celebrating the material and social aspirations of the post-apartheid era, while passing over the actual dismal material and social conditions of most of its listeners.”11 The most important theoretical implication of these various criticisms is that they replicate and reaffirm— albeit in different terms— the mainstream (ethno)musicological idea that no musician or listener can ever successfully evade his or her actual social conditions. Moreover, claiming that one’s experience of music departs from actual social conditions is seen as an illusion and a form of ideological mystification. What unites the so-called “New Musicology” with the discipline of ethnomusicology is a trenchant critique of aesthetic autonomy— that is, a critique of the notion that people can abstract themselves from the social.12 Since the 1990s the field of music studies has affirmed the inherent interconnectedness of music, culture, and politics by adopting a vigilantly critical stance against musical autonomy. The primary target of critique has not been popular music, of course, but rather “classical” music of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, along with this music’s human counterpart— namely, the aesthete who believes that he or she has the ability to appreciate beauty disinterestedly and without recourse to a particular taste culture. In most cases, ethnomusicologists and “New” musicologists have drawn inspiration (whether directly or indirectly) 4

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from Pierre Bourdieu’s (1984, 493) highly influential argument that “aesthetic distinction”— the notion that some people enjoy music for its own sake, outside of social and political interests— is in fact “a misrecognized form of social difference” (my emphasis).13 Following Bourdieu (again, either directly or indirectly), musicologists have joined ethnomusicologists in the task of demystifying claims of disinterested aesthetic judgment.14 The most prominent scholar in this regard is Susan McClary, who in the early 1990s wrote forcefully about the “ideological basis of music’s operations” that “allow[s] cultural activities to ‘make sense’” whether or not people in that culture acknowledge it.15 For McClary, music is inherently social, and the analyst’s job is to uncover music’s social dimension— particularly when it is disavowed. Thus, in response to modernist male composers such as Roger Sessions, Arnold Schoenberg, and Milton Babbitt, who assert the inherent value of Western art music over and against any social value it may have, McClary (1989) detects a hidden motivation. She unmasks any claim for musical autonomy as a power play, as a strategy for accruing cultural capital and gaining prestige. The critique of aesthetic autonomy has been extremely important and valuable for contemporary music studies, especially when one considers the often pernicious ways that aesthetics has been seized upon by Eurocentric ideologues and harnessed for political ends. The advent of modern aesthetics, after all, made possible Eduard Hanslick’s assertion that contemplative listening should be properly contrasted with “pathological” forms of audition ascribed to women and “savages.”16 It also played a part in the construction of an overwhelmingly white and male canon, which feminist music scholars continue to challenge. For all these reasons, the field of contemporary music studies (with notable exceptions) has been structured around two related assumptions. First, musical practice and experience are an exercise of, struggle for, or contestation over power. That is to say, engagements with music are always interested— there is no aesthetic judgment that is not simultaneously a social and cultural evaluation based on material interest. As David Graeber (2001, 29) quips, in much “critical” thought the “assumption is that ‘objective’ or ‘scientific’ analysis means trying to cut through to the level on which you can say people are being selfish, and that when one discovers this, one’s job is done.”17 The second assumption is that knowledge is only ever true or false: there is a true knowledge that is aware (and thus liberatory) and a false knowledge that ignores (and therefore oppresses). The task of the scholar is to access true knowledge by demystifying the claim that some people enjoy music for music’s sake, when in reality those people are merely harnessing aesthetic distinction in order to elevate the 5

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status of their own music and thereby dominate those who exhibit only “vulgar” taste. The central argument of this book is that these two assumptions (while important when addressing rampant Eurocentrism, racism, and sexism) are too simple, and in what follows I show that the study of kwaito calls for a fundamental reevaluation of music studies’ basic axioms. Following Jacques Rancière (2006, 3), I argue that “there is not one knowledge but two, that each knowledge [savoir] is accompanied by a certain ignorance, and therefore that there is also a knowledge [savoir] which represses and an ignorance which liberates.”18 On the basis of ethnographic evidence, this book shows that if kwaito musicians and listeners ignore actual social conditions, they do this intentionally in order to forge another body and another way of hearing. From this perspective, kwaito is not an illusion that hides reality; on the contrary, it doubles reality, which the critical tradition would like to retain as one (Rancière 2006, 6). The conceptual shift from illusion as hiding/masking to illusion as generating a new sensory reality is fundamental to my argument. In this book I revive the notion of aesthetics so disdained by contemporary music studies, but only in order to reconfigure and reshape it. For one thing, my aim is not to advocate the superiority of European “classical” music. Furthermore, I do not understand aesthetics in terms of particular artistic practices or objects, and neither do I understand it as a theory of the beautiful or its judgment. Instead, as I detail at length below, aesthetics can describe a particular modality of sensory perception. I will argue, moreover, that it is the critical (ethno)musicologist— and not necessarily the “aesthetic” listener— who is liable to the accusation of elitism and social distinction. The aesthetic listener ignores or suspends normative ways of hearing, however “politically progressive” they may be deemed to be, in order to create for herself or himself another way of perceiving the world. The critical music scholar, by contrast, unmasks aesthetic attitudes in order to reveal some more fundamental truth about the nature of power and its relationship to musical experience. The critical scholar, in other words, believes that she or he knows the correct way to perceive sounds and rails against any deviation from that “proper” mode of perception. It is to this critical position that Rancière refers when he says that there is “knowledge which represses”: in demystifying the aesthetic illusion, critical music scholars effectively assign to each social group a correct way of hearing and knowing, effectively allot to each group “the judgments of taste corresponding to their ethos” or habitus (Rancière 2006, 3). Consider, for a moment, Trompies’ “Celebrate,” which exemplifies a number of kwaito’s general characteristics. In that song, vocals in Zulu, 6

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English, and an urban vernacular known as tsotsitaal are repeatedly rapped or “chanted” over an electronic substrate closely resembling American house music,19 while everyday sounds and “noise” are layered over the musical texture in a way that challenges the distinction between music and nonmusic. As we have already seen, these musical characteristics have never ceased to provoke scandal. Kwaito musicians valorize the pleasures of the body (while ignoring the bodies of the poor and sick) and celebrate good times (while ignoring the fact that, for many, life is extremely difficult and painful).20 They draw on American and other “foreign” sources (precisely at a moment when, according to some, they should be developing explicitly South African music) and play with the distinction between local and nonlocal (until the listener cannot be certain whether she or he is hearing local or foreign music). They blur the boundaries between speech and music and between music and nonmusic (leaving the listener to wonder whether she is hearing music at all). Finally, they occasionally employ words that either do not exist or else have uncertain meaning. (When asked what the title of his song “La Porte” means, DJ Sox responded with obvious delight: “Nothing! It doesn’t mean anything!”)21 The journalists and politicians are therefore correct, in a way: kwaito does pass over the actual dismal conditions of its listeners; kwaito is a distraction from real political issues. Contrary to the critics, however, I argue that these characteristics are precisely what make kwaito political. I contend that kwaito is political not because of the messages that it communicates or the emotions that it transmits. Nor is it political because it mirrors society’s structures or represents the conflicts between social groups.22 On the contrary, kwaito is political by virtue of its disconnection and detachment from these functions.23 Rejecting what Pumla Gqola (2013, 13) calls “the bizarre South African obsession with ‘art that has a message,’”24 kwaito suspends normative perception and establishes a domain of sensory reality at odds with the accepted ordering of society. Whether or how this suspension is effective at the level of listeners, dancers, makers, or music distributors lies at the center of this book. Despite their different approaches and motivations, music scholars in the Global North and South African critics of kwaito share a commitment to knowledge as a deliberate process of uncovering truth. For critical music scholars, denying music’s inevitable relationship with society is understood as ideological mystification or false consciousness (as in the case of aesthetic autonomy); for South African journalists and politicians, passing over actual social conditions is considered a form of ignorance or even delusion. All these terms— “deception,” “mystification,” “ignorance,” “delusion”— imply a truth to which only some people have access. 7

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Critical academics insist that music everywhere has an identifiable social and political position, and that if this position is not obvious, then an analyst is needed to uncover it. With aesthetic autonomy finally vanquished, academics can effortlessly produce studies about music as an affirmation of social identity, music as gendered performance, or music’s relationship to embodiment and sexual pleasure.25 The aim of these studies is always critical, analytical, or even pedagogical: admiration of Jimi Hendrix’s music is revealed to be “mere” racial enjoyment of his black male body; one’s experience of an opera’s “musical” aspects turns out to be the erotic pleasure of listening to gendered voices. Music, in short, is always revealed as a displaced and mystified social relation. Along these lines, would it not be possible to argue (or even “show”) that kwaito’s practitioners and listeners do not really ignore actual social conditions, that what appears to be a form of political ignorance or indifference is “in reality” an identifiable political position? Certainly. But that would assume, first, that there is only one knowledge and, second, that the critical scholar has access to that knowledge. For these reasons, I eschew the deployment of critical analysis to unearth a hidden political project or impulse beneath the words and practices of my interlocutors. Nor will I attempt to categorize “taste cultures,” genres, styles, and social groups. To do so would be to place myself in a position of mastery.26 I therefore do not believe that one should critique music away— for example, by illustrating that music is nothing more than a displaced social distinction. Furthermore, I aim to avoid two particular perils: (1) dismissing kwaito as “regressive” or as higgledy-piggledy nonsense and (2) discovering through critique that kwaito is actually a form of resistance or that it is actually the direct representation of a particular social identity. What, then, can music be for South African kwaito musicians? According to Sizwe, one of my key interlocutors, music is a response to the fact that “we are flying blindly. It’s boring on this planet.” But with music, he told me, “we are looking for a new frontier, a new utopia.” And then after a brief pause he wistfully continued: “But only the new generation can see it, only the acrobats, only the dreamers.” It is a truism in music studies that music is no utopia, that a musical dream of utopia is nonsense at best and at worst verges dangerously on fascism.27 But I will suggest that there is another way to understand Sizwe’s claims, and one of the main motivations for writing this book has been to find a way truly to hear his words without demystifying them. When Sizwe talks of a new utopia in music, he has not simply adopted a degraded form of bourgeois ideology regarding musical aesthetics. Music

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is not simply an illusion that hides reality from Sizwe by allowing him to experience some false fantasy. Instead, music doubles reality, allowing Sizwe to imagine and even experience a world that does not yet exist. To be sure, if music (sometimes) suspends ordinary forms of sensory experience, this is not because of its alleged nonreferentiality, and I am not in any way arguing for musical transcendence or for music as some kind of unmediated affect. In other words, there is nothing in “music” that magically separates it from life. On the contrary, music is the very name of this separation— a separation that requires a very particular sensory apparatus and a very particular set of operations carried out through that apparatus. Or consider another conversation with Sizwe. When I asked him what kind of music he makes, he told me that he makes only “music” and not any particular kind. He insisted that he does not think of his music in terms of genre or style and that his music evades all categorization. On the one hand, Sizwe’s answer can easily be interpreted as simple posturing about his music being beyond labels. Indeed, the standard ethnomusicological response would be to politely listen to Sizwe’s statement and then subsequently reinterpret it “critically” as such: Sizwe’s statement purports to be about musical aesthetics, but in reality he is trying to generate cultural capital. Since it is considered a truism that everyone participates in a particular taste culture whether or not they like to admit it, most ethnomusicologists would interpret Sizwe’s statement as an aesthetic judgment displacing a more fundamental social distinction. I ask, however, that we take Sizwe’s statement seriously. How might we interpret his words in a more ethnographically sensitive manner? I answer this question comprehensively in chapter 2. When I interviewed the prominent kwaito musician Kabelo Mabalane, I asked him whether he thought that music has liberatory potential. He responded: “Look, I mean, people can use music as a form of escapism, but—.”28 In a moment of ethnographic eagerness and failure, I interrupted him in midsentence to clarify my question: “I don’t mean escapism,” I said. “I meant liberation.” To this, Kabelo eloquently responded: “I understood your question— and I know escapism has negative connotations, but it can take people, it can help in taking people’s focus off what seems to be real and isn’t. So in a sense, that is a form of freedom— I suppose the positive side of escapism.” Kabelo suggests that musical experience suspends normative ways of perceiving the world, but according to him those normative ways can, in a sense, be illusory. From this perspective, the “actual conditions” of a society are “real” only as a description of contingent social relations.29 Kwaito musicians stage a conflict of sen-

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sory worlds; they pit against the actual conditions of society another perceptual reality that perturbs the foundations of societal and communal formation. In each chapter of this book I return constantly and consistently to the main thesis: kwaito frames sensory experience by ignoring actual social conditions. Journalists may dismiss this framing of sensory experience as mere illusion, but kwaito musicians describe it as “the positive side of escapism” or “a new frontier, a new utopia.” There is no specific connection between aesthetics and politics— at the very least, the relationship is ambiguous. Nevertheless, if, as many of my interlocutors told me, music gives South Africans “hope” for the future,30 this implies that there is often a temptation to transform music into life: for music’s separateness ceaselessly promises the opposite, that is, a life and world in which music does not exist as a separate domain of experience. And so it is that— even in a highly antagonistic political milieu— kwaito continues to promise. Indeed, it continues to promise what it promised at the moment of democratic transition, when notions of emancipation and equality still seemed tangible. Although the promise of equality today seems like an impossible dream, we can aver with Rancière (2009a, 14) that what “emerges as a response to this dream is the promise carried by the loss itself.” In this book, I trace that promise, following the impossible dream through vinyl collections and township streets, via taxis and radio waves, across mine dumps and into gated communities. I introduce the reader to prominent producers and “amateur” musicians, to tavern owners and thieves. I ruminate on the intersection of occult forces, mutilated dogs, and computer hard drives that enables and disables particular aspects of musical practice. I describe my experiences being mugged and harassed, attacked by animals, making music, smoking cigarettes, listening to rumors, and being cared for by friends. At the end, we are left with complex entanglements of social, political, and musical forces whose outcome has not yet been determined. This book might be read as an ethnographic study of the “politics of aesthetics” that focuses on, and thinks with, kwaito. My aim is not to argue for kwaito’s exceptionalism— much of what I say about kwaito as an aesthetic modality of experience might plausibly be said of other musics. At the same time, kwaito is not simply an “example” of the deeply troubled relationship between politics and aesthetics; it is, rather, a robust form of experimentation with its thresholds and limits. And because South Africa represents one of the most important contemporary experiments in nonracial democracy, Kwaito’s Promise seeks to understand how such an experiment is felt, heard, sounded, and resounded in practice. 10

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Democracy between Equality and Inequality Kwaito is unanimously understood as a response to South Africa’s democratic dispensation, and indeed, democracy is a crucial condition of possibility for this music.31 But how should we understand democracy in South Africa? In this book, I argue that a comprehensive analysis requires an examination of democracy beyond its formation as a political system. If Zola  7 is correct that in post-apartheid South Africa people struggle because they are free— that is, if they struggle because democracy already exists— then surely there must be another freedom, some kind of supplement to the first, that has not yet been successfully activated. Democracy qua political system is best summarized as a single “astounding principle: those who rule do it on the grounds that there is no reason why some persons should rule over others, except the fact that there is no reason” (Rancière 2009c, 276–77). In contrast to the apartheid system, in which black people had a clearly defined and inferior position in South African society, democracy inculcates the new principle that there is no reason why those who rule should be rulers. This principle has created a genuine political dilemma, especially since a small percentage of black South Africans acquired wealth quickly after 1994 while the vast majority remained very poor. As Thomas Blom Hansen (2012, 16) has argued, the post-apartheid period is characterized by “what Hegel called a ‘loss of loss,’ that is, the disappearance of the blockage— unfreedom and apartheid— that prevented true self-realization and thus explained most problems and shortcomings in everyday life.” The post-apartheid period spells the loss of explanations and alibis: with apartheid gone, there is no longer any reason why some should rule over others, except for the very fact that they rule, and except for the fact that there is no reason.32 One thing, however, is certain: democracy is not the end point of politics— it is simply, and only, the strange and even astounding principle that there is nothing about the rulers that makes them the rulers. Hence, against democracy’s “anarchical principle,” there must be another principle; that is, there must be some principle that makes a problem of the fact that some rule while others do not.33 Seen this way, democracy is not limited to a type of governmental apparatus but is rather, as Étienne Balibar (2008, 526) puts it, “the name of a process which we could call tautologically the democratization of democracy itself ” (emphasis in original). What would it mean to democratize democracy? It would mean, I think, for those who are ruled to activate their equality against their inequality. As Olympe de Gouges (1791) said 11

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during the French Revolution, if women are entitled to mount the scaffold, then they are entitled also to go to the Assembly. In making this claim, de Gouges staged an inconsistency between one logic (all people are equal) and another logic (qualification and differentiation within a society). She challenged the existing general configuration of who counts as a citizen by appealing to equality through a specific and contingent political gesture. Nonetheless, this gesture was possible only because democratic rights had already been enunciated, as Balibar (2007, 6) suggests: “The whole history of emancipation is not so much the history of the demanding of unknown rights as of the real struggle to enjoy rights which have already been declared” (emphasis in original).34 In South Africa, contemporary politics is marked by two opposing tendencies. First, citizens are— at least from a “formal” perspective— completely equal: there is no reason, or at least there should not be any reason, that some people (e.g., blacks) are poorer than others (e.g., whites). (Of course, there are very obvious reasons why black people are poorer than whites, but from a formal perspective these inequalities are registered as genuine anomalies or “pathologies.”) Second, it is possible in South Africa to notice the exact opposite: namely, that there is immense inequality and that the vast majority of poor people are black. In other words, formal equality between citizens is roundly contradicted by material inequality between social groups. As an empirical example of this contradiction, consider the relationship between the domestic worker— almost always black— and her boss. Domestic workers are fully aware that the only reason they are subjected to demeaning work with little pay is because of historical injustices, and they know that they have every right to enjoy their rights as citizens.35 When I volunteered as an English teacher at a church in Johannesburg in 2004, my students— all of whom were domestic workers— were openly disgusted when the white church managers and reverends sat separately at our Christmas party and ate with expensive silverware, while the students (whom I joined) sat at the other end of the room and were given paper plates and plastic cutlery. “Do they think they are better than us?” one of my students asked, understandably appalled. The ruled, in other words, are not ideologically duped into believing that they deserve to be ruled. Those who are ruled know very well that they are equal to those who rule them. And yet, this equality is only the basis for the inequality that results when the ruled obey an order: although the domestic workers at the Christmas party grew upset with the church elders for creating a clear distinction between the two groups of people, it was only because they understood that they were not to cross the barrier 12

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and use the expensive silverware that those domestic workers in a sense “maintained” the inequality. Hence: “By understanding, those who obey only understand so that they can obey; as such, the nature of their inequality is predicated on equality” (Moreno and Steingo 2012, 489). This contradictory, we could even say aporetic, situation is typical of liberal and representative democracies. Of course, all liberal-democratic states are different— among them exist different “degrees of freedom,” to use Rebecca Scott’s (2008) perspicacious phrase— and I do not mean to suggest that South Africa is the same as the United States, or that Argentina is the same as South Korea. Nonetheless, as political apparatuses, liberal democracies share certain features and it is these features with which I am concerned and with which kwaito interacts. In liberal democracies, citizens are formally equal even though they are not equal in any material or social way. It is therefore not adequate to say simply that in liberal democracies citizens are not equal. Nor is it sufficient to attempt some kind of ideological demystification and say that although the state tells its citizens that they are equal, in actual fact they are not. Instead, the situation is more complex, more ambiguous. As in all liberal democracies, the citizens of South Africa are formally equal even while they are materially and socially unequal. Understanding the antagonistic relationship between the simultaneous equality and inequality of the rulers and the ruled is perhaps the most pressing task of contemporary politics. Balibar states succinctly: [I]t may be thought that the existence of a society always presupposes an organization, and that the latter in turn always presupposes an element of qualification or differentiation from equality and thus of “nonequality” developed on the basis of equality itself (which is not on that account a principle of inequality). If we call this element “archy” [i.e., leader, principle] we will understand that one of the elements of citizenship leads to the idea of anarchy. It was Sade who wrote, “Insurrection should be the permanent state of the republic.” (1991, 50–51, emphasis in original)36

Balibar’s words explain why and how domestic workers, for example, could— and perhaps should— begin an insurrection. What, after all, is stopping them? It is worth emphasizing here that to speak of equality is not to say that all people are the same. Balibar (1991, 50) suggests that equality actually “preserves differences (it does not imply that Catholics are Protestants, that Blacks are Whites, that women are men, or vice versa; it could even be held that without differences equality would be literally unthinkable).” In other words, the task is to think equality and liberty together.37 The prolif13

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eration of cultural difference and the affirmation of individual liberty take place alongside, and in a reciprocal relationship with, equality. Equality is not the goal of politics, nor is it something that can be “achieved” through political action. On the contrary, equality is the presupposition of all politics; it is an axiom or principle that is “not at all realized, but real” (Badiou 2005, 112, emphasis in original). The always partial realization of axiomatic equality is contingent and even haphazard. Politics does not proceed linearly and according to some teleological trajectory. Furthermore, equality is not an “ontological principle” that people simply harness and then press into the service of politics.38 It is merely an assumption that is determined experimentally through practice.39 This explains why I do not offer a concrete definition of freedom anywhere in this book. Following the crucial insights of both democratic theory and the archive of South African struggle, I understand freedom as fundamentally related to equality, but I also adopt the insight that both equality and liberty are nonessentialist and therefore resistant to conceptual definition.40 One aim of this book is to examine how South African musicians and activists discern the axiom of equality through experimental practices, which both include and extend beyond music. Kwaito is perhaps above all else a declaration of sensory and intellectual equality. Through this declaration musicians and listeners at once presuppose equality and enact it. They make tangible the “fact” that there is no reason why those who rule are those who rule; they make sensate the “fact” that there is no reason why things are this way and not another. But this is not, I reiterate, a claim for kwaito’s exceptionalism, and my purpose is not simply to assert or prove that kwaito is a declaration of sensory equality. Rather, in the chapters that follow I explicate how and through what means kwaito musicians confront equality, freedom, and democracy. Doing so will require a variety of approaches grounded in fine-grained ethnography.

Politics and Aesthetics: An Overview Kwaito’s Promise is structured around two key terms: “freedom” and “aesthetics.” Although it does not adopt Western aesthetic theory wholesale, this book is nonetheless open to a certain interpretation of aesthetic judgment— at least in its more political guises elaborated by scholars such as Jacques Rancière, J. M. Bernstein, Steven Shaviro, and Gayatri Spivak.41 To elucidate further my relation to aesthetic theory, I return once more to the situation of the domestic worker, that is, the example of the bourgeois home that one person owns and another works to maintain. 14

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While the domestic worker may seem to have little to do with aesthetics, the example is remarkably similar to one offered by Immanuel Kant in his Critique of Judgment (1790), in what was one of the earliest articulations of modern aesthetics. I am thinking of the famous case, not of a bourgeois home, but of a palace about which Kant asks: “Is this palace which I see before me beautiful?”42 In answering this question, Kant makes the unusual move of saying that the palace can be considered beautiful only if we ignore its existence as a real object. Hence, although Kant would not phrase things in these terms, his argument implies that finding a palace beautiful requires an indifference toward the massive amounts of exploitative labor that went into its creation. In doing so, he systematizes a particular modality of experience that implies a disconnection from habitual conditions (Rancière 2006, 1). This disconnection assumes the sensory equality of all people, since anyone— even and especially the builder— has the capacity to see the palace as beautiful. The sensory disconnection Kant describes is fundamental to any understanding of kwaito. Kwaito musicians ignore the actual conditions of society and, in response to ideological mystification that assumes knowledge is only ever true or false, insist that knowledge is always double. As a form of aesthetic perception, kwaito recognizes the establishment of an autonomous division of sensory experience that is proper to no one and belongs to no one. In other words, it recognizes a register of sensory experience predicated on the equality of human intelligibility. This autonomous domain is only an “illusion” in the sense of that word’s etymology, drawn from the Latin practice of ludere, or “play.” Aesthetics plays with reality; it adds another layer to the actual conditions of society— it generates another sensory world. If a builder stops working for a moment and gazes at the beauty of a palace that she is erecting yet entirely alienated from, this proves not that she is ignorant of the conditions under which the palace is being built but that— precisely because she can in no way ignore those conditions, because she is severely burdened in her everyday life by them— she is impelled to forge “another body and another way of seeing” (Rancière 2006,  3). Likewise, if South Africans sing along with Trompies’ song “Celebrate” when times are in fact very bad, or when they engage with American musics from which they are socially and geographically quite marginalized, this does not mean that those musicians are unable to tell that things are bad or that they do not know what is rightfully theirs. The illusion or delusion of aesthetic experience is therefore a willful ignorance born from the desire to see or hear from the perspective of someone whose attention is not entirely concentrated on actual oppressive conditions. 15

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Ignorance, here, is used in the sense, not of a negation of knowledge, but of ignoring, of turning one’s attention away. Rancière frequently quotes the following passage from a nineteenth-century worker’s notebook: Believing himself at home, he loves the arrangement of a room so long as he has not finished laying the floor. If the window opens out onto a garden or commands a view of a picturesque horizon, he stops his arms a moment and glides in imagination towards the spacious view to enjoy it better than the possessors of the neighboring residences. (2006, 4–5)43

Surveying the room as if he were not inhabiting it merely as a floor layer, the worker stages a disjuncture between what his arms have done and what his eyes see.44 Like the builder who sees the palace as a beautiful object disconnected from social function, this floor layer creates for himself a domain of sensory perception separate from his actual identity as worker. Kant called this other sensory domain “disinterested” (ohne alles Interesse) and emphasized its nonconceptual character. Aesthetic judgment does not mean simply perceiving the world as “better” than it really is. For Kant, rather, aesthetics challenges the dominance of reason and neutralizes the rift between the rational and the sensible.45 J. M. Bernstein (1992, 60) neatly summarizes the core claim of Kantian aesthetics: “In making aesthetic judgments we judge things ‘as if’ from the perspective of our lost common sense, a common sense that may never have existed.”46 He continues: “To listen to beauty, to hear its claims, is to come to doubt the a priori validity of the disjunction of domains” (63, my emphasis). In other words, aesthetic judgment is autonomous precisely in the sense that it imagines a world prior to division: if the world is already divided into separate domains (religious, political, scientific, aesthetic), then aesthetic experience is a way of hearing the world as if separations do not exist. This is a compelling view of aesthetics, but is it an adequate lens through which to examine South African popular music? The short answer is: “not quite.” This book develops what one might call a modern African aesthetic theory— one that forms a kind of disjunctive synthesis with Western aesthetics.47 I elaborate this theory throughout the course of this book; here, I provide only a vague outline. Notice that Bernstein’s formulation of Kantian aesthetics as a mode of listening to beauty that challenges the disjunction of domains bears an uncanny resemblance to the ethnomusicological claim that in Africa music is part of life, or that in Africa music per se does not exist.48 But what does this claim really mean? It seems to me that when ethnomusicologists claim that music does not exist in Africa, this implies that what 16

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they experience is “music” precisely insofar as it erases the boundaries between music and nonmusic, or between music and life. What ethnomusicologists hear in African music, in other words— and now I state this in terms derived from Kantian aesthetics— is the sound of a community that has not yet been divided into separate domains, which has not yet experienced the (painful) separations between music, religion, politics, economics, and so forth.49 African musicians often speak about music in this way. It is extremely common, in fact, for musicians from various parts of Africa to proclaim that for them music does not exist as a separate domain of experience. Importantly, this claim is resolutely “modern” insofar as it first recognizes something that is music and subsequently denounces its status as music. In other words, the claim recognizes a music that is not yet or will not have been music. Aesthetics, then, is always the attempt at overcoming modernity from within. And as Bernstein (1992, 67) states: “Aesthetics is from its beginnings the overcoming of aesthetics.” It is therefore necessary to abandon the tired cliché that Western music is separate from life while African music is part of life. It would be more accurate to say that aesthetics describes the experience— forged in an encounter between West and non-West— of an autonomous domain in which separation does not yet exist. The aim of this book must nevertheless be to think the politics of aesthetics from the perspective of Africa, or even from an African perspective. Nelson Mandela provides a remarkable glimpse into what this may look or sound like in a 1962 speech delivered as part of his defense against charges of inciting illegal strikes and leaving the country without a valid passport. Although not an “aesthetic” product in the usual sense of the term, Mandela’s address is truly astounding and deserves to be quoted at length: Many years ago, when I was a boy brought up in my village in the Transkei, I listened to the elders of the tribe telling stories about the good old days, before the arrival of the white man. Then our people lived peacefully, under the democratic rule of their kings and the amapakati [i.e., those of the highest rank next to the king], and moved freely and confidently up and down the country without let or hindrance. Then the country was ours. . . . The structure and organization of early African societies in this country fascinated me very much and greatly influenced the evolution of my political outlook. The land, then the main means of production, belonged to the whole tribe, and there was no individual ownership whatsoever. There were no classes, no rich or poor, and no exploitation of man by man. All men were free and equal and this was the foundation of government. recognition of this general principle found expression in the constitution of the council. . . . 17

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There was much in such a society that was primitive and insecure and it certainly could never measure up to the demands of the present epoch. But in such a society are contained the seeds of a revolutionary democracy in which none will be held in slavery or servitude, and in which poverty, want, and insecurity shall be no more. (1978, 149–50)

With these words, Mandela suggests that the passage from parliamentary democracy to revolutionary democracy is “already virtually accomplished” in the society of his African elders.50 The parliamentary democracy of the British— for which Mandela declares his admiration in the course of the same speech— is the incomplete, formal, and potential image of what has already taken place. Mandela does not advocate a reactionary nativism; he does not call for a return to the Africa of his forebears, admitting that such a society “could never measure up to the demands of the present epoch.” Instead, he memorializes the ruins of African democracy while simultaneously asserting that those ruins carry the promise— and, indeed, the “seeds”— of a revolutionary democracy to come. Although clearly not a work of art, Mandela’s speech is nonetheless fundamentally aesthetic, at least insofar as he positions radical equality as both a future horizon and a “return” to a time prior to division. African music, for its part, is the sound and the experience of this other time and place, this “otherwise”— an autonomous domain that constantly seeks to overcome itself. In this book, I locate kwaito’s politics precisely at this hazardous aesthetic juncture. Again, my aim is less to prove that kwaito functions as aesthetic experience than to elaborate the complex dynamics through which politics and aesthetics perennially collide. Unsurprisingly, I am not the first scholar to attempt the rearticulation of a “politicized” aesthetics in recent years. Others have made similar gestures, either in relation to kwaito or else regarding a more general understanding of music. I briefly consider several recent texts in order to sharpen my argument. In his contribution to a special round table on modernism in the Journal of the Royal Musical Association, Christopher Ballantine (2014, 201) argues that certain kwaito musicians “illuminate ‘the world that is not yet.’” In broad terms, Ballantine’s approach seems close to my own; indeed, I am largely sympathetic to his argument. Nonetheless, it should by now be evident why I eschew the notion of “illumination” that he borrows from Adorno. This book moves away from notions such as illumination and ideological demystification, since they imply a hidden truth that only certain enlightened individuals can access. I have similar sympathies for, and misgivings about, James Currie’s 18

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courageous Music and the Politics of Negation (2012). Currie’s discomfort with New Musicology closely resembles my own, at least insofar as we are both dissatisfied with the assumption that music’s relationship to society is seamless and affirmative. And yet, like Ballantine, Currie takes the Adornian route and emphasizes concepts such as ideology and negation. At this crossroads, we must part ways. I mention Ballantine and Currie because they are contemporary representatives of an intellectual tradition beginning with Marx and entering music studies most notably through Adorno and other members of the Frankfurt School. By contrast, I eschew several key tenets of the Frankfurt School— in particular, the notion that “intellectuals” might enlighten the oppressed.51 A more accurate assessment, in my view, is that music may generate or recover nonnormative sensory relations to the world: issues of truth and illumination are irrelevant. I take this opportunity to address a potential objection concerning my approach to knowledge production and scholarship. Some readers may protest that all scholarship is a form of mastery and that my complaints about critique are misplaced or even hypocritical. Responding to this criticism is not difficult, however. I would never deny that this book collects, translates, and transduces information. But this is different from the kind of mastery that trades on demystification and the search for truth behind illusion. In other words, while I may gather and shift the terms used by my interlocutors, my aim is never to discover the meaning “behind” their words or to discern what they mean to say or what they would say in the absence of mystification. As Rancière (2004b, 49) warns: “Where one searches for a hidden beneath the apparent, a position of mastery is established.” The aim is, rather, “to conceive of a topography that does not presuppose this position of mastery.” Productive models for such a topography are indeed available if one looks beyond Frankfurt School–inspired music scholarship. For example, in his work on Congolese dance music Achille Mbembe (2006, 92) refers to an “obligation to lie en masse” and to a “distortion of the various ways of counterfeiting life.”52 As Mbembe affirms: “Congolese music carries with it illusion, sycophancy, lies, deception and ostentatiousness, making the dancing subject into someone who is putting on an act both for himself and for others” (ibid.). Mbembe suggests that Congolese musicians lie intentionally— they believe in a lie that is more liberatory than their reality, and through their unbridled confidence in this lie they begin to act as if it were true. To clarify, Mbembe’s point here is not that these Congolese musicians are necessarily doing something exceptional— indeed, it would be possible to characterize certain other forms of musical activity in terms 19

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of “believing in lies.” But the question remains one of interpretation and analysis. Rather than “demystifying” the belief in lies, he attempts rather to understand what kinds of knowledge and political potential a “false” belief may afford. For as Rancière (2006, 3) says, “there is not one knowledge but two.” And if “each knowledge is accompanied by a certain ignorance,” then there is “a knowledge which represses and an ignorance which liberates.” Charles Hirschkind’s work on Islamic counterpublics in Egypt offers another productive model. He observes that when Muslims assert a traditional Islamic basis for contemporary beliefs or political systems, “the objective historian unmasks such claims as strategic moves within a modern politics of cultural authenticity, and thus as not really— historically— authentic” (2006, 19). But, he goes on, citing Rancière in the process, the historian’s position is problematic because it assumes that “there is an authentic relation to the past (not nostalgic, invented, or mythological), and that Islamists are in some sense living falsely not to acknowledge it and adjust to its demands” (ibid., emphasis in original).53 Objective historians thus treat Islamic traditions in essentially the same way that critical music scholars treat aesthetics: as an illusion that requires unmasking. Hirschkind, by contrast, approaches Islamic tradition in a way that takes seriously the entanglement of national and religious values in the Egyptian public sphere. For Hirschkind, Islamic tradition is neither more false nor more true than objective history; for Mbembe, meanwhile, Congolese music may in fact be less true than the miserable conditions of life in Kinshasa, but musical “lying” is due less to mystification than to a deliberate attempt at forging a new reality. As Mbembe (2006, 92) says, the conditions in which people live turn lying into an “obligation” (my emphasis). People are obligated to lie if they want to escape their conditions. Kwaito’s Promise continues the paths of inquiry opened by scholars such as Mbembe and Hirschkind and, to a certain extent, Ballantine and Currie.54 Focusing on aesthetic experience in particular, I seek to demonstrate the potential of this experiential modality for political action. The development of concepts other than ideology is crucial to my endeavor. And in terms of the conceptual terrain on which this book operates, it is worth noting that although adopting a Rancièrian position may mean giving up on Adorno, it does not require a rejection of Marxism. Balibar notes that Marx actually stopped using the term “ideology” quite early on (1852 at the latest). Balibar goes on to argue: Given Marx’s conception of the proletariat, the idea of an ideology of the proletariat (or of a “proletarian ideology,” later, as we know, to meet with much success) is 20

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obviously devoid of meaning. . . . Just as the proletarian masses are fundamentally propertyless (eigentumslos), they are fundamentally “without illusions” (illusionslos) about reality, fundamentally external to the world of ideology, whose abstractions and ideal representations of the social relation “do not exist” for them. (1995, 54, emphases in original)55

It would be possible, in light of Balibar’s analysis, to develop a Marxist theorization of the political that simultaneously jettisons the notion of ideology. And although mine is not a work of political theory, the outlines for such a theory are perhaps detectable within the pages that follow.

Background and Outline of the Book In this book I understand sensory perception to be a fundamental— perhaps the most fundamental— dimension of political and social structuration.56 At stake, then, is an analysis of what Rancière (2004b) terms le partage du sensible (typically translated as “the distribution of the sensible”).57 Pursuing this approach, I will argue that kwaito is less the name of a musical genre than a particular arrangement of sensory experience. The primary focus of this book is an examination of kwaito as an arrangement of sensory perception that suspends normative modalities of hearing and knowing, as a distribution of the sensible that ignores actual social conditions. But this book does not only investigate the aesthetic dimension of kwaito. It also examines and insists upon the importance of musical production practices and the material conditions of those practices. South Africa is a deeply divided country and is marked by social and economic inequality. Thus, although my main claim is that aesthetic experience willfully ignores economic inequality (and that criticizing aesthetics for such an “ignorance” is therefore beside the point), the material conditions of kwaito’s production are not irrelevant. My wider aim in this book, then, is to elucidate forms of equality (the fundamental equality of human intelligence, the formal equality of citizens, and the egalitarianism of sonic material) and forms of inequality (social and economic) and to bring these contradictory dynamics into relation with one another. Over the past ten years, I have investigated the relationship between different registers— the political, the economic, the social, the aesthetic, and so forth— through extensive ethnographic research. Perhaps most importantly, I learned a great deal through performing and recording with kwaito musicians in my primary field site of Soweto. (I have been involved in the South African music scene since 1996, although performing 21

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mainly rock and jazz.)58 Through circumstance, during fieldwork I usually stay in a house on Tsotetsi Street, a road in the “deep”59 Soweto township of Moroka North, and again through circumstance, most of my interlocutors reside in the townships of Chiawelo, White City, and Senoane. I have also benefited from informal conversations with musicians in many locations throughout South Africa— not only in Soweto but also in other parts of Johannesburg and other cities around the country. And in addition to these informal conversations, I conducted formal interviews with many prominent kwaito musicians.60 Nonetheless, if Johannes Fabian (1990, xiv) is correct that ethnographies are suspect when they fail to acknowledge their own genesis, this book calls into question the very notion of an ethnographic origin— after all, I grew up in South Africa and witnessed the country’s democratic transformation firsthand. In her ethnography of Nazarite women’s performance in KwaZulu-Natal, Carol Muller writes: It is hard to say how long I spent in the field. Because I am South African, the experiences that usually characterize the first few months of fieldwork . . . were already familiar to me. I had grown up in kwaZulu Natal and so I had a support network in place before I even entered the field. Nevertheless, the success of apartheid structures was not just the creation of physical boundaries between its peoples, but also of emotional, cultural, and economic divisions. At this level, we all lived in separate worlds, and have been fearful of “crossing the borders.” (1999, 13)

Like Muller’s, my research as a white South African was driven by the tension of being both inside and outside. This tension will be visible throughout and will occasionally significantly inflect my rhetoric— at such moments, I will foreground my complex subject position. I find the strategic deployment of reflexivity important on both epistemological and political grounds. Like feminist scholars such as Muller and Michelle Kisliuk, I am committed to a methodology that constantly questions its subject position.61 This book has a straightforward trajectory. Chapter 2 examines the history of kwaito between ca. 1985 and 1994. Many observers describe kwaito as a South African version of house music or as a “slowed-down” version of house music. But as I explain in this chapter, the connection between kwaito and house is even more direct— in the late 1980s and early 1990s the words “kwaito” and “house” were considered synonymous. The fact that these terms were treated interchangeably was perhaps the most surprising finding of my research, especially when one considers that house music has its origins in the United States while kwaito is considered by 22

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many to be quintessentially South African. In chapter 2, I show that USproduced house music (also called “kwaito” by South Africans) was popular in South Africa precisely because it was experienced as “international” music and therefore as a distant sound bearing no relationship to the oppressive conditions of the apartheid period. Chapter 3 moves to a discussion of post-apartheid kwaito and in particular to the production of “commercial” platforms. Examining record labels, radio stations, television shows, and live performances, I elucidate the mechanisms through which rhythms, melodies, voices, and everyday sounds are gathered by culture brokers and then redistributed widely. I show, moreover, that these platforms produce an ambiguity between various registers of experience, in particular between “music” and “life.” This results in what I will call aesthetic undecidability. In chapters 4 and 5, which are the most deeply ethnographic, I focus on nonprofessional (or “noncommercial”) kwaito performance in Soweto. Chapter 4 explores the circulation of music in Soweto and the related topics of mobility, storage, and exchange. While scholars have tended to emphasize music’s increasing ubiquity, availability, and fluidity, I examine how music is practiced and experienced in a context where musical equipment and storage devices constantly break down and where movement is constrained. Through a close analysis of the social and sensorial effects generated through obduracy and failure, I conclude that music in Soweto is a highly experimental practice through which people unrelentingly engage in precarity and risk. Chapter 5 examines musical practices in Soweto in relation to the larger Johannesburg metropolitan area as well as places further afield. After discussing various modalities of economic and spatial marginalization, I examine the strategies that my interlocutors employ to interact with various “outsides.” Adopting the notion of “acoustic assemblage” (Ochoa Gautier 2014), I consider music as an acoustemological practice that links sound to history, ecology, and cosmology. I also compare practices in Soweto with those found in the music of performers who have acquired international commercial success, including Spoek Mathambo, Die Antwoord, and Nozinja. I show that different acoustic assemblages are at work in the two cases and that these differences reveal competing ideas about South Africa’s relationship to the world. In this book I examine kwaito production both in its Sowetan “subaltern” context and in its nationally (and internationally) circulating commercial form. Although this requires a lot of legwork, I feel that examining both contexts is necessary to produce a balanced picture of the post-apartheid milieu. In chapter 6, I analyze the points of contact 23

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between nonprofessional kwaito (chapters 4 and 5) and “commercial” kwaito (chapter 3). Focusing on the creative practices employed by prominent kwaito producers— many of whom were born in Soweto but today live in Johannesburg’s northern suburbs, extending from Rosebank out to Sandton, Honeydew, and Midrand— I trace the networks through which nonprofessional and commercial kwaito are articulated and attached. The maps presented in figures 1.1 and 1.2, which I refer to throughout this book, will help orient the reader. Chapter 7 returns squarely to Soweto. Centering the discussion on practices of listening, I demonstrate that music plays a fundamental role in the construction of both time and space in the townships. I focus on three spaces— the tavern, the outdoor party, and the automobile— in order to

Silverton

Pretoria

Mamelodi

Centurion

N Lanseria

Olifantsfontein

Diepsloot

Midrand

Bapsfontein

Tembisa

Muldersdrift

Randburg Sandton

Krugersdorp

Kempton Park Daveyton

Edenvale

Randfontein

Roodepoort Benoni Boksburg Brakpan

Johannesburg Soweto

Johannesburg Alberton South

Lenasia Thokoza

Vosloorus

Lawley Ennerdale

Orange Farm

F i g u r e 1 .1 .

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15 mi 20 km Heidelberg

Map of the greater Johannesburg metropolitan area and the capital city of Pretoria.

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Figure 1.2.

Map of Johannesburg and its northern suburbs.

investigate music as an aesthetic disposition that affords particular modes of sensory perception and awareness. A brief epilogue, finally, ties up some of the chapters’ main strands and returns to the theoretical questions posed in this introductory chapter.

In a rare ethnomusicological treatment of the ontology of music, Christopher Waterman (2002, 19) observes that the music-as-culture paradigm often results in tautologies: “Why does she sing like that? She sings like that to express her identity. Why does she express her identity through music? Because music is intimately bound up with memory, the emotions, and other foundations of identity.”62 As Waterman illustrates, ethnomusicology’s fundamental “insight” that music is part of culture gets caught in the snare of circular reasoning. And it seems to me that when 25

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critical music scholars “demystify” aesthetic autonomy, the outcome is a series of similar tautologies: even the apolitical is political, even meaningless sounds have meaning, even disinterested judgment is interested . . . This book takes music and aesthetic experience seriously, refusing to treat tautologies like enlightened insights. For while it may be true on some level that everything is political, that everything is meaningful, and that all judgments are interested, this cannot be the final analysis. In other words, kwaito may well be political, cultural, and social— just like everything else. But my fieldwork in South Africa has led me to ask other, different questions: Might kwaito also be something other than its political, cultural, and social “context”? What would it mean for kwaito to exceed, elude, or withdraw from the conditions in which it is produced?63 For kwaito musicians to develop a genuine relationship with freedom, they must somehow depart from the existing conditions of life. This is the only way to move beyond the “formal” freedom of post-apartheid liberal democracy and toward the future.64 That music has often been registered as the promise of something beyond the actual conditions of life is perhaps a cliché— and, yes, maybe even a dangerous one. But in a country like South Africa, nothing could be more important than this promise, this promise which kwaito has never forgotten.

26

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The Experience of the Outside for art must leave reality . . . EDUC ATION OF MAN”

FRIEDRICH SCHILLER, “LET TERS ON THE AESTHETIC AL

1

It is a truism of ethnomusicological discourse that the global is continually appropriated (or “translated”) for local use. In this way, cultural imperialism is thwarted, because global forms are constantly transformed and translated through the creative activities of musicians and listeners in Tokyo and Tel Aviv, in Rio de Janeiro and Dar es Salaam. In this chapter, I trace the early history of kwaito music in South Africa and reveal a different relationship between the local and the global. Kwaito was initially popular not because its practitioners appropriated international styles for local use but rather because it was experienced as an international genre. In fact, in the late 1980s the terms “kwaito” and “international music” were used interchangeably. Emerging gradually from the racial violence of apartheid, black South Africans desired first and foremost a set of sounds— and, indeed, an experience of those sounds— that bore no determinate relationship to their actual social condition. To experience kwaito, in its earliest form, was therefore to experience the far-off, the distant, the outside. With the official death knell of apartheid in 1994, kwaito was reconfigured as an arrangement of musical material that ignored (or even rejected) the division between local and nonlocal. Subsequent chapters will examine the postapartheid period in great detail. The current chapter offers 27

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something of a “prehistory” of the post-apartheid period by focusing on the 1980s— a decade both auspicious and terrible. In the following section, I address the political climate of 1980s South Africa. I then move to an investigation of sensory perception, and of listening in particular, within that context. Subsequent sections illustrate how, within the political and sensory context of 1980s South Africa, musicians related to and engaged with the international. If a primary motivation of ethnomusicology is to illustrate the mechanisms through which global styles are appropriated for local use, this chapter illustrates the mechanisms through which they are intentionally not.

South African Politics in the 1980s: Point of No Return “I believe that we are today crossing the Rubicon. There can be no turning back.” So declared State President P. W. Botha on August 15, 1985, in what is today widely known as the “Rubicon speech.”2 Botha not only signaled the inevitability of change in South Africa but also suggested that— at least as far as world history is concerned— “his” country had become something of a bizarre anachronism, a strange abnormality, or even a perversion. Quoting the Afrikaans poet C. J. Langehoven, Botha stated: “If we are in front we can wait for time. If we are behind, it does not wait for us.” Behind the times, South Africa was also behind time— or so Botha implied. He was not alone in thinking this. In 1989 the black activist and poet Mongane Wally Serote (1990a, 25) wrote that “the regime hopes to stall history.” The survival of apartheid, he suggested, is dependent on the continuation of “abnormal life” (ibid.). On the other hand, the destruction of apartheid would mean “a re-entering of history by over twenty million people who are black” (22). The historical anomaly of South Africa was not lost on the international intellectual elite of the time. As Stuart Hall reflected in 1997, during his first trip to the country: “South Africa is a mystical land for me. It’s the one place in the world to which I couldn’t go. None of us could come here for twenty or thirty years though we know every name on the map as if we lived here.”3 And in the mid-1980s, Jacques Derrida— who occasionally self-identified as African4 — severely condemned South Africa, referring to it as the last racist state. “At a time when all racisms on the face of the earth were condemned,” Derrida (1985, 291) wrote, “it was in the world’s face that the National party dared to campaign ‘for the separate development of each race in the geographic zone assigned to it’” (emphases in original).5 It was almost as if the National Party 28

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decided to go backward in history, as if white South Africa could not help but to reverse the flow of time, to inhabit the world inversely. One would expect— as many at the time indeed did— that the solution to South Africa’s problems in the 1980s was simply to abolish apartheid and thus no longer be behind. On this point, State President Botha defied the expectations of the South African and international communities. “No spirit of defeatism or hysterical action will help us to be on time,” he cautioned. Arguing that one cannot “place time limits on negotiations,” he insisted that the transition to democracy “is going to take time.” To be on time, in other words, takes time. Furthermore, being on time means “having respect” for time. “Revolutionaries” want things to change right away and are therefore disrespectful of time. The change will come, the “Groot Krokodil” declared, in good time.6 “But despite our human weaknesses and our limited powers as human instruments, we can attempt to be on time,” Botha remarked. “We can make serious attempts to not be behind time.” The apartheid regime was seriously dragging its feet. For black South Africans who had by this time lived under the yoke of apartheid for nearly four decades, Botha’s rejection of urgency was simply insulting. The “Young Lions” of the townships responded with a simple slogan: “Freedom or death.” For them, life would be suspended until the day that freedom arrived. Nothing, they declared, could meaningfully happen so long as apartheid exists. Mbembe (2005, 297) comments: “Death, in this case, is the door to life— that which lays open the truth of life, the life that lives by sacrificing itself.” Schools were torched, white-owned shops were boycotted, and informants were burned to death. And to the ultimatum “freedom or death,” the apartheid government responded with outright brutality. A month before Botha’s Rubicon speech, Pretoria— the seat of national power in South Africa— had declared a State of Emergency in thirty-six magisterial districts. The State of Emergency was renewed each year— and significantly expanded in 1986— until 1989. During this period, thousands of people were killed and tortured, and many more were detained without trial. As Serote (1990b, 15) observed: “The making of death among the oppressed is the only solution the present regime has for its inability to relinquish power and scrap apartheid.”7 The apartheid regime not only attacked at the level of individual life but also deeply injured communities and alliances. Minister of Law and Order Louis Le Grange banned “all gatherings held where . . . any policy principle, or any actions of the government, or any statement, or the applications or implementation of any act is approved, defended, attacked, criticized or discussed, or which is in protest against or support or in 29

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memory of anything” (quoted in Davies 2007, 87). Note well: Le Grange banned any gathering in support or protest in the memory of anything. In many ways, this amounted to the enforcement of cultural amnesia. The assault on every aspect of “normal” life in fact began earlier, in the wake of the Soweto Uprising of 1976. On June 16 of that year, school students in Soweto protested instruction in Afrikaans. The protest, which began peacefully enough, was met with extreme violence by the police, who shot several students, some in the back. In the days and weeks that followed, there was an all-out assault on government property and anything or anyone deemed a proxy for the apartheid regime. Government-owned liquor stores were looted, and as one Soweto resident recalls, “Almost the whole township was drunk, because now there was so much beer” (Bonner and Segal 1998, 88). Hijacking vans and delivery trucks entering Soweto took on the air of sport, which township youth called sibamba ama targets (we are catching targets).8 To attend the dozens of funerals following the massacres of June 16, students commandeered public buses (90). The children of Soweto completely rejected parental authority and were quite hostile toward the older generations, who they viewed as submissive in the face of white power. As one parent told a journalist for Time magazine in 1977: “My twelve-year-old comes in and warns me that if I go to work, ‘we shall assault you.’ We. Can you imagine that?” (“Soweto” 1977). Largely because of extreme repression by the state, township rebellions died down somewhat in the late 1970s, but when they erupted anew in the mid-1980s, the aim was more clearly defined: to render the country ungovernable. Like the Soweto Uprising, much of the political activity in the 1980s was carried out by children (in the context of 1980s black schooling, this included older youths as well). The strategy of ungovernability meant that both parental authority and political hierarchy were more or less ignored. “Activists seldom obeyed or even knew about orders from their supposed command structures,” writes historian Ivor Chipkin (2007, 142). Guerrilla attacks on state institutions were carried out under the influence of alcohol and drugs by youngsters who were equally gang members and political comrades. The townships were ruled— or rather, de-ruled— by comrade thugs, known locally as “com-tsotsis” (Glaser 1993). Political action within South Africa took place in near isolation, although not because the international community lacked interest. As Peter Gabriel sang in “Biko” (1980), a song dedicated to the pioneer of the Black Power movement in South Africa: “The eyes of the world are watching now.”9 But in the context of the 1980s boycott movement, to watch from afar meant, above all else, to shutter one’s eyes, to blot out South Africa— as though it did not exist. The cultural and sporting boycotts, 30

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along with economic sanctions, isolated South Africa, blocked cultural and economic flows, and expelled the nation still further from history. These blockages, of course, were never complete— they were ideals more than realities. But the various boycotts and sanctions against South Africa did have important effects on music during apartheid, as I explain in more detail in what follows. The cultural boycott against South Africa began in the 1960s and was aided by the efforts of dozens of musicians, actors, and writers. In the 1980s boycott activity crystallized around Sun City, the famous casino and resort. Although the boycott forbade musicians to tour the country, the South African government lured performers to Sun City by insisting that the boycott did not apply there because the resort was located in the independent state of Bophuthatswana (see Nixon 1994, chap. 6; Drewett 2006). But Bophuthatswana was never independent or autonomous— it was a homeland (or Bantustan) of South Africa created artificially by the apartheid regime.10 During apartheid, each black national unit (there were ten in all) was assigned a specific homeland: for example, Tswana speakers were assigned to Bophuthatswana while speakers of the Venda language were assigned to a Bantustan known simply as “Venda.”11 South African citizenship was reserved only for whites. This elaborate set of “grand” apartheid policies was carried out under the banner of “separate development,” through which, it was believed, each national unit (or ethnicity) would evolve along its own course. I return to this issue later in this chapter and again in chapter 4. In 1985 Steven Van Zandt created the organization Artists United Against Apartheid, aiming to enlighten musicians and the public about the true status of Bantustans, which in reality were mere conjuring tricks of the apartheid government.12 The organization released an album, Sun City (1985), which featured a host of international celebrities and which announced in the title song: “I ain’t gonna play Sun City!”13 Economic sanctions against South Africa added to the sense of isolation. The United Nations had requested sanctions already in 1962, but because it only requested and did not mandate them, sanctions were practiced unevenly at different times and by different trading partners. In the 1980s the Reagan administration refused to institute economic sanctions, arguing that isolation would only hurt South Africa more. To this end, the United States developed the policy of “constructive engagement,” through which it aimed to gently nudge the Nationalist government away from apartheid. But this obstinacy regarding sanctions had other— less explicit and more pernicious— motivations, as well. Stated simply, the United States believed that South Africa was a particularly useful bulwark 31

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against Communist influence in Africa, a position spelled out clearly in an internal White House memorandum: “Our policy aims to help resistance forces win the freedom and independence that Communist tyranny denies them” (Davies 2007, 24). Nor were the architects of US foreign policy shy about admitting self-interest in the matter. As Chester Crocker (1992, 70), assistant secretary of state for African affairs under Reagan, recalls: “The strategy of constructive engagement was not a gift to any ‘side,’ but a forceful assertion of leadership in support of American values and interests.” It was Crocker, in fact, who first proposed the strategy in a 1980 Foreign Affairs article: Constructive engagement in the region as a whole is the only basis for western credibility in Salisbury [Harare since 1982] and Maputo.14 Our credibility in Moscow and Havana depends on adopting a strong line against the principle of introducing external combat forces into the region— a message best communicated by greater reliability in U.S. performance worldwide. There can be no presumed communist right to exploit and militarize regional tensions, particularly in this region where important western economic, resource and strategic interests are exposed. (1980, 346)

The Reagan administration’s uncompromising anti-Communist attitude resulted in several nefarious foreign-policy decisions, not least of which was the sale of computer parts to South African government agencies that directly administered apartheid. In their rejection of the UN’s requests for sanctions, the United States, Britain (under Thatcher), and West Germany acted like rogue nations.15 In the mid-1980s the Reagan administration was still able to use Cold War rhetoric in its defense of constructive engagement, even if that rhetoric occasionally rang hollow. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, however, US foreign policy had no choice but to transform dramatically. When F. W. de Klerk assumed the mantle of state president of South Africa in 1989 and began democratic negotiations in earnest, he acknowledged that the main reason for “his radical course of action was the collapse of the Soviet Union and the fall of the communist states of Eastern Europe” (Spitz and Chaskalson 1999, 13). Like Botha, de Klerk held that change was inevitable. But unlike his predecessor, and in the absence of Cold War divisions, de Klerk adopted the position of “time-server: in his view, it was better to accept and work with the inevitability of change than attempt to stand in its way” (ibid.). Despite the increasingly possibility of change, South Africa in the 1980s remained incredibly isolated— culturally, economically, and politically. Activists in South Africa not only were isolated from the “inter32

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national community” but were detached, too, from their leaders, almost all of whom were either in exile or in prison on Robben Island.16 During apartheid, one of the only forms of communication between exiles and “inziles” (i.e., activists who never left the country) was Radio Freedom, a clandestine station operating from African National Congress bases in various African countries.17 But Radio Freedom faced two serious obstacles. First, communication moved in only one direction, and because of this, broadcasters were uncertain how much influence they had, or even if many people were listening.18 Second, the South African state realized that it could effectively block international radio transmissions. Because long-distance transmissions were usually broadcast on shortwave, the government limited the sale of radios to those that received only ultrashortwave. In 1989 it was estimated that although 53 percent of blacks living in urban areas owned radios, only 11 percent had tuned into a foreign station in the previous year (Moisa et al. 1994, 15). The apartheid regime did everything in its power to prevent black South Africa from accessing international music and culture. In addition to effectively blocking international frequencies, it developed a series of Bantu radio stations that broadcast traditional— or more precisely “neotraditional”— music to the various ethnic groups within South Africa. As David Coplan (2008, 250) observes: “The state Radio Bantu rigorously censored any music referring to explicit sex, the reality of urban experience, or social and political issues. African censors were employed to expunge any township slang or oblique reference to politics.”19 Elaborating on the political reasoning behind such broadcasting practices, Gwen Ansell (2007, 17) notes: “The state monopoly broadcaster, the SABC [South African Broadcasting Company], refused to play music that did not fit into one of the thirteen rigidly defined ‘tribal’ styles of its stations. This was part of the process of convincing the world and its own citizens that Africans were, at heart, simple rural, tribal people with no place in the cities except where their labour was needed by a white employer.”20 In a state of isolation and protracted “emergency,” various intersecting political apparatuses partitioned the sensible by determining what people could hear and what they could not. In this context, to hear the international was to hear beyond apartheid and thus to hear freedom. As the townships were erupting in massive protests, music helped to ungovern apartheid in a different way. Contact with international culture brokers had been essentially cut off, but this only heightened the allure of foreign cultural products. Listening to the outside, under these conditions, implied a deregulation of social position and of sensory perception. In its very inaccessibility, the international was experienced as the threshold of 33

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freedom, a spatial outside signaling a future beyond the present of apartheid segregation and international isolation.

House Music and the Techniques of Contact Accessing “international” music became a major preoccupation for black South Africans in the late 1980s. For several reasons, North American house— a genre of electronic dance music pioneered by mostly gay African American producers in Chicago in the early 1980s— was especially valued.21 To this day, the most common definition of kwaito is “South African house music.” I will elaborate on the reasons that South Africans valorized house music in particular later in this chapter; for now, I mention only one: house was nearly impossible to access. Precisely because of its inaccessibility, house music was understood as the international par excellence, with all the connotations and overtones attached to that label. But house was only nearly impossible to access— nearly, but not quite. In the late 1980s a loose network of South African musicians and DJs poured a tremendous amount of energy into breaking through apartheid’s blockages in order to listen— as if across a political abyss— to the sounds of a less-than-mainstream genre that had only recently been invented in the cities of Chicago, Detroit, and New York. Complex and intricate networks developed through which certain individuals acquired house LPs and cassettes. There were, in fact, three main sources of house music, each of which receives full analysis below. Pretoria and the Early DJs The first house DJ in South Africa was probably Christos Katsaitis. A white man from Pretoria, Christos began playing Chicago house in 1985. Because of his relative privilege, Christos bought his mixing decks overseas. “In 1985 there were no decks— I had to go overseas to get mine,” he recalls. “They only started being available here in the late 80s, early 90s” (quoted in McCloy, n.d.). Largely due to Christos, house initially took off in Pretoria, where he deejayed at the club Jacqueline’s and later at Limelight.22 Shortly after Christos, another Pretoria-based house DJ began to attract the attention of local audiences. Born in Mabopane, a black township outside Pretoria, Vincent Motshegoa (known by the stage name “Vinny Da Vinci”) began playing house tracks at parties and school functions in the late 1980s.23 Unlike Christos, Vinny did not have access to mixing decks and put together unmixed house compilations using a basic cassette 34

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player. Vinny soon became familiar with mixing, however, when he began a residency at Club Gemini in Pretoria in 1989. As detailed by Mark Butler in his magisterial Unlocking the Groove (2006), mixing is a highly developed technique. In addition to mixing between tracks, DJs are also required to respond to the dynamics and interplay of the club goers themselves, striking the right balance of tempo, style, and equalization.24 The material conditions underpinning the art and technique of deejaying posed particular problems for musicians such as Vinny Da Vinci. Whereas Christos was able to practice at home before gigs— a necessary process for musicians of all kinds around the world— Vinny “practiced” only during his sets at Club Gemini. Or, as he put it, because most young black DJs did not own their own setups, “the only time you will get to have a practice session is when you’re playing to people. And you know, that’s scary.”25 Vinny’s early experiences suggest a type of improvisatory creativity extending beyond— and, in fact, preceding— the formal parameters of music. For Vinny, practice was performance. His exploration of the material properties of the mixing deck was an immediately social, live process. If rehearsal generally implies hearing again (rehearing), for Vinny rehearsing (or practicing) was a hearing with others, a hearing before others: not temporally before but rather right in front of, before those on the dance floor. Such dizzying, “scary” acts of creativity are probably responsible for one of kwaito’s most enduring origin myths: namely, that in the 1990s a club DJ played an LP of house music at the wrong (slower) speed, but the crowd liked it, and kwaito was born. I will return to this myth of origin later. Here, I would like only to emphasize how difficult it was for black South Africans to access house music in the 1980s. Furthermore, when black South Africans were able access house music, they did so under quite constrained conditions. “Ganyani’s Music” Although house music was popular among a very small subculture in Pretoria, the Pretoria scene itself had little direct impact on the emergence of kwaito. Ganyani Tshabalala was largely responsible for introducing house music to Soweto, making him an extremely important, although often overlooked, figure in the history of South African music. According to a writer for the popular YMag: Ganyani Tshabalala is single-handedly responsible for house music’s voyage over the extent of some sea [i.e., the Atlantic Ocean] to reach us.26 Not only did he import this 35

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melody on bricks, he mixed it, packaged it and scattered it himself to attain even me, the 13-year-old on some “Lord knows where the fuck we are” ranch. The designation “Godfather of house music” is not for mere nostalgia’s sake; it is entirely appropriate. The seniority of the title befits. recollection of those TDk tapes rocking that anonymous hum we didn’t know what to call, but would later term “Ganyani’s music”— and what you young ’uns rapidly acquired as deep house— is almost religious. I, amongst hundreds of thousands, am knee-bound at the altar. (k. Vilakazi 2007, 38)

According to Ganyani, in the late 1980s Sowetans referred to house as “international music.”27 This “international music” was very difficult to access, as he explained to me: “You will never find that kind of music in a record store. You can only get it from friends and connections. You will find someone bringing in a cassette, you play that, you hear something wicked.” Ganyani’s first exposure to house, or international, music was in 1986. Because of the violent anti-apartheid protests in Soweto, his mother sent him to boarding school in Giyani, a town in what is now the northern province of Limpopo. At boarding school, he made friends from all over South Africa, including places such as Alexandra, Tembisa, and Pretoria. His friends from Pretoria were especially important, since they brought cassettes of house music with them. He recalls: Some guys were playing this wicked music, you know they were sitting under the tree— you know how Limpopo is, it’s very hot. They were sitting under the tree and they were playing this ghetto blaster. I could hear this kind of music they were playing was wicked. But I’m a shy person naturally. I just didn’t know how to join them. I had to stand at a distance from them, but I could hear what they were playing. And then I also had my radio cassette that I was playing. At that time I wasn’t playing house. I was playing funk and fusion and r&B. So what happened is, when I was playing my own kind of music, the guys also liked my music, and they approached me and we exchanged. They gave me the house tracks, I gave them the fusion and the r&B, and that’s how it started. we started exchanging music.

When he returned to Soweto during school holidays, Ganyani met up with a friend from Tembisa who sold him his first LPs. He soon learned that a man named Christos had set up a record store called Megatrax in Orange Grove, near the city center (see fig. 1.2). From that point on, Ganyani began collecting as many LPs as he could, and especially LPs of house music. He not only bought LPs from Megatrax but began going to Silverton, a suburb outside Pretoria, to seek obscure music.28 When he could not find a friend to take him to Silverton, Ganyani was forced to take minibus taxis, which entailed an extremely cumbersome journey.29 It was 36

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due to this sheer perseverance that Ganyani was able to build up a large collection of house LPs. After graduating from high school, he returned to Soweto and became a full-time distributor of house cassettes. Initially, he worked only with a single cassette recorder and a record player he had borrowed from his uncle. He described the laborious process of making house compilations: I would play a vinyl— you know you have to wait about five or six minutes.30 You press pause. And then the next one, you have to set your levels and things like those. It would take me almost two hours to do one tape. So the trick was not to sleep. I would start doing that around six or seven in the evening. Until about six or seven in the morning. I never slept. And then six or seven in the morning, I would wake up, take a bath— in fact I would just take a bath. And then take all those cassettes and I would just go sell them.

Ganyani’s ingenious idea was to distribute these cassettes through taxi networks. On weekends, his two younger cousins would take a box of newly recorded tapes to the various taxi ranks around Soweto and Johannesburg and sell them to taxi drivers. In this way, the music had an instant, and captive, audience. His friend Good News would also take cassettes up north to Polokwane every few months to sell there.31 In contrast to club DJs who jealously guarded their music or exchanged it only with other DJs, and shop owners like Christos who sold LPs for prices that few could afford, Ganyani disseminated house music cheaply and along major transport routes. Largely because of him, house music exploded throughout the province of Gauteng and beyond. He became an almost mythical figure who, in the ears of consumers, mysteriously radiated house tracks out to the rest of the country. Radio Bop In 1989 Bob Mabena began playing a small amount of house music on his radio show, which was broadcast on the station Radio Bop from Bophuthatswana, a “homeland” north of Johannesburg described earlier in this chapter.32 While the international criticism of Sun City was warranted, the history of house music in South Africa offers a compelling counternarrative. Largely because of Sun City, the homeland of Bophuthatswana was a peculiarly cosmopolitan place, at once aiming to foster the “separate development” of the Tswana people and provide extravagant experiences for international tourists and white South Africans from Johannesburg. 37

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Well-known kwaito musician Tshepo “Stoan” Seate grew up in the former Bophuthatswana before moving to Johannesburg in 1995. Speaking of Lucas Mangope, former leader of Bophuthatswana, Stoan told me: At that time, Mangope had a big ambition of really turning Bophuthatswana— or Mafikeng [a city in Bophuthatswana known as Mmabatho until 1994]33 — maybe not Bophuthatswana but Mafikeng was really the crown jewel of the whole Bantustan. And he said that— I think he wanted to turn it into an oasis. An oasis of culture, and talent. . . . There was a lot of nurturing of talent in Bophuthatswana.34

Stoan recalls that a number of famous jazz musicians and ballroom dancers were trained in Bophuthatswana, and Bruce Sebitlo (an important kwaito producer who knew Stoan in Mafikeng) is grateful to have studied ballet there as a young man.35 Bophuthatswana even produced a black gymnastics champion, something that Stoan thinks was a unique event.36 Nonetheless, he admits that Mangope was a “puppet of the regime” and that he was not solely responsible for Bophuthatswana’s successes: Yeah, because you know in Sun City there’s gambling, and there was . . . you know. So I think because of those things, inadvertently— I don’t think it was too much of Mangope’s genius— but a lot to do with the fact that the resources were there to finance these types of things.

The question of Mangope’s “genius” notwithstanding, it is interesting to observe that the Bantustan leader was particularly proud of Bophuthatswana’s cosmopolitanism. In a 1987 speech, Mangope declared that “Sun City has drawn hundreds of thousands of South Africans, Southern Africans, North and South Americans, Europeans and others from the four corners of the world. . . . [P]eople of all races and colour were playing together at Sun City, being entertained together, were talking together and so on and this was simply an example of what was going on in the rest of our country [i.e., Bophuthatswana].”37 Mangope’s valorization of Bophuthatswana is obviously misleading. The primary purpose of Bophuthatswana, after all, was to sequester the Tswana population and thereby deny them South African citizenship. Nonetheless, the relative autonomy of Bophuthatswana, coupled with the strategic importance of Sun City for the apartheid regime, did in fact result in a limited form of cosmopolitanism unavailable within South Africa proper. Thus, a journalist for the Sowetan newspaper could recall in a 2007 article that Mmabatho (renamed Mafikeng in 1994) at times “looked like a template for the future South Africa, where racial harmony and coexistence were a given and the 38

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skies didn’t fall when a young multiracial couple was seen holding hands or kissing in the park. . . . Thousands of people suffocating from the oppressive racial laws of South Africa would descend on Mmabatho to play and love across the colour line on weekends and orbit the land of the Bop jocks [i.e., DJs]” (“From Hot Homeland Station” 2007). Like Radio Bop, Bophuthatswana’s television channel Bop TV had a peculiar and ambiguous relationship to apartheid. Because the South African government claimed that Bophuthatswana was an independent state, it was forced to consider Bop TV a foreign broadcaster. “In return for assurances that Bop-TV would not adopt an overtly anti-government editorial stance, South Africa agreed to retransmit the channel to blacks in the Johannesburg area” (Havens 2007).38 These political conditions, together with the fact that Bophuthatswana was a major center for international tourism, led to cosmopolitan programming on both Bop TV and Radio Bop. As Stoan recalls: “You know Radio Bop— as a result, because there was no other entity really, such a cosmopolitan, black radio station within South Africa, exchanges were happening quite a lot with the overseas guys.”39 I remember clearly that in the 1980s Bop TV always had the most cosmopolitan programming and that all the most cutting-edge shows were on Bop. In my family home in Sandton (a suburb just north of Johannesburg; see fig. 1.2), however, we could seldom receive any Bop signal at all. Occasionally, we would catch some fuzzy images of an exciting new American television show on Bop, but those distorted images were obviously not meant for us. The Simpsons, for example, was aired on Bop TV even before it appeared on M-Net, South Africa’s first subscription television channel.40 At the time, I had a friend who lived on a hill, and he could often get a Bop TV signal. Although I had no idea where the signal was coming from or even what Bophuthatswana was, I knew that it was  important that I get invited to this friend’s house to catch those TV waves. Radio Bop was also the first Bantu station to broadcast in English. According to a recent article in the Sowetan newspaper, by using English, DJs on Radio Bop “kicked down the ethnic barriers created by the apartheid government with its divide-and-rule strategy.”41 The station emphasized its uniqueness. For example, DJs often announced: “This is Radio Bop, the station with a mind of its own” (Hamm 1991, 170). Broadcasting from Bophuthatswana, Bob Mabena was probably the only radio DJ airing house music in the 1980s. Significantly, Bophuthatswana’s geographical proximity allowed Soweto residents to tune into Bop Radio for Mabena’s show. Donald R. Browne (1986, 196) calls this the “next-door neighbor” 39

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effect, observing that the location of Radio Bop allowed it to deliver a strong AM stereo signal to the Johannesburg-Pretoria area.42 For people in Soweto in the 1980s, Mabena’s show on Radio Bop was one of the few places to hear house music. We begin to understand, here, the depth of connotations in the term “international music.” After decades of being refused the status of true citizens, and with South Africa’s isolation from the rest of the world, the almost forbidden sounds of house music must have been grand. Those sounds traveled a particularly tortured journey to reach the ears of Sowetans, who were caught between the material realities of media technology and the imperatives of the state. International music designated an only barely accessible pleasure, from a distant and unknown land, returning from the future. In 2000 the American house music producer and DJ Louie Vega learned that his music had been hugely popular in South Africa for a decade. He traveled to South Africa later that year and was astonished to discover that he was a celebrity on the other side of the Atlantic: for the first time in his career, he was accompanied by body guards and played at stadiums to tens of thousands of people.43

International Music In fact, “international” was not only a label used in Soweto. In the late 1970s “international music” was a music industry term referring to both imported music and local crossover groups with international appeal (M. Andersson 1981, 57). Imported music, however, was far more successful at “crossing over” than local music. As one writer observed in the late 1980s, “artists like Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Sting and Steve Winwood are played freely on black and white stations and sell equally well in both markets” (Chapman 1988, 80). However, when producer Patric van Blerk took black songstress Margaret Singana’s music to the SABC in the 1960s, he was told “Radio Bantu’s next door” (M. Andersson 1981, 72). The apartheid watchdogs told van Blerk that because Singana was a black artist she was suitable only for Radio Bantu. Alarmed, van Blerk responded: “that’s completely insane. What about Sammy Davis, what about Shirley Bassey, what about Diana Ross and the Supremes?” To this, he received the sharp retort: “They’re international” (ibid.). In other words, what the apartheid censors really meant is that Singana was suitable only for Radio Bantu because she was a black South African artist. Years later, Singana would become the first black musician aired on SABC’s Radio 5. Significantly, she was able to “cross over” this time because of her 40

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conscious international self-stylizing. Recording disco numbers such as “Good Feelings” and “I Never Loved a Man the Way I Loved You,” Singana effectively erased her local blackness and tapped into an imagined crossover internationalism. It is important, here, to make two additional points. First, the aesthetic community of black internationalism was not proper to the social conditions of black South Africans at the time. Singana deregulated the apartheid logic that associated each ethnic group with its specific musical style, culture, and way of perceiving the world more generally. Thus, Singana may have been subject in her everyday life to apartheid laws and policies, but her ways of hearing and knowing were not determined by those oppressive mechanisms. Second, it would be wrong to view Singana’s politics of aesthetics only in terms of black identity politics. True, Singana did identify— in a way both imaginative and fraught— with African American divas. However, when musicians like Singana reached over the abyssal Atlantic, the identity they sought was not reducible to a closed or parochial blackness. On the contrary, what black South Africans during apartheid found compelling about African American music was precisely its openness. Mediated by African American music, the music of black South Africans like Singana finally became audible to all South Africans, including whites.44 In the 1980s the most popular musician in South Africa was undoubtedly Brenda Fassie, who, at that stage, performed a genre of music known locally as “bubblegum” (Allen 2001). Bubblegum was not a local coinage, however. Instead, Fassie’s music closely resembled the European and American bubblegum music of the time (think Kylie Minogue and Bananarama), with catchy refrains sung (usually in English) over electronic drum tracks and the heavy use of synthesized accompaniment in the upper registers.45 And Fassie’s music often did more than resemble international pop: in some cases, her music literally copied it. For example, the music in “Ngiyakusaba” is identical with “I’ve Got Love for You,” a song by the African American female house music trio Jomanda. Like the music of her songs, Fassie’s lyrics typically suspended any direct relationship with the conditions of 1980s South Africa. In a short documentary film about the singer, the narrator talks of Fassie’s “[z]esty bubblegum flavored dance tracks whose lyrical content owed little to the social and political realities of life in the apartheid state.”46 Stated simply, Brenda Fassie’s music did not comment upon, reflect, or produce the social conditions in which it was created and heard. It bore no direct relation to its “actual” social conditions. For those young Sowetans exposed to it, house music seems to have served a similar, although exaggerated function, transcending the entire 41

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calculus of separate development. It was international, but few knew exactly where it came from. Certainly, the music came from somewhere, usually America and sometimes Britain— but for South Africans in the 1980s, these were less places than ideas, places out of place, out of joint, in some other dimension. It is interesting to note here that the house music cassettes that circulated in the townships were often unlabeled. This anonymity only increased the allure of the unknown. Early house songs by producers such as Frankie Knuckles and Larry Heard (Mr. Fingers) had very little vocal content, if any at all. The lyrics of songs, when present, were sparse and never once referenced specific places or times. Being entirely electronic, the music was also divorced from any obvious tactility or bodily posture. “Lacking any text in which meaning might reside,” writes Mark Butler (2006, 11), “created by synthesizers and drum machines rather than ‘real’ instruments, and ‘performed’ through the playback of recordings and DJs, electronic dance music can seem like the ne plus ultra of music’s abstractness, the epitome of [the nineteenthcentury music critic] Hanslick’s arabesques.” Butler does not actually believe that what he calls electronic dance music is inherently abstract, and indeed, he argues persuasively that audiences in the United States derive nuanced meaning from this category of music, which includes house. Nonetheless, one can see how house music easily lends itself to such a conception and such an experience. In South Africa, the seeming abstractness of house music helped to deregulate the link between aesthetic experience and everyday social conditions. In other words, it was “as if” the music was completely abstract. The fact that house music is often associated with dance would seem to undermine the argument that house music was divorced from bodily experience. In South Africa, however, house music is actually experienced in a variety of different ways, dancing being only one. Furthermore, dancing would have established an entirely different relationship to the body than that enforced by apartheid. By experiencing house music in a variety of ways, black South Africans resisted a determinate relationship to the laboring body of the gold miner, the docile body of the domestic worker in the petit bourgeois household, and the disciplined body of the township classroom. House music offered one of the few alternatives to the ultimatum “freedom or death.” In the 1980s house was referred to as international music. But it had another name as well: kwaito. That is to say, people called international house music “kwaito” in the 1980s. Note well: the genre that is today associated most closely with post-apartheid South Africa was initially synonymous

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with a genre renowned for its foreignness. The residue of this otherworldliness is still audible in contemporary kwaito, which consistently thwarts any simple identification with ethnicity, language, or social position. There are many explanations for how the term “kwaito” came about, and scholars have devoted many pages to complex etymological analyses. I was therefore shocked by Ganyani’s explanation that people initially referred to house music as kwaito— not because of any intricate etymological connection— but because a man with the nickname Kwaito used to play house music at his tavern in Diepkloof, Soweto (fig. 2.1).47 In fact, the tavern was known as KwaKwaito (“Kwaito’s Place,” in Zulu). Ganyani told me that because Kwaito was the only person playing “international music” at the time, “we called that music Kwaito because it was played by this guy called Kwaito.” Zynne “Mahoota” Sibika, a pioneer of early kwaito, does not agree that “international music” was called kwaito because of Kwaito and his tavern. Nonetheless, and despite the uncertainties surrounding its origin, Sibika maintains that kwaito was a commonly used term for house music. Like Sibika, Arthur Mafokate (the so-called “King of Kwaito”) refutes the idea that kwaito was named after a particular tavern owner. He told me that “people are called Kwaito all over, if you are a cool guy.”48 The term “kwaito,” in fact, may be derived by redeploying the Afrikaans kwaai (meaning “angry” or “harsh”) to mean “cool” or “hot.”49 Thus, to call someone or something “Kwaito” is to call him or her or it a “cool thing.”50 Irrespective of the exact etymology and history of the word “kwaito,” it is clear that in the late 1980s the terms “kwaito,” “house,” and “international music” were used interchangeably.

The Reconfiguration of Kwaito in the Early and Mid-1990s To “produce” kwaito in the late 1980s meant literally to listen to American house records or else to copy and distribute those records. In the early 1990s, however, things began to change. With the deracialization of apartheid policies, musicians were no longer satisfied with simply distributing international music. Now they were determined to actively intervene in that music and to transform it in multiple ways— for example, by adding new lyrics, layering additional sounds, or altering tempi. As Arthur Mafokate told me, in the early 1990s black South Africans began thinking: “We can’t call house music kwaito. Let’s create something out of what we call kwaito and call it kwaito.”

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F i g u r e 2 .1 .

kwaito, whose birth name is Abel kubayi (1957–2008), was born in Diepkloof, Soweto. His mother came from Lesotho and his father was from Tzaneen. According to his widow, Trudah kubayi, kwaito was a jazz fanatic but played house music at his tavern to attract a younger crowd. kwaito purchased most of his house music records in Pretoria and Tembisa. In the photograph, we see kwaito sitting against a minibus taxi and sporting “jazz” shoes commonly worn by Sowetans of his generation. Photograph courtesy of Trudah kubayi.

In the early 1990s Mafokate and his friends in Soweto began to “freestyle” over house tracks. This musical practice has clear connections with the African diaspora, and indeed, when I asked Arthur if he would compare the process of free-styling over house tracks to Jamaican dancehall, he replied: “In fact, I always compare it to the Jamaican thing. I always said how the Jamaicans started by free-styling and how they put Jamaican patois is the very same as what we did with our township stuff.”51

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Other musicians I spoke with vehemently denied that they ever freestyled over existing house tracks. Zynne Sibika, for example, insists that he created instrumental tracks that were simply “inspired” by house and that he did not simply free-style over imported ones. In the early 1990s Sibika would buy cassettes of house music from Ganyani, but he would then create his own instrumental tracks using analog synthesizers. Although Sibika denies ever using imported house tracks directly in his music, he nonetheless acknowledges a clear indebtedness to house music. Thus, although musical practices certainly varied, the standard definition of kwaito as a form of South African house music is well founded.52 The case of Sibika is also important because it refutes the common argument that kwaito was made possible through new technologies that allowed people with no musical training to create music. Such an argument has been made, for example, by Zine Magubane (2006, 213), who writes of kwaito musicians in South Africa: “Making rhymes required practice and diligence but no formal musical training.”53 While Magubane’s argument may be appropriate in some cases, many early kwaito musicians were actually highly trained.54 By the time Sibika began creating electronic music modeled on house, he had passed advanced exams in classical piano with both Trinity College and the Royal College of Music.55 He was thus able to transcribe house tracks, analyze them, and compose his own music. Eugene Mthethwa, who would later form the kwaito group Trompies with Sibika and two other people, was a keyboard player for international reggae celebrity Lucky Dube before becoming a kwaito musician. Yet another example is Don Laka, who produced the first successful kwaito group, Boom Shaka, and who is also a major figure on the South African jazz scene. Finally, consider at greater length the interesting musical biography of Zwai Bala, one of three members of the prominent group TKZee. Zwai was born in Uitenhage, in Eastern Cape Province, and at the age of eleven became the first black soloist in the prestigious Drakensberg Boys’ Choir, with which he toured both nationally and internationally. He excelled in the choir and soon became substitute choir director and conductor. In 1991 the choir performed at Redhill School, which I attended at the time, and my family hosted Zwai for the night. When I interviewed him in early 2009, I was amazed that he still remembered that visit. Reminiscing about his days in the choir, he commented: we’re talking the eighties here. And going to a predominantly Afrikaans school.56 And kids don’t know anything. I mean they didn’t know what was going on in politics,

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but they just knew that a black person is a no-no. In fact, it’s hardly a person. Just not good enough. And I had a lot of shit when I got there. . . . But after a while guys warmed up and checked, you know, there’s nothing wrong with this guy.57

I then asked him: “And when you sang?” Zwai replied: Yes, that was my only weapon. Like when we’d go to some of these towns— some of these Afrikaans towns. . . . Some folks would be like, “Ons kan nie ‘n kaffir in ons huis hê nie” [we cannot have a kaffir in our house].58 And I would see that nobody actually wanted to host me. But then when it gets to concert time, then everyone would be like, “kan jy met ons kom bly?” [Can you come and stay with us?]. But it’s cool, you know. I understand the times. But that’s why staying with you sticks out in my mind, because I remember a nice family. And it didn’t happen all the time. And I knew that there were just quality people out there.

As happy as I was to hear about his positive memory, it is important to recognize that my family was only “nice” in a very English-speaking, whiteliberal kind of way: passionate about nonracialism on a personal level but for the most part politically unengaged.59 Following his tenure with the Drakensberg Boys’ Choir, Zwai received a scholarship to attend the private Christian boys’ school, St. Stithians, in the Johannesburg suburb of Randburg. There, he met Tokollo Tshabalala and Kabelo Mabalane (the “T” and “K” in TKZee— Zwai, of course, is the “Zee”).60 Both Kabelo and Tokollo are from Soweto but, unlike many other prominent kwaito musicians, spent much of their teen years in a boardinghouse at St. Stithians. Kabelo told me that he kept “in touch” with both worlds— the world of old-money private schools and the world of the townships. He emphasized that he was not simply between worlds but rather “fully embodied both.”61 At St. Stithians, Tokollo, Kabelo, and Zwai lived at Mount Stephens boardinghouse. When Zwai was asked to help train the boardinghouse scholars for the annual school interhouse music competitions, he selected not only works by Handel and J. S. Bach but also R&B classics. After matriculating from high school, the three friends parted ways, but they met up several years later to form TKZee, which went on to become one of the most prominent groups in kwaito’s history. TKZee skillfully blurs the boundaries between genres and styles— for example, by including string lines from Handel arias over house tracks. I am not arguing that the music produced by Sibika, Mthethwa, Laka, and Zwai Bala is somehow better than kwaito produced by those without formal training. I am merely suggesting that the romantic notion of 46

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musicians working with no formal training is not always appropriate in the context of kwaito. Rather than making generalized claims about how technology democratizes musical practice, it is far more efficacious to examine particular cases of music production. Variations notwithstanding, in almost all cases the “kwaito” music of the early and mid-1990s was produced as an engagement with, or intervention in, international house music. Early kwaito differed from house music produced in the United States in two main ways: vocals and tempo. I address these differences in turn. In contrast to US-produced house music, in which tracks are either completely electronic or include a repeated sung refrain, vocal delivery in kwaito is much more varied, spanning the entire spectrum between the poles of rhythmic speaking and song.62 Any discussion of kwaito vocality is therefore partial— the sheer diversity of vocal styles and ways of understanding those styles precludes a neat or comprehensive interpretation. Referring to kwaito in the mid-1990s, South African ethnomusicologist Lara Allen (2004, 85) writes: “Although the rhythmically spoken lyrics were inspired by rap, vocal delivery tended to be much slower in kwaito, and the lyrics consisted of a few of the latest catch phrases repeated and played against each other.”63 Indeed, in much kwaito— from the early 1990s until the present day— vocalists eschew the virtuosity of much USproduced rap in favor of intentionally excessive repetition. There are many instances in which a single line is repeated for the entire duration of the song. As one kwaito musician in Soweto explained to me, “When I say ‘rap it,’ I mean gimmick. Repeating the latest slang words. Something that everybody knows.” In some cases, there are small variations within the repeated phrase, but this process differs substantially from the speed and complexity of much North American rap. There are other differences, too. At least in Zulu-based kwaito, vocalists often emphasize the penultimate syllable of each line in accordance with Nguni (a language group that includes Zulu) speech patterns. This suggests local South African stylistic features that cannot be apprehended in terms of more general African diasporic aesthetics.64 In M’du’s song “Mazola” (1997), the chorus consists of four short lines that repeat throughout (fig. 2.2). The harmony of the instrumental track oscillates between A-natural minor and F#-natural minor with a repeated chord sequence: Am7 / F#m7 / Fmaj7 / F#m7. In the main vocal melody line, M’du plays with the pitch space around G (below middle C), at times dipping to F# and then inflecting the pitch slightly higher than G and almost reaching G#. In this way, the vocal melody roughly follows the chord sequence while simultaneously exaggerating the harmonic ambiguity of the instrumental track. 47

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Figure 2.2.

M’du’s song “Mazola.”

In the first three phrases, M’du accents the penultimate syllable by singing notes of longer duration: the syllables “kwen” (m. 1), “she” (m. 2), and “zo” (m. 3) are held for twice as long as the other syllables. In the last phrase (m. 4), however, he accents the last syllable and very briefly almost resolves the seventh scale-degree up to the tonic (A-natural) with a small upward scoop. The music correlates with the lyrics: while the first three lines of the chorus are in “deep” Zulu, the fourth and final line is in tsotsitaal (slang). Translated, the lyrics mean: Gibela phez’kwendlu

[Climb the wall and reach the top of the roof

Ubatshele

Go and tell them:

uMazola

Mazola65

Sekadah

Is here]

In the original lyrics, the word dah is derived from the Afrikaans, daar, meaning “there.” It is probably because the last line is not in Zulu that M’du suspends Nguni speech patterns and emphasizes the final, and not the penultimate, syllable. Interestingly, several musicians told me that this prominent speechlike style of kwaito vocal delivery originated in the school classroom. During apartheid, black South Africans were subjected to so-called “Bantu education,” which was based on the racist idea that blacks were capable only of certain types of menial labor. Bantu education emphasized learning by rote and through recitation: black students were made to repeat simple phrases over and over again for hours at a time. As one nonprofessional kwaito producer in Soweto told me, kwaito vocals are often based on the structure of these simple, derogatory, pedagogical exercises.66 In his beautiful book, Postcards from Soweto, Mokone Molete refers to these exercises:

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One of the major criticisms of the Bantu education system was the way we were taught— by rote. we had to repeat things and scream out the answers. On one occasion our English teacher was getting us to learn the words ending with “hood.” The “motherhoods,” “fatherhoods” and “sisterhoods” came flooding in from all corners of the class. Mzala, not the most stupid chap in class, stopped us in our tracks when, asked for his contribution, he answered: “firewood.” (2007, 38–39)

Molete refers to Mzala as “not the most stupid chap in the class,” implying that his friend was fully cognizant of the playfulness of his “mistake.” Here, we already see the seeds of much kwaito vocalization: simple, repeated rhythmic-melodic cells, with small transformations. There are also local traditional precedents to kwaito vocals, in the form of the Zulu praise-poet (imbongi) and the Sotho migrant poet-performer of lifela (see Coplan 1995). In traditional South African performance, in fact, there is seldom a clear distinction between speech and song. Veit Erlmann (1999, 120) observes, for example, that Xhosa performers “do not as a rule distinguish between fully melodic chant and praise poetry, both being considered hlabelela (singing).” And on a more general level, Erlmann (1995, 204) notes that Africanists have long recognized the “interdependence of different forms of discursive praxis such as music and ordinary speech.” The second difference between “kwaito” and US-produced house music in the early 1990s has to do with tempo. Kwaito, in fact, is often referred to as a form of slowed-down house: while much house in the late 1980s and early 1990s clocked in at around 120 beats per minute (bpm), early kwaito was generally around 100 bpm. There is an oft-cited anecdote, or myth, that a club DJ in the early 1990s played an LP at the wrong (slower) speed, but the crowd liked it, and so kwaito was born. This kind of historicization fits into the overwhelming majority of periodizing kwaito narratives, which seek a fixed origin or “primal scene.” In reality, kwaito’s history is far more complex. The actual reason for kwaito’s slowness can be traced, at least in part, to material media. Since 1950, the standard LP player spins records at either 33⅓ or 45 rotations per minute (rpm),67 and these two speeds are also common on professional DJ turntables. When DJs like Christos, Vinny Da Vinci, or Ganyani played house LPs produced by the likes of Frankie Knuckles, Mr. Fingers, and Louie Vega, they spun the records at the appropriate selection of rotations per minute. However, as Ganyani told me, in the early to mid-1990s the British electronic genre “speed garage” took South Africa by storm.68 Although South Africans enjoyed speed garage,

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they generally found that it was too fast, averaging about 130 bpm. According to my friend Thokozane Msimango, an avid kwaito fan, Sowetans in the 1980s associated the fast tempo of speed garage with “white” music and referred to it as “rock.” In order to slow down speed garage LPs, at least at a club, DJs had only one option: to spin 45s at 33 rpm on the turntable.69 If a song of 130 bpm is produced for 45 rpm playback and is then played at 33 rpm, the resulting tempo will be approximately 95 bpm. According to Ganyani, even though South African DJs felt that 95 bpm was too slow, they still preferred that tempo to the extremely fast 130 bpm. Spinning tracks at 95 bpm was thus largely the result of a compromise based on technological limitations. After audiences had adjusted to very slow tempi, however, kwaito musicians took advantage of the unique sound produced. In the mid-1990s, several kwaito musicians created very slow songs, giving credence to the common idea that kwaito is a form of slowed-down house. In addition to this technological explanation, there are aesthetic justifications for kwaito’s slowness— although even on the aesthetic level materiality plays an important role. For example, tempo is often associated with the production of sweat. Commenting on kwaito’s slowness, the famous singer Thandiswa Mazwai exclaimed: “It’s because black people don’t like to really sweat, you know? You just wanna move enough to style, not enough to get sweaty, just enough to look cool” (quoted in Lusk 2003, 43). During my fieldwork, I often noticed the association between dancing and sweat, or rather the lack of sweat. At a Sunday stokvel 70 party in Soweto, for example, a middle-aged lady who was dancing to big-band jazz shouted repeatedly: “The aim is not to sweat!” In fact, this maxim— that the aim of smooth dancing is to not sweat— is common to the musical aesthetics of several sub-Saharan African countries.71 During apartheid, perspiration had different connotations— think, for example, of Johnny Clegg’s and Sipho Mchunu’s famous group Juluka, which means “sweat” in Zulu. Drawing heavily on the dance forms of migrant laborers, the name Juluka implies “struggle, work, strife, strenuous labor” (Kulia 1980, 40). And it is worth pointing out, here, that the valorization of sweat made something of a comeback after 2005. This valorization is related, in part, to the fact that kwaito began to accelerate around 2007. At many South African clubs where this faster kwaito music is featured prominently, people dance with handkerchief in hand, continually wiping beads of sweat from their brows. In such contexts sweating is viewed as a bodily expression, an embodied reaction to music. Sweat is an involuntary outpouring of the body that emerges through a relationship with music. Sweat is thus often seen as attractive— as a sign 50

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that the body is alive and well, not to mention moist and lubricated. Instead of repressing the body’s natural reaction to physical engagement with music (“the aim is not to sweat”), fans often revel in the pleasure of pushing their bodies beyond normal capacity.72 In a context where HIVpositive bodies are ubiquitous, the ability to perform at peak capacity is flaunted. This may mean either dancing rapidly in order to produce an epidermal sheen or dancing more slowly in order to display one’s ability to successfully repress perspiration. In either case, the body’s relationship to sound and movement is carefully and delicately managed— dancing becomes a form of “dromology,” that is, an activity of, and experimentation with, speed.73

Kwaito, House, and the Problem of Genre I have argued that in the early and mid-1990s black South African musicians began experimenting with house music produced in the United States and manipulating it in multiple ways— for example, free-styling over it, slowing it down, or using it as a model for new compositions. But intervening in house music (or “international” music) did not amount to “localization.” On the contrary, it implied a democratization of sonic material through which any sound (whether “local” or “nonlocal”) could count as music. The “new” kwaito blurred the boundary between local and nonlocal and instituted an autonomous division of sensory experience in which all sound could be experienced equally. It is therefore worth emphasizing that kwaito from the early 1990s onward should not be understood as some kind of solidification of ethnic, national, or racial identities. On the contrary, as an arrangement of sensory experience, kwaito actually disrupted the establishment of identities. Kwaito is merely one name for a modality of experience that we might call aesthetic, and as an aesthetic experience it is best understood as “a multiplication of connections and disconnections that reframe the relation between bodies, the world they live in and the way in which they are ‘equipped’ to adapt to it” (Rancière 2011, 72). As Rancière says, aesthetic experience is a multiplicity of folds and gaps in the fabric of common experience that change the cartography of the perceptible, the thinkable and the feasible. As such, it allows for new modes of political construction of common objects and new possibilities of collective enunciation. However, this political effect occurs under the condition of an original disjunction. . . . The aesthetic effect is initially an effect of dis-identification. The aesthetic community is a community of dis-identified persons. (72–73) 51

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Kwaito, then, is the name for this community that is not a community. It is, as I have suggested, less the name of a genre (in the sense of a discursive link that mediates musical style and social group) than a term signaling a particular arrangement of sensory experience. I am not the first to observe the difficulty of understanding kwaito in terms of genre. David Coplan (2005, 11) observes, for example, that “kwaito has never existed as the genre-apart that it has widely been made out to be.” According to him, an excessive focus on the discursive constructions around “kwaito” actually obscures the wider field of popular music and culture of which kwaito is a part (11–12). That this is so should be obvious from the fact that the word “kwaito” originally referred to international music. Furthermore, although I have been asserting a clear distinction between kwaito in the late 1980s (as a synonym for international music) and kwaito in the 1990s (as a new arrangement of perceptibility that annulled the division between local and nonlocal), in reality this division was not so sharp. Instead, there was a gradual, blurry, and “confused” shifting between the various elements in the cartography of the perceptible. The situation becomes even more layered when we recognize that, at least in industry terms, in around 2007 “kwaito” was superseded by “house” music as the most popular type of music among South Africa’s urban black youth (table 2.1). But this time, the “house” music that took the country by storm was fully locally produced. In other words, it was South African house music. Now, if we recall that at one crucial moment in South Africa’s musical history house music was synonymous with international music, then the very idea of “South African house” is oxymoronic. Furthermore, the house music that took kwaito’s place as the nation’s most popular “genre” was often indistinguishable— stylistically, at least— from kwaito. This indistinction is not surprising, of course, when one remembers that “kwaito” was initially derived from house music, was initially the same thing as house music, was just another name for house music. The most noticeable difference between “kwaito” and the “South African house” that emerged around 2007 was tempo: stated simply, kwaito began speeding up. But if kwaito is a “slowed-down version of house,” then to speed kwaito up is to normalize it, to return it back to what it originally veered from— that is, house. And indeed, for a few years thence it was common to talk of the “housification” of kwaito. Once it had been fully “housified” (around 2010), kwaito was officially pronounced dead by mainstream journalists, and house music— they said— had come to replace it.74 As some of my interlocutors told me, kwaito had morphed into house and had died in the process. But not everyone was convinced. In response to kwaito’s alleged death at the hands of its very progenitor 52

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Table 2.1. Table of primary musics described in this chapter Late 1980s

1990s–early 2000s

2007 onward

Main descriptor

House

kwaito

House

Other descriptors

International music (common), kwaito (common)

House (uncommon)

kwaito (uncommon)

Relevant characteristics

Produced in the US (and less frequently in Europe and the Uk)

A “version” of international house music (differs primarily in terms of vocal delivery and tempo)

Produced in South Africa; similar to earlier kwaito (differs mainly in tempo)

(house), many people asked: “Does that mean if a song is faster it can no longer be Kwaito?”75 House, kwaito, international music: these terms circulate restlessly around musical practices, technologies, and discursive formations. It is perhaps unsurprising, then, considering the instability of the various terms employed, that many of my interlocutors in South Africa often refute the very notion of genre. Although the word “kwaito” is still sometimes used, it has become increasingly common in recent years for young South Africans to insist that they have no interest in genres or genre formation. Zola 7, who is generally understood as an archetypal kwaito musician, told me that he has consistently “failed” to produce a kwaito album.76 And when I asked Sizwe, one of my main interlocutors, what kind of music he makes, he responded: “Music.” “Ugh, you know what I mean, umfowethu [brother],” I retorted. “Obviously you make music,” I pressed on, “but what kind?” Stifling a rather glib giggle, Sizwe reiterated his initial answer: “Music.” In fact, most of the musicians I worked with insist that they only ever make “music” and that they are not kwaito musicians or house musicians, but just musicians.77 Such “refusals” of genre will be familiar to many ethnomusicologists. And indeed, there is a standard way of dealing with such refusals (which are registered instead as disavowals): ethnomusicologists are taught to first listen carefully to our interlocutors; then, second, we are taught to shift into “critical” mode in order to recognize that everyone everywhere is committed to genres, identities, and taste cultures whether they admit it or not; third, and finally, our aim is supposedly to ferret out what genre our interlocutors actually (and somewhat unwittingly) subscribe to.78 But it should be clear to the reader at this point that “demystification” harbors real dangers. When ethnomusicologists demystify statements by 53

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their informants, they actually do several things. First, they place themselves in the position of pedagogue and place their interlocutors in the position of “ignoramus.” Then, as ignoramus, the interlocutor is conceived of not simply as someone who does not know (e.g., someone who does not know that everyone everywhere actually subscribes to a taste culture). No, the interlocutor is understood not only as someone who does not know but as someone who “does not know what she does not know”79— indeed, as someone who does not know that she does not know.80 The interlocutor, then, is considered even more ignorant than someone who simply does not know, because she does not even know that she is an ignoramus in the first place. When knowledge is produced in this way, the “interlocutor” is no longer truly an interlocutor. Finally, it must be admitted that the critical scholar is not only he who knows something that his informant does not. Instead, he is someone who knows (or believes that he knows) how to make something into an object of real knowledge (Rancière 2011, 8). When the critical ethnomusicologist believes he has unveiled beneath his informant’s words the genre that she actually subscribes to, what he is doing is making his knowledge real and valid while making it clear that what his informant thinks is not knowledge at all. But when my interlocutors flat-out reject generic labels, this does not imply that they are ignorant of the genre(s) or taste cultures that they “actually” participate in. Instead, when Sizwe says that he creates only music— and not a particular genre of music— he willfully ignores the genre divisions promulgated by educators, policy makers, and the culture industries.81 Sizwe’s provocative statement regarding genre is related to another dimension of musical experience that I often encounter in South Africa, namely, an insistence on the fundamental equality of people to engage whatever music they choose. No competency is presupposed other than the capacity of basic human intelligence.82 Kabelo Mabalane explained his compositional process to me like this: Boet [brother], you know, you always listen to music hey. I wanna do a remake of, you know, “You’re Unbelievable.” I want to do a remake of that song; it’s killer. And you listen to songs on radio and you hear catchy things here, and you always just take it and put your own twist to it. It’s like I don’t know how— to me that’s the only thing that makes sense. You’re always listening out for stuff. So that’s what I do. And anything goes. Anything goes.

As Kabelo suggests, in order to engage with music one does not have to “understand” its structural logic or its cultural meaning— one has only 54

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to hear it.83 Indeed, many of the musicians I work with in South Africa continually reject the idea that there is a correct way to interact with different musical styles. Although musicologists and ethnomusicologists often claim that a particular style of music can only be properly understood or experienced by a listener familiar with that style’s musical grammar, some musicians in South Africa repudiate the idea that there is a correct way to hear— for them, there is only one human intelligence, and that intelligence can engage with any music.84 What, then, of “kwaito”? The word “kwaito,” it seems to me, is not some key capable of unlocking the identities and desires of an entire social group. It is, instead, nothing more than a loose signal for a tenuous and complex set of musical practices and arrangements of perceptibility. We have seen in this chapter, moreover, that the term “kwaito” has shifted considerably over the years. And if the meaning of the word “kwaito” has changed, this does not mean that the word itself has been responsible for that change. Language does not “create” meaning;85 rather, it is “part and parcel of processes of embodiment and knowledge and sense-making” (Porcello et al. 2010, 61). It is most efficacious, then, to pay close attention to the heterogeneous entanglements of sensory relations, arrangements that incorporate— but never in any unified way— discursive formulations, bodily dispositions, musical technologies, and ways of listening.

Concluding Remarks: Aesthetics as an Outside By establishing a relationship with the outside, early mediators of house music did not bring foreign music close. Instead, the allure of international music in the 1980s lay precisely in the fact that it remained international, foreign, and far-off. In its separation from the social conditions of black South Africans living under apartheid, house music can be meaningfully understood in relation to aesthetics. “What links the practice of [aesthetic] art to the question of the common,” writes Jacques Rancière (2009a, 23), “is a suspension with respect to the ordinary forms of sensory experience.” As I argued in the previous chapter, music is not political because of the messages that it communicates or the emotions that it transmits. Nor is it political because it “represents society’s structures, or social groups, their conflicts and identities.” On the contrary, music is political only by virtue of the “separation [écart] it takes in relation to these functions.”86 It was precisely this separation that made “international music” so appealing to South Africans in the 1980s. Black South Africans, in other words, practiced the art of “untransla55

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tion” (Novak 2010).87 They were less interested in localization than delocalization or in-appropriation— indeed, a high value was placed on anything that was socially inappropriate. This does not mean that music was completely cut off from society. In its very separation from social groups or identities, Rancière tells us, music touches politics.88 And this is precisely how house music “touched” those living under the grip of apartheid— it touched without really touching, by maintaining a distance, by staying off-limits. As Steven Shaviro (2009, 4) says of aesthetic objects in general: “The object touches me, but for my part I cannot grasp it or lay hold of it, or make it last. I cannot dispel its otherness, its alien splendor. If I could, I would no longer find it beautiful; I would, alas, merely find it useful” (emphasis in original). Without fully addressing the important differences in social and political context, it is worthwhile noting that the valorization of the international or outside has a long history in South Africa, extending back far earlier even than the “international music” of the 1960s and 1970s. Already in the 1890s, the United States was viewed as “a land of plenty, the black Utopia as such— an image that was to become so deeply etched into the mythology of South African popular struggles that until well into the 1920s in parts of the Transkei AmaMelika ayeza (the Americans are coming) was one of the rallying cries that heralded immanent black liberation” (Erlmann 1999, 150).89 In brief, it is possible to argue that black South Africans have seen the suspension of ordinary forms of sensory experience and an embrace of the outside as a potent political resource for over a century. The strategies of sensory suspension and separation simply reached their apotheosis in the 1980s, at a moment when South Africa was most severely isolated, and when apartheid had reached its endgame. With the deracialization of apartheid policies in full swing, South Africans wanted a music of their own. As Arthur Mafokate exclaimed at the time: “We can’t call house music kwaito. Let’s create something out of what we call kwaito and call it kwaito.” In this manner, kwaito begat kwaito and simultaneously split in two. But even when reconfigured, kwaito maintained a strong musical relationship with house: this “new” kwaito never erased its external origins, the traces of which are audible to this very day. In the post-apartheid period, kwaito is still the experience of an autonomous outside. It is just that now this outside is no longer a spatial exterior. Now the outside is lodged in the heart of musical experience.

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Platform, or The Miracle of the Ordinary There was a time when we needed to be free. It was about time. Our lyrics, too, began mimicking our desire to dance, to rejoice with a fiery spirit like the youth before us who took to the streets. But we, the young lions, we stormed to the mixing decks, the mics, seeking the stage. for love and pride, for what it is to be me. for what it is to be free. for what it is to be young, black, and gifted. Sing me a song. Let it be me. Let it be kwaito. MUSIC REVOLUTION

TSHEPO “STOAN” SEATE, VUMA: A

1

With the end of apartheid, black South Africans took control of the means of musical production. Musicians formed independent record labels known locally as “stables,” and kwaito exploded onto the national scene.2 The early post-apartheid period was marked, additionally, by a proliferation of voices reclaiming dignity after the veritable suspension of life during apartheid. As organizational and technological apparatuses, kwaito stables became the primary mechanism through which these newly emerging voices were distributed across the South African soundscape. In emic terms, these independent labels provided a “platform” for the dissemination of kwaito music.3 The early post-apartheid moment unfolded under the sign of the miraculous. In the wake of the most severe racial struggle of the late twentieth century, the transition to democracy assumed an unmistakably theological tenor. South Africa’s “rainbow children of God” (as Desmond Tutu called us) were led, after all, by Nelson Mandela— a figure who reached almost messianic status in the South African and 57

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international imagination. The “miracle” of South Africa’s democratic transition was embodied in the plurality of individual voices that had for so long been silenced. As musician Stoan says about the “kwaito generation”: “We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us. It is not just in some of us. It is in everyone. When we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.”4 On the other hand, however, the era was characterized by a sense of crushing banality. Finally “reentering history,” South Africa became entirely normal, or at least normative.5 In fact, the institutionalization of liberal democracy after 1994 was simultaneously the neutralization of insurrection. In this sense, democracy is nothing but the suspension of revolution, and this suspension is reliant— in large measure— on a particular management of the past in which (to paraphrase Lenin) “great revolutionaries” are canonized and converted into “harmless icons.”6 How, then, might we understand this contradictory affirmation, at once miraculous and totally normative? The answer can be stated like this: in the post-apartheid period the “rediscovery of the ordinary” was itself miraculous.7 In contemporary South Africa, freedom is no longer something one has to fight for at risk of death. Instead, it is now experienced in the everyday reality of life. Simple gestures, movements, and utterances are hence imbued with a sense of beauty, power, and even enchantment. The ordinary, presented in its stark ordinariness, thus becomes extraordinary. The normal becomes supernormal.8 In the post-apartheid period, musicians have rediscovered the ordinary through the valorization of individual experience and the aestheticization of the everyday. In the mid-1990s, for the first time in nearly three decades, black South Africans began employing lyrics in tsotsitaal, a creolized language of everyday communication that was strictly banned by apartheid censors. In kwaito songs, commonly used expressions are heightened emotionally through chant-like vocalizations, and songs may consist entirely of a tsotsitaal phrase— or even a single word— declared repeatedly for over six minutes. Lyrics are crude, lewd, banal, or ambiguous. Referring to the vulgarity of some kwaito lyrics, producer Don Laka recalls: “We tested the constitution. We tested it hard.”9 Vocalists intentionally confuse the boundary between speech and music. And indeed, Rosalind Morris’s (2008c, 129) observation, although meant in relation to the US context, suits kwaito equally well: “We might say,” she writes, “that the music which frightens people most is that which appears most like everyday language— ordinary talking— but which has the power of music.” The “confused” vocal style of kwaito helps to account for the relentless criticisms against it. 58

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Kwaito musicians, as we will see, also blur the distinction between local and nonlocal: they gather sonic fragments from all over South Africa and beyond, and they then frame those fragments and distribute them widely. Through this process, any direct link between a sound and its immediate environment, or between a voice and its traditionally intended addressee, is broken. Sounds are thus separated from their sources— a process that Steven Feld (1996) calls “schizophonic mimesis”— and circulate along unpredictable pathways. Therefore, kwaito musicians and listeners dismiss any “principle of hierarchy.”10 They do not exclusively valorize local languages and styles, nor do they exclusively appropriate foreign elements. Instead, they promulgate an egalitarian principle that upsets the representational system allotting specific sounds to particular social groups. As I illustrate later, this disruption additionally agitates the traditional criteria for establishing distinctions between music, sound, and noise. This leads, finally, to what I will call aesthetic undecidability. In this chapter, I examine platforms as experimental arrangements of sensory perception, as constructions of new perceptual realities. I focus on some of kwaito’s most prominent platforms: not only kwaito stables (i.e., independent record labels) but also the radio station Yfm, the television show Yizo Yizo, and various other live and mediated performances contexts. In addition to elaborating on the theoretical arguments of this book, I aim to provide the reader with otherwise unavailable information based on extensive ethnographic and archival research.

The Stable as Platform: Kalawa Jazmee and TS Records Kalawa Jazmee Kalawa Records was without doubt the most important music label and production company during the first twenty years of South African democracy. “Kalawa” is a syllabic abbreviation of the names of the label’s three founders: Christos Katsaitis, Don Laka, and Oscar Warona Mdlongwa.11 Katsaitis was one of South Africa’s first DJs of house music and was largely responsible for the initial popularity of house music in the country (see chapter 2). Because of his relative privilege as a white South African, he was able to import mixing decks from overseas in 1985. In the late 1980s he opened a record store called Megatrax that became a hot spot for house DJs and aficionados.12 Born in 1958, Donald Mahwetša Laka began his musical career playing in the group Flood (1970s) and then later with Sakhile (1980s).13 In the 59

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mid-1980s, Tusk Records sent him to the United Kingdom to study studio technology, and he returned with a wealth of information and technical expertise.14 It was only in the 1990s, however, and through his interaction with Christos Katsaitis and the formidable Oscar Mdlongwa15 that he became a stalwart of South African popular music. It was Oscar who introduced Don Laka to Christos, after which the three men began meeting regularly at Laka’s apartment in downtown Hillbrow (see fig. 1.2), where Kalawa Records was born. In 1991 Kalawa released its first album: an EP by the group Brothers of Peace (BOP), which was really just another name for Christos, Don Laka, and Oscar. BOP was exclusively a production outfit: its music existed only on cassette tapes and few people knew who was responsible for the music. According to Laka, the group was “faceless.” And yet, as he says: “By right, BOP started kwaito.”16 Two years later, in 1993, Kalawa Records released kwaito’s first performing music group, Boom Shaka, which consisted of four vocalists— including South Africa’s first transgender celebrity (see below for more).17 Laka assembled the band by “handpicking” the members of the group (fig. 3.1) and consulted Oscar to get a “ground-level idea of what sounds the market wanted” (Stephens 2001, 257–58).18 Boom Shaka was therefore a completely “manufactured” group, and as Simon Stephens (2001, 258) explains, “The ‘manufactured’ way in which Boomshaka [sic] was formed by Laka is a formula that has since been copied widely. The members of new kwaito acts are scouted and introduced to each other by the producers, rather than groups being formed as a result of previous social or musical relationships.” In saying this, Stephens succinctly articulates the logic of the platform: producers gather previously unconnected people, often from different regions and cultural backgrounds, and then provide support for their collective sonorization. In the early 1990s, however, this platform was not particularly robust. Lacking connections to formal networks of distribution, Oscar personally disseminated Kalawa’s music by selling cassettes and CDs from the trunk of his car. According to Randall Abrahams (2003, 25), “the initial extent of his [i.e., Oscar’s] marketing drive was to promote Boom Shaka and BOP at taxi ranks and at his DJ appearances.” In Boom Shaka’s “It’s About Time” (1993)— which is almost unanimously considered the first kwaito hit— the four vocalists in the group demand to be heard. Alluding to the absurdity of apartheid’s perseverance into the early 1990s, they sing: “It’s about time you listened to Boom Shaka / It’s about time you listened to Boom.” In other words, “it’s about time” that black South Africans are given a public space of appearance. 60

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Boom Shaka. Clockwise from left to right: Thembi Seete, Junior Sokhela, Lebo Mathosa, Theo Nhlengethwa. Source: Album jacket of Words of Wisdom (1998).

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This space of appearance, or platform, does not come into existence without work— it requires manufacturing and constant maintenance. In 1994 Christos Katsaitis left Kalawa Records, and Bruce “Dope” Sebitlo replaced him.19 In the same year, Kalawa Records released a new BOP album, this time with Oscar’s and Sebitlo’s “faces”: that is, Oscar and Sebitlo performed the album live and promoted it relentlessly until it attained platinum status.20 But a controversy soon arose: the title track, “Traffic Cop,” sounded very similar to a song by a group from Soweto called Trompies.21 In fact, BOP’s “Traffic Cop” and Trompies’ “Sigiya Ngengoma” share a similar refrain, a chanted vocalization on the words ibiza emoyeni.22 In order to resolve the dispute, Kalawa Records merged with the members of Trompies to form a new production company, Kalawa Jazmee (table 3.1).23 It is worthwhile dwelling, for a moment, on this merger. Unsurprisingly, Oscar claims that Trompies stole the song from him, and not the other way round.24 More important, however, is his narration of the events that subsequently unfolded. By his own admission, Oscar was initially very taken aback when he heard Trompies performing “his” song one night. So why, we are wont to ask, did he reconcile with Trompies, going so far as to merge with them and form a new company? Oscar’s surprising explanation is that he could not earnestly criticize Trompies because he had not written the song in the first place. In fact, “Traffic Cop” was based on music from a cassette tape that Oscar had purchased some time ago, and because the tape was unlabeled, he knew nothing about the music’s Table 3.1. Personnel for Kalawa Records, Trompies, and Kalawa Jazmee kalawa records

Trompies

kalawa Jazmee

Christos katsaitis Don Laka Oscar “Oskido” Mdlongwa

Jairus “Jakarumba” khuse1 Mandla “Spikiri” Mofokeng Eugene Mthethwa2 Zynne “Mahoota” Sikiba

Don Laka Oscar “Oskido” Mdlongwa Bruce “Dope” Sebitlo Jairus “Jakarumba” khuse1 Mandla “Spikiri” Mofokeng Eugene Mthethwa2 Zynne “Mahoota” Sikiba Mojalefa “Mjokes” Matsane3

Jairus “Jakarumba” khuse is also known as Jairus Nkwe. Eugene Mthethwa (sometimes referred to affectionately as “Donald Duck”) left Trompies and kalawa Jazmee in 2009 to work full-time as an activist for musicians. See his manifesto-like statement, “why I’m Quitting Trompies” (Mthethwa 2009). 3 Mojalefa Emmanuel Matsane (more commonly known as “Mjokes”) is considered the “fifth unofficial member of Trompies” (see Mojapelo 2008, 171). Although he is a director at kalawa Jazmee, he dedicates most of his time to pig farming. 1

2

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Figure 3.2a.

riff from “It’s Over Now” by Ultra Naté.

Figure 3.2b.

riff from “Traffic Cop” by Brothers of Peace.

origins or makers. It is quite likely, in fact, that Ganyani had recorded this tape in real time from his uncle’s record player (see chapter 2).25 But what was the mysterious unlabeled tape that Oscar was listening to? Although Oscar himself still has no idea, one of my interlocutors in Soweto suggested that the unmarked tape was a copy of the 1991 song “It’s Over Now” by Ultra Naté (a female house musician from Maryland). While I cannot verify this claim, it seems very likely given a similar riff in the two songs (compare figs. 3.2a and 3.2b). “Copying” foreign music is seldom a straightforward process in South Africa— I address this issue at length in chapter 5. But in terms of what this means for platforms, the anecdote about Kalawa’s and Trompies’ merger confirms two things: first, that kwaito musicians often utilize international music without knowing anything about that music and, second, that kwaito musicians trouble the boundary between local and international. After all, when they copied “Traffic Cop” from Oscar Mdlongwa, the members of Trompies did not know that Oscar had copied the song from elsewhere.26 All of this shows quite clearly that kwaito is not proper to any particular social group. As Stephens’s characterization of kwaito as “manufactured” implies, this is not a musical form that grew directly from some “organic” cultural, ethnic, or national community. On the contrary, kwaito producers deliberately create articulations between otherwise disparate individuals. Hence, although Stephens’s description of Boom Shaka as “manufactured” is accurate, it is worth clarifying that this does not mean (as he seems to imply) that the group was in any sense “fake” or “not real.”27 As a framing of sensory experience that suspends normative ways of hearing and knowing, kwaito does not dissimulate reality as much as it doubles it. In 1996 the newly formed Kalawa Jazmee manufactured the group

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Bongo Maffin, which consisted of four members: Thandiswa Mazwai, Stoan (Tshepo Seate), Appleseed (Anesu Adrian Mupemhi), and Speedy (Harold Rangakane Mahlaku).28 Bongo Maffin soon garnered national attention for their eclectic style and, according to Stoan, was one of South Africa’s first “Pan-Africanist groups”: Because also myself, I was fresh out of Bophuthatswana [one of South Africa’s independent “homelands”]. You know the whole Bophuthatswana entity had broken up a few months before I came to Joburg [i.e., Johannesburg]. About a year or so before I came to Joburg. And I still felt like a foreigner— within my own country. Because the whole environment within Bophuthatswana is totally— or the Bophuthatswana that I grew up in— was totally, totally different to what was happening here in South Africa. In terms of, say, where myself as a black man saw myself within the social ladder. I did not have the issues of, say, a kid coming out of Soweto, out of the townships in South Africa.29

Stoan told me that his upbringing was similar to Appleseed’s in Zimbabwe, in the sense that they had both “been exposed to international culture, or foreign culture, Western culture.” Paradoxically, however, in interviews Stoan has often emphasized his profound respect for the musical and cultural traditions of Jamaica, which, for him, represent a kind of antiWestern decolonization of the mind. In 2005 he explained his affinity for Jamaican culture to the academic Sonjah Stanley-Niaah (who is herself Jamaican) like this: “If we had to look at any other example of Black people of the continent, who have found their essence, it’s Jamaicans. . . . Yeah, so, I think you’ll find a lot of people, you know, have been touched by the [ Jamaican] culture, in South Africa, within ten years” (Stanley-Niaah 2008, 43–44). Listening to Bongo Maffin’s music, there are certainly sonic markers of Jamaicanness, but the influence of house music is more prominent. Puzzled by this apparent discrepancy, I decided to engage Stoan in a kind of “dialogic” ethnography.30 During the course of a conversation at his house in Sunninghill, I took a crumpled-up piece of paper out of my pocket containing a few quotations that I had gathered in preparation and proceeded to read to him— in the form of a challenge, almost— what he had said a few years earlier in the Stanley-Niaah interview. “I still do agree with my own quote,” he replied laughing, and then continued: when we were coming out . . . I remember Shabba ranks [i.e., the Jamaican dancehall artist]— the first time we saw anything like that. And before that, Peter Tosh and Bob Marley. for me, it was the most complete essence of a black man that I could see. 64

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And I think that Jamaicans were able to find a complete identity that does not hinge on too much that is western. The sound of their music, the language they decided to speak. The pidgin English. It’s hectic, it’s heavy. It’s like Nigerian English almost. It’s like Nigerian pidgin English almost, you know. with all those things, I think for me, with Bongo Maffin, that was a much stronger influence that I could see.

Nonetheless, Stoan acknowledged that it was the Jamaican “attitude” (this was the word he employed) that most impressed him. In fact, he told me that Jamaican music was a strong “link,” if not influence. “We are more influenced by Americans, funnily enough,” he said. Stoan’s range of influences is evidently extremely knotted, tangled. In fact, the first time I heard Bongo Maffin perform it was as an opening act for the British alternativerock group Skunk Anansie, in 1997. And the song that made the largest impression on the audience that night was— of all things— a cover of the Eagles’ “Hotel California.” When I mentioned the concert to Stoan in a conversation, he immediately became excited: Yeah, oh you were there at that show! So that was one of the first shows where someone was saying . . . I mean after the show the guys from Skunk Anansie were saying, “wow, this is an international act waiting to happen.” And in about two years after that we were already starting to travel overseas.

He explained to me that the more Bongo Maffin traveled internationally, the more “African” their sound became: “And as soon as you go there [i.e., overseas] you start realizing that the more of your African identity you expose, the more people overseas want to see you. And the more people here at home want to see you.” Consider how strange and nonlinear this process is: during international tours, Bongo Maffin was pressured into adopting an explicitly— and as Stoan later told me, fictively— “African” sound. But then, through a process of “reverse importation” the group was “validated at home after gaining status on a foreign stage.”31 This process, in fact, is a common double bind of the world music industry and has been described by several ethnomusicologists, including Louise Meintjes (2003) and David Novak (2013). But for Stoan, who evidently was already negotiating a difficult set of contradictions surrounding his identity even before touring internationally, the double bind must have felt particularly burdensome. Indeed, he had hoped to rid his mind of Western notions but, precisely by performing in the West, was pressured into adopting an “African” sound. The complications and equivocations in Stoan’s remarks can be understood in another way as well: while he may have felt a close affinity with 65

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Jamaican music, this personal connection is not easily translated to the group level. On the contrary, the function of a platform is to provide a space of appearance for a plurality of voices. Thus, Thandiswa (another member of the group) defines kwaito as a form of music that “mixes all of the influences that young people in South Africa have seen throughout the world” (quoted in Delzeit 2004). She emphasizes the plurality of individual influences, life histories, and proclivities: So sometimes maybe kwaito has a hip-hop influence because it was done by someone who was influenced by hip-hop. And sometimes it has a reggae influence, and sometimes it is influenced by traditional music from South Africa. Basically it’s just what young people see and hear and it’s an expression of our life in the township, in urban cities, in the rural cities of Johannesburg, in the rural cities of anywhere else in South Africa. (Delzeit 2004)32

The openness to, and plurality of, voices is precisely what made Bongo Maffin so compelling. With lyrics in quasi-Jamaican patois (Appleseed), a Tswana-based creole known as motswako 33 (Stoan), Xhosa (Thandiswa), and English (Speedy), “Bongo Maffin dissolves common sense understandings of African music that would suggest that music is the production of a particular ethno-linguistic group for the consumption of members of that group solely” (Livermon 2006, 100). The dissolution of such partitions is particularly important in light of the former apartheid policy of separate development. But the suspension of ethnic and linguistic partitioning does not result in a single hybrid or syncretic form: on the contrary, Kalawa Jazmee provides a platform for the appearance of multiple individual voices. The organizational logic of kwaito ensures that the plurality of these voices is maintained— the four singers in Bongo Maffin do not meld into a single voice-machine but rather maintain relative autonomy within a larger sonic environment. To paraphrase Rancière (2009b, 31), one might say that kwaito is a “community of sense”: not a “collectivity shaped by a common feeling” but a framing of audibility and “intelligibility that puts things and practices together under the same meaning.” The work of platforms, in short, is to place diverse voices on an elevated yet equal footing. TS Records Because of its ever-increasing alliances, Kalawa Jazmee maintained dominance over the South African popular-music industry well into 2014— I discuss some of its more recent artists in chapter 6.34 But despite its domi66

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nance, Kalawa Jazmee is certainly not the only important stable— Arthur Mafokate’s 999 is also significant, as is the newer company, TS Records.35 TS Records, which maintains a close (albeit informal) relationship with Kalawa Jazmee, was founded in 2001 by music producer and radio DJ Sbusiso Leope36 and prides itself on being a “dynamic 100% black owned recording and artist Promotions Company that caters to South Africa’s ever-growing music industry.”37 The history of TS Records has much to tell us about the way that platforms function in South African popular music; I therefore present a detailed summary of how the company came into existence. In 2001 Leope was working as a technical producer at the radio station Yfm. Through his connections at the station, he was able to arrange airtime for his “friend” Mzekezeke, who always wears a mask and whose true identity was intended to remain unknown (fig. 3.3). Mzekezeke, the story went, had “tried all avenues available to an aspiring star with minimal resources” (Mpye 2003, 28). Before the stint at Yfm, he had apparently phoned celebrities relentlessly and asked for a break in the entertainment industry. What he wanted to be famous for, however, remained uncertain— after all, this man did not seem to possess any discernible skills or talents. At Yfm, and with help from his friend Leope, Mzekezeke repeated his requests to important figures in the entertainment industry— but now live on air. His broken English— which he insisted on using— and his innocent charm won the hearts of Yfm listeners, and Mzekezeke soon became the sweetheart of the station. According to journalist Siphiwe Mpye (2003, 28), even after Mzekezeke’s on-air phone calls his “real break remained no closer.” No one was willing to give Mzekezeke a chance, especially considering his own insistence that he possessed no real talents. But Mpye’s comment is of course ironic, since it was precisely through Mzekezeke’s failed phone calls that he did in fact become a celebrity. He had already been given a “break” by Leope, who had provided him with airtime on Yfm. With every failed phone call and with every rejection, his fame grew. With his newfound fame, Mzekezeke decided to release a kwaito album. It did not matter that he could not sing. In fact, on many songs he performs this inability— his voice breaking, failing, flailing— followed by his own good-natured laughter. Mzekezeke, in other words, celebrated his very ordinariness, his complete lack of virtuosity. The same strongwilled innocence— enhanced, rather than inhibited, by his apparent lack of talent— made Mzekezeke’s music extremely popular among the black youth of South Africa. According to Leope, “TS Records was actually formed because of Mzekezeke. We [Leope and partner Thembinkosi ‘TK’ 67

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Figure 3.3.

Mzekezeke. Courtesy of YMag.

Nciza] pooled all the resources we had [reportedly from life savings and from the sale of Nciza’s car] and decided to release him into the market” (Mpye 2003, 30). Since 2001, Mzekezeke has released several high-selling albums and has been featured in many major advertising campaigns. The supreme irony is that, as any kwaito aficionado will tell you, Leope is Mzekezeke. Although Leope will deny this even today, few doubt Mzekezeke’s “true” identity. But here things become more complex because, as Mpye (2003, 28) tells us, “Mzekezeke’s ‘true identity’ is a non-issue to the majority of Yfm listeners and kwaito lovers.”38 In a sense, his nonidentity is his identity: he is the anonymous man. This is why Mpye, who agrees that it makes little difference who Mzekezeke “really” is, calls his 68

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article about the masked marvel “Unmasking Mzekezeke: The Real Unmasking.”39 In other words, to unmask Mzekezeke means recognizing that there is nothing underneath the mask. A number of rather absurd consequences have followed from Mzekezeke’s identity in nonidentity. For one thing, Mpye claims that Mzekezeke was never involved in crime. By acknowledging a biography or life history of Mzekezeke, Mpye suggests that he is, in fact, a very real person and not simply a fiction lacking a life outside his mask. Perhaps even more strangely, Mzekezeke is “bait for autograph hounds” (Mpye 2003, 28). What would it mean to acquire the autograph of someone without an identity? What does it mean for a faceless, unknown person to seal his name with his own hand (as the etymology of the word “autograph” suggests)? To a certain extent, Mzekezeke’s anonymity is an affirmation of humility. Explaining why he wears overalls during performances, Mzekezeke states: “They [i.e., ordinary people] wear work clothes when they go to work, I also wear overalls just like them. I’m just like people, I’m ordinary. I’m not [interested in] wear[ing] gold chains, gold rings, I’m not like that and I don’t like that bling bling thing. Even if I can have money to buy [them], I don’t want those things because I’m just ordinary, you see.”40 Following Njabulo Ndebele (1986, 155), one might say that Mzekezeke “rediscovers the ordinary” and affirms “the unproclaimed heroism of the ordinary person.” Mzekezeke also calls into question the meaning of celebrity, as is nicely illustrated in the music video for his song “Ubani uMzekezeke?” (Who is Mzekezeke?). The video begins with two teenage girls, one white and one black, speculating about Mzekezeke’s true identity. One of them asks: “Have you checked out the newspapers today? Apparently they know who the real Mzekzeke is.” To which the other responds: “Ja, whatever! That story is so played out.” The first girl is not yet ready to give up and asserts: “Last time I checked it was DJ Fresh.”41 Rolling her eyes, the other girl again replies that it is a nonissue: “I don’t care who the real Mzekezeke is.” The video then quickly moves to a shot of Mzekezeke dancing and pulling off his mask, each time revealing a different identity. The mask comes off and a young man, smiling wildly, shakes his dreadlocks. Then a slender young woman reveals herself, staring demurely at the camera. With each subsequent unveiling a different identity is revealed, and as the video progresses familiar faces begin to appear: George Bush, Nelson Mandela, Robert Mugabe, Osama bin Laden . . . At first we think we are being continually tricked, that each time the mask comes off we are simply seeing someone pretending to be Mzekezeke. But then another thought 69

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occurs: all these people could, at different times, be “Mzekezeke.” After all, what is Mzekezeke if not an idea, a signifier without content? And indeed, about halfway through the video we see dozens of people wearing Mzekezeke masks: at least thirty people wearing the famous Mzekezeke balaclava dance around tables, reveling and singing. From one perspective, any of these people could be Mzekezeke. From another perspective, all these people are Mzekezeke. Mzekezeke can be seen as part of a larger movement that seeks, for various reasons, to undermine individual authority. The Nigerian musician Lágbájá, for example, dons a Yoruba egungun mask in order to “transform himself into a kind of negative celebrity, a pop star with no face” (C. Waterman 2002, 31).42 As Olabode Omojola (2009, 175–76) comments, the “liberalizing effect” of this separation between private and public selves “is reflected in Lágbájá’s metaphorical effectiveness at projecting the cause of the ‘faceless’ majority.” Another important example is the figure of the Zapatista, and more recently we have witnessed the activist group Anonymous (whose members don Guy Fawkes masks in public) and the Russian feminist punk collective Pussy Riot (whose members wear colorful balaclavas). In a brief article on Pussy Riot, the philosopher Slavoj Žižek (2012) argues that the members are “conceptual artists in the noblest sense of the word: artists who embody an Idea. This is why they wear balaclavas: masks of de-individualization, of liberating anonymity.” Returning to Mzekezeke, it would also be possible to articulate the paradox of anonymous fame by focusing on his voice: almost all listeners know very well that it is Leope behind the mask, and yet this knowledge does not annul the mysterious quality of Mzekezeke’s singing. According to Mladen Dolar (2006, 66), acousmatic sound— that is, a sound whose source is concealed— always entails a “certain disavowal epitomized by the formula ‘I know very well, but nevertheless . . .’”43 The uncanniness of the voice, he suggests, is particularly acute in cases where the sound source is first concealed but then later revealed because— contrary to what one might expect— the “revelation” of the source often only adds to the sound’s allure. The gap between a sound and its source can never be bridged: there is always a kernel of the voice that resists identification.44 This explains why knowing that Mzekezeke is Leope actually enhances Mzekezeke’s allure. When it became widely acknowledged that Leope is in fact the man beneath the mask, Mzekezeke only grew as a cultural phenomenon. Even though Mzekezeke may “really” be Leope, he need not be Leope; that is to say, there is nothing “in” Mzekezeke that requires him to be Leope. He could, in fact, be the smiling man with dreadlocks or the beau70

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tiful slender woman with the seductive smile in the video for “Ubani uMzekezeke?” He may— more dramatically— be George Bush, Nelson Mandela, Robert Mugabe, or Osama bin Laden, as the same music video suggests. On the most fundamental level, the case of Mzekezeke illustrates the egalitarianism of aesthetic perception. Mzekezeke is the aesthetic object par excellence precisely because he could be anyone at all. As such, he signals the complete entropy of all representational systems, of all systems that delimit what can count as legitimate musical content. Since anyone might be under Mzekezeke’s mask, every person is equal to (if not the same as) every other. It is evident, in the final analysis, that Sbusiso Leope created a platform for himself. Stuck in his position as technical producer at Yfm, Leope conjured his doppelgänger. Largely due to the success of Mzekezeke, Leope today not only owns one of the most cutting-edge labels in South Africa but was also awarded his own show on Yfm. He is additionally a very prominent house music DJ and producer under the title DJ Sbu. Mzekezeke, then, is a genuine “superhero” who, through a clever sleight of hand, saved and enriched an ordinary South African: his own creator, Sbusiso Leope.

Radio as Platform: The Case of Yfm As the story of Leope and Mzekezeke implies, Yfm has played a significant role in the history of kwaito music— indeed, no history of kwaito would be complete without an account of the station, which was kwaito’s first regional platform.45 Yfm was founded in 1997 by the activist and entrepreneur Dirk Hartford. A white South African, Hartford grew up in a well-to-do family in Cape Town and was politicized, like many young people at the time, by university activist groups. After completing an undergraduate degree at the University of Cape Town, he moved to London for three years, where he became involved, in his own words, in “ultra-left revolutionary politics.”46 He returned to South Africa in 1981 and, after a stint as a journalist for the Financial Mail, led the media department of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU). In the early 1990s Hartford channeled his energies into transforming the South African Broadcasting Company (SABC) in parallel with state liberalization. Working in the SABC’s newly established “strategic planning unit,” he was responsible for creating proposals for new media outlets in the democracy to come. Along with several former colleagues (or comrades), Hartford recommended the launching of a youth-oriented radio station. However, as 71

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he recalls: “Although the concept was accepted in principle, not only by the SABC leadership of the time but also by the newly established regulator and the government, it was never given the go-ahead” (McGregor 2005, 103). Despite this unfortunate decision, Hartford persisted. Having experienced kwaito at street bashes in Soweto, he was determined to find a mechanism to distribute the music more widely. “Kwaito was the first new, authentically South African music in decades and nobody was touching it,” he laments. “At the SABC it was unofficially banned because some of the lyrics were obscene and it was regarded as shit music” (McGregor 2005, 104). A window of opportunity opened in 1996, when the Independent Broadcasting Association sent out a call for applications for commercial and community radio licenses. In line with the emphasis on black economic empowerment, Hartford applied for a license for a commercial station that guaranteed 80 percent black ownership, 50 percent female staff, and 50 percent South African music within three years. When the license was granted, Hartford immediately set to work launching Yfm. Many of the DJs in the initial lineup were in their early twenties and some were homeless at the time. According to the nonprofessional musicians I worked with in Soweto (see chapters 4 and 5), when Yfm first began broadcasting in 1997 the DJs exclusively played house music without commentary or commercials. As one interlocutor recalls: You know how they [i.e., Yfm] promoted it to get the frequency known? It just played house. The whole day. No ads. No DJ. No one. So what would we do? I’ll tell my friends at school and they’ll tell their friends. And we would all listen— no station’s thing [i.e., the DJs never said what the station was], no “Yfm,” or whatever. It was just this frequency. we knew, set your dial there, man, there’s always house.

For the first year or so, most of Yfm’s listeners did not even know the name of the station that they so avidly listened to. Nor did they learn anything about the music that they heard: because Yfm only broadcast music, listeners were not informed about song titles or artist names. This observation supports the argument, made in the previous chapter, that house, or “international,” music was experienced as particularly alluring precisely because South Africans knew nothing about it. And the story becomes even more interesting when we recognize that the first sound ever broadcast on Yfm was a song by Bongo Maffin. Hence, when my interlocutor says that Yfm played only house music, he includes kwaito groups such as Bongo Maffin under that rubric. The Bongo Maf72

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fin song that Yfm chose was “Makeba,” a reworking of Miriam Makeba’s famous song “Pata Pata.”47 “Makeba” is a celebration of post-apartheid South Africa and its new institutions, but it also references the work of previously exiled musician and activist Miriam Makeba. Don Laka, who was largely responsible for producing the song, transformed the original harmonic progression of “Pata Pata” (I–IV–I–V) into the Mixolydian mode, which then became I–I–IV–♭VII. As Laka explained to me, the harmonic framework of “Makeba” resembles some of the modal jazz and rock tunes he performed in the mid-1970s.48 “Makeba” is thus a densely layered song, capturing many of kwaito’s lines of flight in the mid-1990s. It confuses local and foreign, past and present, initially becoming audible to black South Africans by the mere setting of a dial, as pure frequency.

Television as Platform: The Case of Yizo Yizo The television show Yizo Yizo was kwaito’s first national platform. The soundtrack featured many already established kwaito musicians and groups, such as Arthur Mafokate, Thembi Seete, and TKZee. At the same time, it greatly increased the popularity of less established artists. Zola 7’s music career, for example, was launched by his involvement with the show. In addition to the ubiquity of nondiegetic kwaito on Yizo Yizo, the show also featured performances by kwaito musicians. Like other platforms, Yizo Yizo’s success lay precisely in the way that it arranged sensory perception along a series of cascading realities. The following discussion examines Yizo Yizo as a particular sensory distribution that simultaneously suspends normative perception and blurs the boundary between different modalities of experience. As I will show, Yizo Yizo’s creators manage this by doubling reality in a direct or even literal way, by producing an audiovisual representation of reality with minimal difference from the reality that it represents. Yizo Yizo was first conceived as a response to an SABC commission. The education wing of the SABC released a brief requesting “a drama series that would highlight the crisis in education, specifically in township schools in the country.”49 Laduma Film Factory won the tender and produced the show, which began airing on SABC 1 (a public-service channel of the SABC) in February 1999 and ran for three seasons. Broadcast during prime time in the evenings, it rapidly became a smash hit, reaching as many as 2.1 million viewers for some episodes— more than any other show at the time. Directed by Teboho Mahlatsi and Angus Gibson, Yizo Yizo tells the 73

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story of students at Supatsela High in Soweto, focusing on the hostile and often violent relationship between the school principal, the teachers, and the students— some of whom are thugs (or tsotsis).50 All three seasons were highly controversial, and in almost every case, critics and devotees emphasized the same aspect of the show: its commitment to realism.51 The very name of the show, in fact, can be roughly translated as “this is it” or “the way it is.” As Clive Barnett (2004, 259) observes, Yizo Yizo was the first South African television show, “other than news and documentary series,” to portray townships. Prior to Yizo Yizo, the most popular shows on South African television had been American soap operas such as Dallas and Days of Our Lives, most of which focused on affluent communities, employed formulaic plot structures, and used stock characters.52 Yizo Yizo opened the terrain of what counts as legitimate television content by presenting an unflinching depiction of township life, in all its beauty, ugliness, hope, and despair. According to Barnett, one crucial feature of Yizo Yizo was therefore its “democratization of taste.” “It served as a means,” he suggests, “through which the previously marginalized cultural tastes and popular knowledges of the majority of black South Africans have now been registered by powerful national cultural institutions” (266). Like kwaito music, Yizo Yizo provided a space in which the quotidian activities of township people could appear to a large public. But in both cases the actions are clearly staged: they are performed by musicians and actors and presented to an audience. What, then, is the precise relationship between Yizo Yizo as a televisual product and the life that it claims to realistically represent? To answer this question, it is necessary to elaborate on the production and reception of the show. Yizo Yizo was developed with a view toward “mediated deliberation” (Barnett 2004, 262). By pulling issues of township education into the public sphere— if only in scripted and televised form— the creators of Yizo Yizo hoped to provoke discussion among viewers. In other words, the intended function of the show was that it exceed its status as TV show and enter into the life worlds of actual township residents. Because of this initial premise, the production of Yizo Yizo was decidedly nonlinear. A particularly distinctive aspect of the series’ creation was “the deployment of social science research in the production, legitimization and revision of the series” (259). Thus, the people that Yizo Yizo allegedly represented were invited to critically assess their representation on the show. That commentary, in turn, had an effect on the production of subsequent episodes. As such, “mediated debate . . . informed the mediating object itself [i.e., the show]” (Modisane 2010, 132). If representation means “to present again,” then Yizo Yizo calls into question the chronology of what was present first. 74

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A defining feature of the show was therefore the almost seamless interplay between life and its televised representation. And this interplay was responsible, among other things, for the sustained criticism that Yizo Yizo encouraged copycat crime. Many argued that the televised representation of already existing crime provoked the further enactment of real crime in a kind of positive-feedback loop. For such critics, there is no real separation between experiential domains: television and everyday realities such as crime form a kind of mesh structure in which the two domains constantly interact. From this perspective, the only way to make TV shows responsibly is to control and regulate how people interpret them. Thus, in the 1990s Yizo Yizo was supplemented by a number of paratexts,53 including a feature article in the Sowetan newspaper following each episode, a radio talk show, and even guides for teachers and youth counselors on how to harness the show for pedagogical purposes. Yizo Yizo, in short, was not simply a TV show: it was an entire social and, indeed, political apparatus. The various parts of this apparatus were designed to channel socially responsible interpretations and responses in line with the state’s project of producing new citizens capable of living up to the expectations of a new South Africa.54 Part of this project, no doubt, aimed to repress insurrection and neutralize “insurgent black life” through the deployment of pedagogy as a means of what Rancière (1991) calls “stultification.”55 The fact that so many paratexts were created reveals the state’s anxiety about ever adequately controlling viewer interpretations. But there is also another way of interpreting and engaging with Yizo Yizo. Responding to those who blamed Yizo Yizo for copycat crime, advocates of the show argued that “children as well as adults have the ability to distinguish between representations of reality and reality itself” (Barnett 2004, 262). These advocates believed, in other words, that the show suspended a determinate relationship with reality and, furthermore, that viewers were highly cognizant of this suspension. For these proponents, to blame Yizo Yizo for crimes committed by people who watched the show is to misunderstand how mediated cultural products function in the first place. Who is correct? Did the show blur the boundary between “representation” and “reality” to the point where the two terms constantly spilled over into each other, transformed each other? Or did it, instead, insulate representation and thereby function autonomously from any referent? My contention is that Yizo Yizo’s relationship with “social reality” is inherently ambiguous and even, strictly speaking, undecidable.56 Stated another way, the debate between those who emphasized the seamless relation between representation and reality, on the one hand, and those 75

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who insulated representation from reality, on the other, can be understood only when we acknowledge the confusion that lies at the heart of aesthetic experience.57 I submit that it is precisely because of this extreme ambiguity that Yizo Yizo generates endless discussion and controversy. The undecidable relationship between “life” and “representation” in Yizo Yizo is part of a much larger problematic, which extends beyond South Africa to various forms of cultural production, including music, movies, and video games. For example, there is an immense body of literature dedicated to assessing the effects of video games on human behavior outside the video game context. The most cutting-edge scientific research on this topic seems to come out in favor of the position that violent video games do, in fact, encourage violent behavior more generally. But even a cursory look at this literature reveals its limits. Consider, for example, a recent article by L. Rowell Huesmann, a research scientist at the University of Michigan who is widely considered an authority on the behavioral effects of video games. Although Huesmann claims that empirical research confirms that violent video games stimulate aggression in players, he reveals a clear dogmatic bias at the very beginning of the article, asserting: “It requires a tortuous logic to believe that children and adolescents are affected by what they observe in their living room, through the front window of their house, in their classroom, in their neighborhood, and among their peers but are not affected by what they observe in movies, on television, or in the video games they play” (Huesmann 2010, 179). But the “tortuous logic” that Huesmann describes is precisely the “logic” of aesthetic experience insofar as it suspends normative causality. Furthermore, even if we grant Huesmann the empirical “fact” that movies, television, and video games affect people, the precise nature of that affective state is far more difficult to discern. It does not require a tortuous logic at all to argue that the affects produced by seeing someone murdered in one’s living room would be quite different from seeing a character being “murdered” on a video game (which, in reality, would simply amount to some pixels being juggled around). Indeed, it requires a far more tortuous logic to argue that the affects would be somehow the same. Another relevant point is that although psychologists have often argued that mass-media products like television shows and video games stimulate aggression, there is also “plenty of evidence that these forms of entertainment dull our senses more than they heighten them” (Morris 2008c, 122).58 And indeed, there is a school of thought that holds the mass media responsible for violence precisely because it desensitizes rather than stimulates. Because of desensitization, the argument runs, all violence (even “real” violence) is imagined in the unreal form of television, 76

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video games, and popular music (see ibid.). If for Huesmann everything is equally real (i.e., if for him there is no meaningful difference between what one sees or hears through the window of one’s house and what one sees or hears on a video game), proponents of the “desensitization” hypothesis argue that for the couch potato everything is equally unreal. In both cases, television, video games, and popular music are dangerous when they are not adequately insulated from life, when their relationship to life is porous. The ambiguous relationship between life and its televised “representation” (a word whose inadequacy we are increasingly noticing) is all the more evident when considering the role of music in Yizo Yizo. For one thing, several famous kwaito musicians acted on the show. Thembi Seete from Boom Shaka played the role of Hazel, one of the show’s central protagonists, while Kabelo Mabalane featured as himself— that is, as a successful kwaito artist. Zola 7, on the other hand, became a famous kwaito musician after, and because of, his role on the show. Thus, there are various crossings between kwaito musicians, their various personae, and characters in the show. The affective use of music as sonic material on the show is equally nonlinear, multilayered, and ambiguous. One of the most striking aspects of Yizo Yizo’s sonic design is that nondiegetic music— typically a soft and repetitive electronic track— is audible for approximately 50 percent of the total running time of every episode. About half of every scene is accompanied by a quietly thudding track, the precise function of which is often very difficult to discern. In some scenes, the music is soft almost to the point of inaudibility. In others, the level is raised dramatically to the point that it is louder than the dialogue. Even more pertinently, there are cases where it is not even clear whether the music is, in fact, music. In the first episode of season 1, there is a scene where it is impossible to tell whether a periodic thudding is the sound of a nondiegetic drumbeat or the footsteps of schoolgirls. There is also a strange, quasi-causal relationship between sound and images in Yizo Yizo. In an episode from the first season, the soft pulse of an electronic track becomes audible just as one of the characters begins to cry, as though the crying activated the music. Bhekizizwe Peterson (2002, 330–31) observes, moreover, that “[t]he measured photography [of Yizo Yizo] is creatively extended, and at times undercut, by the use of images in motion, often abruptly so and in staccato, when the photography and narrative self-consciously feed off the music-video format that is one of its key underlying cultural codes.” Stated another way, the “rhythm” of the images occasionally coalesces with the nondiegetic music, as if— for a moment— the music controls what the viewer sees.59 77

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Although there is often an ambiguity and a slippage between musical and nonmusical sound, there are other instances where music asserts itself much more forcefully, signaling alterity. In the first scene of season 3, for instance, we see the protagonist Bobo (played by Innocent Masuku) driving through the township in a Mercedes-Benz. He is a kwaito star, adored by fans and his ideal partner, KK. As he drives, we hear the song “What a Mess” nondiegetically on the soundtrack. But suddenly the music stops and the viewer realizes that the entire scene was a dream sequence: the protagonist wakes up, only to find himself alone in a township shack. “Through Bobo’s dream,” write Ndlovu and Smith (2011, 12), “the series’ creators elevate kwaito as a conduit through which a young person could realize his dreams.” The scene becomes more interesting with the realization that the song “What a Mess” was recorded by Bobo himself.60 In fact, “What a Mess” was one of the most popular songs on the Yizo Yizo soundtrack, and for this reason he is a kwaito star. Understood this way, there are actually two Bobos: the celebrity who sings the song and the one who dreams of being the celebrity who sings the song. Yizo Yizo blurs the boundary between music and nonmusic, life and representation, reality and dream. Sounds are placed in a zone of indistinction where it is impossible to tell what is music and what is not, impossible to tell which sounds are emanating from the nondiegetic soundtrack and which from the diegetic world of the characters. In this way, Yizo Yizo’s arrangement of sensory experience parallels much kwaito music: in kwaito songs, one hears alarms ringing, people breathing, and crickets chirping— listeners delight in a sonic cornucopia, in a panoply of sound. There is no clear hierarchy of musical material where, say, only “pure” harmonic complex tones are considered beautiful or where certain vocal timbres are acceptable. Instead, there is a democratization of sound and an almost dizzying exchange between singing, speaking, everyday sound, and noise. For example, in the song “Fella Kae” (2001) kwaito musician Dr. Mageu “performs a passable impression of an ak-47 submachine gun” over a sample of Madonna’s “Papa Don’t Preach” (Aliya 2003). Here, the very real world of crime and violence is blurred with its “musical” simulation, while local and nonlocal sources are scrambled. In a more playful instance, M’du mimics the sound of a cricket in “Tsiki Tsiki” (ca. 1995) while simultaneously referencing the nickname of a local soccer player.61 Or consider the song “Siyabangena” (2007) by DJ Vetkuk (whose name means “Fat Cake,” a deep-fried Afrikaans pastry) and DJ Mahoota (named after a car horn, what South Africans call a “hooter”): one hears birds rapidly warbling (or is it people whistling?) against a steady house track, while kwaito stalwart Thebe chants in Zulu alongside a female voice dart78

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ing and dipping in a South Asian style.62 Examples could be multiplied indefinitely. Like Yizo Yizo, kwaito places diverse sounds under the same meaning, jumbling sources and disrupting causality. Returning to Yizo Yizo as a particularly potent mediator of aesthetic experience, one might say that the most significant aspect of the show is that it blurs the boundary between reality and its audiovisual representation without, however, collapsing the boundary entirely. The viewer is unable to tell with any certainty whether this boundary is or is not operative— a situation resulting in accusations, defenses, and seemingly unresolvable paradoxes. One might say that it is impossible to locate the “this” in “this is it.” The confusion surrounding Yizo Yizo is nicely, if unwittingly, elucidated by journalist Nomavenda Mathiane’s complaint that the show’s genre is imprecise to the point that the viewer is unable to discern “whether it was a documentary or a movie” (Modisane 2010, 128). My interlocutors in Soweto often point to the epistemological uncertainties of mediated experience. For example, one young man told me that when children are first introduced to audiovisual products, they are told: “These are actors; they’re acting; everything they do is make-believe. It ain’t true.” And yet, he continued, when it comes to news reportage, “You tell the same mind that news is the truth, if it’s only news.” He elaborated: Because all TV is make-believe, it’s acting, actors. Understand? It’s actors and stuff, but now the news— Yussus [ Jesus]. Hayi, it’s a reality show. So now what happens to a person’s mind when you’re told this [i.e., that all television is acting], but then, on the other hand, the contradicting line [i.e., that news is real]?

Sounding uncannily close to the Baudrillard of The Gulf War Did Not Take Place,63 my interlocutor continued: “I realized that’s why I had a problem in the early 1990s, when there was this Baghdad thing with Saddam Hussein. When there was a war or something like that. I was scared shit out of my pants in class. Thinking of stray bombs or nuclear missiles, it can happen or whatever. But that shows you how it shakes a person.” Just as South Africa had come out of decades of apartheid propaganda and global isolation due to boycotts and sanctions, the question of whether the news adequately represented reality was an urgent one indeed. But that very question has remained largely unresolvable. Of the viewer’s relationship to a television “box” or computer screen, my interlocutor told me that there are three options: “You don’t believe, you believe, or you choose.” Yet, because none of these alternatives are adequate, “You don’t even have to put it under belief or not,” he told me. “You don’t even ask that type of question.” 79

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To conclude this section, it is enough to say that Yizo Yizo may be interpreted as either part of life or apart from life. My argument is that it is precisely the impossibility of deciding between these two options that makes the show so compelling. The impossibility of deciding— what we may term aesthetic undecidability— is of course not unique to Yizo Yizo. But what exactly is it, then, that “shakes a person”— as my interlocutor in Soweto put it? Certainly, what he has in mind is nothing like the Frankfurt School’s analysis of technology’s operation on the body “as a key factor for producing shock,” what Brian Larkin (2004, 291) glosses as “the complex training of the human sensorium associated with modern urbanism.” For as Larkin notes, a great deal of media studies focuses on contexts where technology works optimally: hence, we have the famous theory of suture in film studies that relies on uninterrupted viewing of a film in an enclosed environment.64 Or consider studies of auditory technology that similarly describe the modern listening experience in terms of increasing isolation in “bubbles”— for instance, in automobiles or through headphones.65 But such theories are largely unhelpful when confronted with the geopolitical South: in Soweto, for example, people listen and watch on fragile devices— decades-old tube TVs are common, as are refurbished laptops with cracked screens and damaged hard drives. The soundscape of television viewing is equally precarious, interrupted by unexpected visitors, equipment failure, and power outages. What shakes a person in Soweto is less the successful training of the human sensorium through technology than an intensive uncertainty, a glitch or jitter on the technological, political, and even causal level.

Performance as Platform: Gendered Aesthetics Brenda Fassie and Lebo Mathosa As a final example of platforms and the aesthetic confusion that surrounds them, I turn to the relationship between performance and gender. Reflecting on the moment of transition, David Coplan (2005, 15–16) observes that kwaito “expressed and embodied the new sound for the poststruggle young black lions and lionesses: a prideful, even predatory roar of pleasure hunting.” This pleasure was largely libidinal and was linked to a desire to inhabit the body in new ways. In post-apartheid South African performance the black body takes center stage as an agent of excitement, arousal, delight, and anxiety. And when the topic of live performance in kwaito is broached in newspapers, magazines, and everyday conversa80

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tions, one aspect seems to overshadow all others: the hypervisibility of female performers.66 I enter this discussion by closely following Xavier Livermon’s excellent reading of women in South African music (even if I do not fully agree with his conclusions). Livermon begins by comparing two singers: Brenda Fassie (1964–2004), who was most popular in the 1980s, and kwaito celebrity Lebo Mathosa (1977–2006) of Boom Shaka fame.67 Fassie, as many commentators have pointed out, was performative through and through: she effectively broke down the division between private and public and delivered some of her most dramatic performances during interviews, at private parties, and in the company of friends. Ndebele makes this point succinctly: “In a way, whether she [i.e., Fassie] has been on stage or off it, hers has been a continuous performance. That is why, in this connection, it seems inappropriate to separate her public from her private persona. They are one.”68 At concerts, Fassie reserved her most scandalous performances for moments between songs. Proudly proclaiming her bisexuality, at a 1999 concert she exclaimed: “I wipe the toilet paper on both sides!” (Whaley 2004, 67). And when a breast accidentally popped out of her top at a concert in Washington, DC, she reacted by grabbing it, thrusting it at the audience, and shouting: “This is Africa!” (Beukes 2004, 224). Her behavior at interviews was equally outrageous. On one occasion, Fassie had this to say about fellow singer Yvonne Chaka Chaka: “She thinks she’s white. She says, ‘I stay next door to the Oppenheimers [i.e., a family of mining magnates].’ Who the fuck wants to know that? ‘I’m married to a doctor.’ Who the fuck wants to know that? Call Brenda Fassie, I’ll tell you who I fucked last night!” (ibid.). And in a different interview she scandalized journalists by boasting about how she forced women to perform oral sex on her and then refused to return the favor (227). Livermon (2006) contrasts Fassie’s “bad girl” image with Mathosa’s persona, which he calls the “dangerous woman.”69 For Livermon, being a “dangerous woman” requires a strategy of disidentification through which an individual clearly delineates the boundary between her onstage persona and her actual life.70 In contrast to her composed and even stoic offstage persona, in live performances and also in music videos Mathosa gyrates wildly, brandishing long and curved talon-like fingernails. She grinds her pelvis against the male members of her group and even, in at least one music video, binds a man in a display of sadomasochistic eroticism. Responding to near-ubiquitous claims— both in the media and in everyday conversations— that Mathosa’s performances were either reflective of her personal desires or “masochistic ‘re-enactment[s]’ of rape,” Livermon (2006, 186) insists: “Reading performance as simply reflective 81

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of reality creates dangerous connections between performance and sexual violence.” Drawing on published interviews with the singer, he deftly illustrates that Mathosa was psychologically and intellectually in control of her performances, which were carefully crafted to both empower her financially and challenge dominant gender stereotypes.71 Indeed, Mathosa stated repeatedly in interviews that audiences should not take her seductive performances too literally. Performance afforded Mathosa the possibility of experimenting with and even breaking free from gender norms.72 In light of the preceding analysis, we have every reason to be troubled by Simon Stephens’s (2001, 265) comment that “[t]he first time I saw Boomshaka [sic] dance, I began to wonder whether kwaito music was a reflection or a manifestation of sexual crime.” Rather than viewing Mathosa’s performances as “radically equivalent with her actual life,” suggests Livermon (2006, 186), we should instead understand them as bracketings of time and space that bear no determinate relationship to life.73 By suspending normative bodily dispositions, he tells us, Mathosa was able to perform in a nonnormative or hypersexualized manner without fear of being “exploited” in the literal sense. Livermon’s astute analysis moves in the right direction, but it does not go far enough. Although Mathosa may have disidentified with her performances, those performances were always haunted from and by the outside. As much as well-meaning scholars may protest the opposite, there is no possibility of insulating Mathosa’s performances from the social world that surrounds them. The sonic and visual experience of Mathosa’s onstage body did, in fact, suspend a determinate relationship with ordinary forms of sensory experience. But this suspension was always fragile, its construction precarious. Indeed, the imagined possibility— or, more precisely, threat— that aesthetic experience may in fact become life is what made Mathosa’s performances so very dangerous. If there had been no relation whatsoever between Mathosa’s performances and her life outside those performances, then her performances would not have had much affective resonance at all. It is only from the ambiguous point of conjunction that simultaneously separates and joins art and life that performance derives its experiential power. For in truth, there is no border that does not “join together what it splits,”74 that does not join together as it splits. Every separation is simultaneously a relation, even if the relation is merely one of splitting, of pushing apart.75 Mathosa was highly cognizant of the thin line between the space of performance and its outside. As Livermon (2006, 186) himself observes, she often erected and then immediately challenged the boundary between performance and “life”— for example, by dancing “in a sexually 82

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suggestive manner with a cameraman who was documenting her onstage performance.” Many kwaito musicians, in fact, employ the strategy of blurring the boundary between the space of performance and the space of life by calling a member from the audience onto the stage and then engaging him or her in a lascivious dance. So where, then, does this leave the Fassie/Mathosa distinction? In a recent conversation with a well-known scholar of gender and sexuality, I recounted the story of a young man from the rural town of Mooifontein who, after learning about Fassie’s death, took his own life and left behind a brief note addressed to his mother that read: “Mama, I am sorry for taking my life. I cannot live without Brenda Fassie.” My eminent conversation partner immediately responded that this young man had “misunderstood the aesthetic relation,” since by taking his own life he had failed to recognize the illusory nature of his relationship with Brenda. But he was only half right. As I responded that day, and as I have been arguing in this book, the “aesthetic relation” is precisely an undecideable one and (as Rancière says) it thrives on that ambiguity. In other words, there is no correct response to an aesthetic relation. Nor is there an incorrect one. As the young man from Soweto told me about the question of “belief” in relation to the news: “You don’t even ask that type of question.” Theo Nhlengethwa Although Lebo Mathosa never performed during interviews in a way that was intended to scandalize or profane (as Fassie did, for example), it is nonetheless significant that she talked openly about her romantic relationships with women. This public declaration was an extremely powerful gesture in the context of a nascent democracy where gay rights were officially upheld (same-sex marriage was legalized officially in 2006) but where homophobia continues to this day, often in violent ways. But Mathosa was not the only queer member of Boom Shaka. Academic discussions of Boom Shaka have tended to focus exclusively on Mathosa’s challenges to normative sexuality, while completely ignoring the fact that the group included South Africa’s first transgender celebrity. According to many of my interlocutors, one of Boom Shaka’s two male performers— Theo Nhlengethwa— is actually a woman. But what would it mean to say that Theo, who is considered a man for all intents and purposes, is actually a woman? An adequate answer to this question requires careful preparation. Despite claims that he is “actually” a woman, Theo has insisted repeatedly that he is biologically male (i.e., that he is cis male). City Press jour83

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nalist Sonia Motaung (2002) observed: “Nhlengethwa has not known a moment’s peace since breaking onto the showbiz scene with Boom Shaka eight years ago with the media scrutinising his gender rather than his musical talent. Nhlengethwa has been suffering in silence and has tried to commit suicide three times in the last year.” After years of speculation about his gender, in 2002 Theo publicly proclaimed that “I am a man” and even offered to prove this by posing nude (Motaung 2002). When the nude photographs failed to materialize, this seemed only to confirm that Theo was hiding something. And while Theo continues to adamantly proclaim his identity as cis male, he simultaneously provokes public speculation— for example, by posting baby photographs on Facebook in which he is presented explicitly as a “girl” (intombazana). In any event, I am less concerned with Theo’s physical anatomy than with the perceived perception of his body and how it relates to his gender. In other words, the issue is not whether Theo “really” is a woman but rather what it would mean to say this in the first place. How do fans of kwaito music— very few of whom have ever come directly into contact with Theo— discuss, think about, and in a sense “produce” Theo’s gender identity? It is by now a truism that sexuality and gender are not natural or stable categories and that they are instead constituted through complex power relations, institutional practices, and regimes of knowledge (Foucault 1998; J. Butler 1990). If this is so, then a discussion of Theo’s gender must begin with a careful, if brief, examination of how gender has been understood in South Africa. At least until the late 1980s, the relationship between sexual practices, self-stylizing, and biological difference was configured in a very particular way in South Africa’s townships. According to Donald L. Donham (1998, 7), “in apartheid-era urban black culture, gender apparently overrode biological sex to such a degree that it is difficult, and perhaps inappropriate, to maintain the distinction between these two analytical concepts.” It was typical, in fact, for “biologically” male individuals engaging in same-sex relationships to “cross-dress” and assume female identities. In many cases, however, such individuals were not considered to be completely female and instead constituted a kind of “biologically-mixed third sex” (ibid.). This conceptualization is reflected in the contemporary slang term for a person involved in a same-sex relationship: stabane, which literally means “hermaphrodite” (or, to use a more responsible and current term, “intersex person”). It was only in the early 1990s that the notion of gay identity took root. The construction of gay identity in South Africa— along with a politics of

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gay rights— was largely the result of the African National Congress’s extensive international relations. As Mark Gevisser suggests: “ANC members in exile were being exposed to what the PAC’s [Pan-Africanist Congress] Alexander calls ‘the European Leftist position on the matter.’ Liberal European notions of gender rights and the political legitimacy of gay rights had immense impact on senior ANC lawyers like Albie Sachs and Kader Asmal, who have hence become gay issues’ strongest lobbyists in the ANC.”76 This brief historical sketch is clearly not comprehensive, but it does provide us with a basic framework in which to write a “genealogy” of Theo’s gender. In the late 1980s, when the notion of gay identity had not yet taken root in the townships, bodily posture and sartorial presentation— that is to say, gender performance— would have been enough to establish Theo’s gender. With the sedimentation of gay rights, however, and with the establishment of a clear distinction between sex and gender, Theo’s identity was likely reinscribed in terms of a biologically female body “underneath” a masculine gender. This “European Leftist” conceptualization of sex and gender is very prevalent in post-apartheid Soweto, where people often say that although Theo “acts” like a man, he is “actually” a woman. Gender activists have often complained that the early gay rights movement tended, with important exceptions, to sideline female-to-male and male-to-female transgender individuals (see, e.g., Stryker 2008a, esp. chap. 4). And it is interesting to note, here, that the conceptualization of gender in apartheid-era black urban culture was actually closer to the transgender movement than to the early gay rights movement narrowly conceived. After all, in the 1980s black South Africans defined sexual identity in terms of “performative” traits such as dress and gesture. Only with the appropriation of “the European Leftist position on the matter” did black South Africans begin to split sex and gender and thus define individuals in terms of how they act, on the one hand, and who they “really” are, on the other. Stated another way, in the 1980s there was a greater capacity to understand queer bodies and sexualities. Because Theo has had several girlfriends but no boyfriends (or at least he has appeared this way in public), many people assert that “she” is a lesbian. In fact, Theo is often accused of “pretending” to be a man so that “she” can refute the charge of lesbianism. Using this logic, people have pressured Theo to “admit” that she is a lesbian woman instead of pretending to be a straight man. One journalist even went so far as to say: “Being homo is fabulous in South Africa. There’s a lot of education around gay tolerance and acceptance all thanks to our government and the public broadcaster. Why the hell is Theo still hiding his (I mean her) true gen-

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der?”77 In this comment, notions of governmentality and pedagogy coalesce around a particular conceptualization of “being homo.” The valorization of homosexuality in this context is arguably part of an attempt to establish the figure of the homo in terms of homonormativity— that is to say, a depoliticized form of gay culture that poses no serious challenges to the dominant sexual and political order.78 In 2011 the Sowetan newspaper covered Theo’s birthday party, posting six photos with captions on its website.79 Commenting on the photos, one reader asked: “Wasn’t this boy a girl at some stage?” Referring to one picture where Theo’s chest appears to protrude somewhat, another reader commented: “People help me out!!! Picture 2: Theo— just under the necklace on his/her (whatever) right— our left— is that a breast under that vest? Or is that vest sitting not too lekker [i.e., well]?!!!” Evidently amused by the string of comments, a MsKinkyakaKamaSutra observed: “S(him) has gained weight, or is it hormone therapy— do tell.”80 To this, an individual with the handle MaLindo responded: “Theo has grown Hmmm and doesn’t he look delicious mmm damn! But the bottom [i.e., the bottom part of his body, his genital area] is not Ayoba [i.e., good or sexy] hey! It’s a big no no.” As these comments illustrate, Theo’s body continues to be subject to intense scrutiny that is only exacerbated by speculation and rumor. A crucial question nonetheless remains: what does Theo sound like? Stated simply, Theo’s voice is every bit as ambiguous as his body. One writer described Theo’s voice in Boom Shaka as an “astonishing falsetto that sounded as though it belonged to an Arab eunuch.” The same writer alludes to Theo’s gender as a kind of supplement to the allure of his voice: “by way of his incredibly suggestive voice, [Theo] seemed to be saying more than the words he was singing.”81 What interests me most about Theo, then, is that although his body has been a site of contestation and even derision, anxieties surrounding his ambiguous corporeality seem to all but vanish when people listen to Boom Shaka. Certainly, the “queerness” of his voice is always audible, but in the context of a musical performance this queerness is registered as astonishing or alluring and not as something to jibe at. In the song “It’s About Time,” we hear Theo’s voice first. He sings: I’m tired Of people always asking me what’s happening, what’s going on They try to see what’s in my head why can’t they leave me alone 86

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When Lebo Mathosa launches into the chorus (“It’s about time you listened to Boom Shaka / It’s about time you listened to Boom”), Theo croons along at an only slightly lower register: “Yeah! Oh! Yeah! Oh!” Boom Shaka insists on the audibility of all human voices and asks its listeners to suspend scrutiny and doubt, at least for the duration of the song. Theo’s voice is ambiguous, alluring, and defiant. And if “It’s About Time” can be reasonably canonized as one of the first kwaito songs, then it is fair to say that kwaito is always already queer at the origin.82 To conclude this section, I recall the City Press journalist’s comment about how the media have scrutinized Theo’s “gender rather than his musical talent.” The critical music scholar would immediately retort that this distinction is false, that there is no such thing as “musical talent” de natura, and that not scrutinizing gender is a form of mystification. Indeed, music studies’ emancipation from positivism was possible largely because of feminist musicology’s insistence that gender always matters— even and especially when it is claimed not to. While this move was indeed invaluable, particularly when one considers the long histories of male domination in Western classical music, I suggest that it is possible to detect the grain of an alternative politics in the City Press journalist’s complaint. Although her invocation of “talent” may be misplaced, a disjunctive reading might rephrase her argument as such: perhaps it is possible to suspend scrutiny of Theo’s body and instead enter into an intimate queer sonic relationship. When listeners suspend scrutiny of Theo’s body for the duration of a performance, perhaps this signals less a form of repression than the production of a different mode of perception— experiencing Theo’s body in a way that eschews the practice of unmasking a “true” gender identity through the scopic examination of anatomical details. If nothing else, the aesthetic experience of Theo’s voice agitates the “epistemologies of purification”83 through which Theo must necessarily be either a man or a woman— either one or the other. As Ryan Dohoney (2014, 54) puts it, taking a cue from Foucault, the aim is to sustain homosexuality or queer politics not as a form of rigid identity but rather as “a set of possibilities.”

Concluding Remarks In this chapter, I have examined various ways that platforms rearrange relations, frame voices and sounds, and double reality without ever completely departing from it. Platforms operationalize different registers of the ordinary, generating a zone of indistinction, one might say, between the normal ordinary, the very ordinary, and the extraordinary. All plat87

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forms are different, of course, and I have endeavored to present a range of practices that they might afford. In this concluding section, I briefly consider what the study of platforms might offer to a general understanding of musical meaning. As we have seen repeatedly, platforms suspend normative modes of knowing and acting but simultaneously challenge that suspension. I have even gone so far as to say that it is impossible to determine the precise relationship between an aesthetic product and social reality— this is what I call aesthetic undecidability. It seems to me that aesthetic undecidability has haunted music studies, albeit in different ways, for at least twenty years. Allow me to explain. The main contribution of the so-called “New Musicology” movement of the 1990s was that musical works and practices are not hermetically sealed but instead bear relations to the cultural and social contexts that surround them. The main problem with this movement is that it has constantly failed to explain how those relations work. Steven Miles (1997, 723) has argued that music scholars “account for the complex mediations between the musical text and the social world of politics and economics” largely by “relating separate domains cognitively through the extended use of analogy.” But, he continues, the result is that “music and society ultimately remain separate, related only through the imagination of the critic or reader.” Speaking of one contemporary music analyst, Gary Tomlinson suggests “that he seems to regard himself as the medium of music history, privileged to channel its clarion communications.” Ultimately, though, it is only that particular analyst’s voice that we hear “loud and clear” (G. Tomlinson 2007a, 353). What then is the solution? It seems to me that the only way to proceed is to affirm the undecidable relationship between music and society. Such aesthetic undecidability is already operative— although seldom acknowledged— in contemporary music studies, where it leads to a kind of interpretive entropy. The rhetoric of analysis lays bare this entropy, with scholars relating music to social life through constructions such as “it is almost as if” and “I am tempted to suggest.” To offer one representative and completely random example, a popular-music scholar writes the following in an analysis of James Brown’s song “Sex Machine”: “Perhaps this is why ‘Sex Machine’ gives an impression of extraordinary suppression and control. It is almost as if James Brown provides himself with an inner resistance that has to be forced while he— almost literally speaking— squeezes out the sound.”84 Leaving aside the context of analysis, the conjectural nature of the argument is evident in the language that is employed. We are not told that Brown provides himself with an 88

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inner resistance but rather that it is almost as if he does. Furthermore, he does not squeeze out sound (the meaning of which is unclear in any event), but “almost literally” does so. This type of analysis, examples of which could be greatly multiplied, is not wrong. In fact, in their reticence and anxiousness about committing to any interpretation, such analyses touch upon a central truth: namely, that any determinate relationship between music and life is impossible.85 The problem, it seems to me, is that most analysts do not acknowledge the logical conclusion of this underdetermination. Most contemporary music scholars seem to understand that their interpretations are very limited, or perhaps we could say very subjective— this much is evident from their style of writing. But in contrast to attempts at regulating the link between music and the social through wild and speculative subjective interpretations, in this chapter I have attempted to understand aesthetics as “the thought of this new disorder” (Rancière 2009a, 13). This disorder or undecidability means that establishing music’s relationship to social life is possible not through rigorous analysis but only by cauterizing aesthetics’ anarchic principle. In other words, deciding on the truth of this relation is always a form of authority— or even of power. As Étienne Balibar writes: Indeed, power is never simple, neither is it stabilized and located for ever here or there, in these hands or those hands, in the form of this or that “monopoly,” but it is always complexity-reducing, as some sociologists would say, and it can reduce complexity, and therefore diversity (already a fairly violent process in some cases), not only by virtue of its material force, which would never suffice, or could never be sufficiently focused, but by virtue of its own transcendence. I would say: by virtue of its “tautological power” and violence of its own ideality, as expressed in such formulas as God is God, the Law is the Law, which try to encapsulate the Absolute. (2007, 135–36, emphasis in original)

Aesthetic undecidability, for its part, begins to unravel power’s transcendence, giving credence finally to the marquis de Sade’s maxim that insurrection should be the permanent state of the republic.86

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Immobility, Obduracy, and Experimentalism in Soweto You are near me. Are you free? I am far from you. Am I free? freedom scoffs at time and distance. And yet, it may only be for a moment free and, localized, in one conquered region. — EDMOND JABÈS, “ WITH NEL SON MANDEL A”

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In this chapter, I switch gears and present a highly localized, “contemporary” ethnography of musicking in Soweto. There, thousands of unemployed men and women create music on a daily basis. For most of these people, making music is something that one simply does without any particular goal. In the Soweto landscape, dotted as it is with over seventy thousand identical “matchbox” houses, certain residences become nodes for communal creativity. Unemployed men and women gather at particular houses, huddle around a computer, and perform for each other. Guitars, bass guitars, keyboards, and occasionally wind instruments are sounded. More common, however, is the use of the human voice. People sing, they chant, they rap, and they croon. They praise and they joke, shifting between moods and languages. In brief, people appear to each other. Musical technologies play a crucial role in this context. The basis for every musical performance is a short electronic substrate that is looped, often for hours at a time. In Soweto, music technologies are fragile, their use precarious. Computers break like clockwork. Sometimes they are repaired, but 90

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the process of breakage and repair leads to information loss. A hard drive might be lent to a friend. Or it might simply go missing. Later, it may come back. But the songs that were on the hard drive have likely disappeared, and now it might be filled with different things: photos and intimate portraits of strange people, B movies and scientific documentaries, new songs of unknown origin. Information— “stored” music in particular— thus travels through unpredictable routes, but it circulates without ever congealing, that is to say, without ever becoming a commodity that might be distributed in repeatable form to people in other places, whether nationally or internationally. On the one hand, then, Soweto is a place of ubiquitous musical praxis and flourishing creativity, where individuals constantly reveal themselves to one another. But it is necessary to simultaneously foreground the precarity of performance conditions that betrays the dark side of these luminous spaces of appearance. In addition to technological breakage and failure, the threat of theft is forever immanent. And in most cases, there is only one sure way to protect one’s possessions, including musical equipment: to never leave home. One kwaito producer with whom I became close hardly ever leaves his house. He expressed his muted frustration to me by saying: “I am always here. I am always at home.”2 And then, gesturing toward his belongings— which included a desktop computer, a bass guitar, and two speakers— he continued: “I can’t just leave this stuff here.” It is almost as if this person must be in constant contact with his equipment, as though the moment he looks away from his possessions, they may suddenly vanish. Taking these ethnographic descriptions as a point of departure, this chapter focuses on music and mobility in Soweto and engages related issues of transmission, storage, and exchange. It situates these topics within ongoing debates in ethnomusicology, anthropology, and media studies but often reaches different conclusions— for example, that immobility rather than mobility characterizes circulation in many contexts. Within ethnomusicology specifically, the relationship between music and mobility has been a central concern for at least three decades. From studies of migration and diaspora, to examinations of circulating instruments and recordings, ethnomusicologists have long illustrated the profound ways that music moves between and across spaces and cultures. Recent studies in auditory culture have engaged innovations in music technology, from car sound systems and mobile listening devices, to peer-to-peer (P2P) filesharing and streaming platforms.3 These studies tend to emphasize music’s increasing ubiquity, availability, and fluidity: music, they tell us, is more accessible than ever, moving at an ever-faster pace in an unimpeded flow. 91

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While such studies have contributed useful insights, several of their key assumptions about music and mobility run aground when confronted with sonic practices in South Africa. In what follows, I examine how music is practiced and experienced in a context where musical equipment and storage devices constantly break down and where movement is constrained. The context that I describe cautions us against overly optimistic, technophilic approaches to music and mobility; at the same time, it raises a number of important theoretical concerns— I briefly mention two. First, it is important to recognize that technology does not advance in a linear or teleological fashion. By this I mean that while technological innovation may overcome limitations or imperfections, innovations also often produce new failures and accidents. For example, as Paul Virilio (2007) famously pointed out, the invention of the train was simultaneously the invention of the railway accident; and the invention of the automobile, the invention of the car crash. A second important concern is the theoretical status of failure. As Brian Larkin (2004, 291) observes, social scientists have tended to focus on cases in which technology works at an optimum. Ethnomusicology, for example, often emphasizes the establishment of communities and scenes, the creation and maintenance of technologically mediated national or transnational communities, and the affirmation and reshaping of individual and collective identities through audio technologies.4 In most cases, music is presented as a labile and fluid medium that swiftly mediates the production of new subjectivities, and technological innovation is viewed as enhancing the reach and scope of music’s affective powers. But what happens when music does not facilitate as much as it disables? What happens when music does not move as much as it gets stuck? I analyze a musical context where obduracy5 is far more common than mobility, where people and musical information are constantly bulwarked, jammed, and blocked. Beyond simply noticing the empirical ubiquity of failures and blockages in urban South Africa, I argue that breakdowns, obduracies, and accidents have generative, as well as negative, effects. For, as Larkin (2004, 291) reminds us, “technology influences through its failure as much as through its successes.” I therefore pay close attention to the aesthetic and sensorial consequences of technological failure, and I illustrate that constraints on musical circulation have definite social and aesthetic effects. In doing so, I join a growing number of scholars who eschew grandiose generalizations about the fluidity of music and sound and who instead listen carefully for failures, frictions, echoes, feedbacks and bottlenecks, and “crises” at the conjuncture of infrastructure and political subjectivity.6 With an ear attuned to music making in Soweto, this chapter focuses 92

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on four factors: the physical layout of urban spaces, the problematic of theft, the breakdown of musical equipment, and the interruption of information storage and transfer. By examining these factors, I illustrate the ways in which breakdown, obduracy, and failure have generative as well as negative effects on musical experience. My discussion will proceed along two axes: a spatial axis that traces circulation and transmission alongside opposing forces such as obduracy, and a temporal axis that traces storage and archiving in relation to the opposing dynamics of loss and damage.

The Ethnographic Context: Histories of Segregation and Immobility in Soweto Through careful historical analysis, in this section I trace the origins of contemporary sedentariness and immobility by focusing on Soweto’s construction and what urban designer Sarah Calburn terms “the impenetrable township maze” (Calburn and Mbembe 2010, 68). Although I will make some fairly general arguments, it is necessary to point out that Soweto is actually quite diverse. In addition to the neighborhoods that I describe, there are middle-class parts of Soweto as well as sprawling and quite destitute shantytowns (known locally as “squatter camps”). In this chapter I present a partial view and focus on nonprofessional musicians in three adjacent townships in “deep”7 Soweto: Moroka North (where I lived), Chiawelo (where many of my interlocutors lived), and White City. During apartheid, Soweto was a key site of political activism and came to represent South African struggles for freedom and emancipation on a global level. I chose Soweto as a primary field site precisely because I wanted to know what had become of the emancipatory project fifteen years after the end of apartheid. Although I grew up in Johannesburg in the 1980s and 1990s, I had visited Soweto only once before I began conducting serious research there in 2008. And because of South Africa’s long history of racial segregation, Soweto continues to be inhabited almost exclusively by black South Africans. When I lived in Soweto for a year between 2008 and 2009, I was one of only a handful of white people in an area with a population of 1.3 million. The history of Johannesburg and, by extension, Soweto is intimately related to processes of early capital accumulation. The discovery of gold in South Africa in the 1880s led to what John Matshikiza (2008) calls an “instant city.” Johannesburg— also known as eGoli, or “place of gold”— sprang up almost overnight and quickly became a magnet for luck-hunters around the world. Migration to the city intensified following the Second 93

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Anglo-Boer War (1899–1902), when rural economic collapse and the advent of taxation forced thousands of black South Africans to move in search of mine work.8 Soweto was originally created by the ruling white minority of South Africa as a collection of contiguous areas to the southwest of Johannesburg with the purpose of housing black workers. Areas housing nonwhites came to be known as locations or townships. (Note that although Soweto is often described as a township it is actually a collection of several contiguous townships.)9 Residential segregation along racial lines began already in 1908, when municipal authorities ruled that only black people working as domestic servants could live in white areas.10 The anxiety surrounding black bodies is clearly illustrated by the fact that in Johannesburg’s early years residential planning was the responsibility of health authorities, while nonresidential aspects of “native” life were administered by the same committee responsible for the zoological gardens.11 Although blacks were legally forbidden to live in white areas after 1908, the law was seldom implemented because mixed neighborhoods were convenient for workers and profitable for property owners. The first black township (Klipspruit) was established in 1905, but the population in this area remained small for decades, while slum yards in or adjacent to white areas continued to mushroom. Although residential segregation was initially unsuccessful, the first township nonetheless signaled the onset of a process that would accelerate in the next several decades. Built about twelve miles from the city and adjacent to a municipal sewage farm, Klipspruit was renamed Western Native Township in 1918. In the 1930s, two additional townships were built to the southwest of Johannesburg: Pimville (in 1934) and Orlando (in 1935). This was the beginning of the south west townships, later syllabically abbreviated as “Soweto.” With the advent of urban apartheid in 1948, the state was no longer willing to tolerate multiracial residential areas. The government began brutally implementing laws prohibiting mixed areas, most notably with a series of forced removals of blacks from white areas. Several new locations to the southwest of Johannesburg were created, including Zondi, Chiawelo, and Senaoane.12 But the architects of apartheid were not satisfied with merely dividing people along racial lines. Using a classic divideand-rule strategy, the state categorized black people into ten subdivisions, or “national units,” based on linguistic families.13 These divisions were not entirely arbitrary and conformed, at least in some basic sense, to cultural patterns and geographical origins. Nonetheless, apartheid sought to purify and rigidify the distinctions, ultimately advocating the development of each ethnicity separately and along its own course. In 1956 94

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new townships constructed in Soweto were sorted by ethnicity: Naledi, Mapetla, Tladi, Moletsane, and Phiri were built to house those falling into the Sotho language group, while Dhlamini, Senaoane, Zola, Zondi, Jabulani, Emdeni, and White City were built for speakers of Nguni languages. Venda and Tsonga speakers were assigned to Chiawelo.14 The apartheid policy of ethnic zoning was not merely spatial; it was also, and at the same time, a distribution of the sensible (see Rancière 2004b). It produced, in other words, a triangular relationship between bodily postures, cognitive affordances, and practices of sense making (see Panagia 2009, 41). On the level of race, black South Africans were permitted access to only certain forms of labor (manual or menial) and a certain form of education (“Bantu education”15). The literal valorization of the black body and denigration of the black intellect were tied to the spatial logic of apartheid, which denied blacks access to the city outside the context of labor. On the level of ethnicity, black South Africans were forced to live within their language group. Language and culture were tied directly to labor and space. Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd was well aware of apartheid’s sensory distributions. He declared that “those who belong together naturally want to live near one another, and the policy of ethnic grouping will lead to the development of an intensified community spirit.”16 In time, and with the careful application of apartheid logic, this statement gained some credence.17 Sibongile Mkhabela, who grew up in Zola, had this to say about her childhood: “Zola is a Zulu area so, somehow, you were forced to unite on the basis of your language. A street away from my street is Naledi, a Sotho area. As long as I was walking in the streets of Zola, I was perfectly safe. But if I crossed the street into Naledi, then I’d have problems. As soon as I walked there I’d be a stranger to every kid and therefore a target.”18 In this way, apartheid was not only a physical or spatial regime but also an intervention at the level of the body and the sensorium. Jazz musician Geoff Mapaya recounts the shifting sensory distributions of township life in the 1970s.19 He recalls that as a child in Tembisa (a township approximately twenty miles northeast of Johannesburg) he was faced by sensory partitions on a daily basis. Tembisa was divided into two main sections— one primarily for Sotho speakers and another for speakers of Nguni languages. The particular zone of the township in which Mapaya lived was dominated by Pedi (or Northern Sotho) speakers, and he vividly recalls the weekly kiba performances he witnessed there: “Performers would be dressed in ‘outrageous costumes’ and dancing to the most exotic rhythms emanating from a combination of drums and matšhoo (ankle rattles). The pipes played what I later appreciated to be a very rich polyphonic textured harmony.”20 As a young boy, he was often asked by his 95

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parents to buy food at a nearby grocery store, and although the store was located only two blocks away from the Pedi area where he lived, during his expeditions Mapaya came into contact with completely different styles of music. In particular, while running those errands he heard Zulu-based mbaqanga (i.e., a type of music popular on radio at the time).21 The clear divisions between Pedi traditional and Zulu-based popular music were suspended for Mapaya, temporarily, on June 16, 1976, when he joined forces with people of other ethnicities to protest against school instruction in Afrikaans. “We were shouting Black Power as a mob,” he recalls. “The spirit was one.” But the euphoria of that moment was shortlived, and after witnessing several friends being murdered by the apartheid police, Mapaya was deeply traumatized. He recounts that after the event, “I could not stand the sound of an approaching lorry nor an aircraft flying low. It was at this point that my father sensed that something was wrong with me.” After becoming involved in knife fights ostensibly because of psychological instability following the events of June 16, Mapaya was finally sent to live with his grandmother in a small village far away from Johannesburg. Like all black South Africans during apartheid, Mapaya inhabited a world defined by sensory distributions. These distributions were associated not only with race and ethnicity but also with a more complex assemblage of sonic, visual, and tactile partitions. Thus, for example, kiba performances were associated with particular costumes, musical styles, bodily dispositions, days of the week, and spatial “zones.” When Mapaya finally rejected the ethnic divisions instituted by apartheid and marched with his comrades in a unified “mob,” the state responded violently. This violence was intended first and foremost as a punishment for Mapaya’s attempt to redistribute the sensible. The sensory politics of urban apartheid was linked to the “grand” apartheid project of partitioning the country into discrete ethnic locations (Christopher 1994, 7).22 The forced removal of blacks to the townships in the 1950s and 1960s was complemented by the design of “homelands” or “Bantustans,” that is, rural areas purported to be the true homes of the various black ethnic groups. Blacks working in the city were considered “temporary residents” in the townships and were forced to return “home” to the Bantustans annually.23 The apartheid notion of separate development— through which, it was believed, each ethnicity should develop separately along its own course— fully materialized in 1959, with the Bantu Self-Government Act. Under this act, blacks were not regarded as legitimate South Africans and were instead considered citizens of homelands.24 James Ferguson (2006, 56) notes: “Even South Africans born and 96

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raised in so-called white areas would be assigned citizenship on the basis of their ethnicity in one of the Bantu states, thus becoming foreigners in their own land.”25 It is worth emphasizing that during apartheid the discourse of racial domination was translated into one of national difference. This shift was strategic in two ways. First, it divided a large black population into much smaller groups, thereby thwarting a unified insurrection. Second, it sneakily erased race from the equation at a time when “discrimination on the basis of color” was “rapidly losing legitimacy both inside and outside South Africa” ( J. Ferguson 2006, 56). Writes Ferguson: “Through this sinister and ingenious plan, the race problem (so-called) would be solved at a stroke, for there would be no more black South Africans” (54, emphasis in original). The problem of race, in other words, was replaced with the seemingly less anachronistic notion of independent nation-states. Even so, apartheid policies continually crisscrossed the boundaries between race and nationality, either by blurring those boundaries or by sharpening them. Although blacks were divided into different ethnic groups, no similar division existed for white South Africans. The lack of divisions between English- and Afrikaans-speaking white South Africans was strategic since although white South Africans were certainly outnumbered by black South Africans, no single ethnic group of blacks was significantly larger than the total white population (Christopher 1994, 66). By dividing the black population into national or ethnic groups and by not similarly dividing the white population, whites were no longer, by definition, outnumbered.26 Although apartheid ended officially in 1994, laws regulating urban influx began to change already in the 1980s.27 The infamous pass books regulating the movement of black bodies between city and countryside were done away with in 1986,28 and although officially still illegal, blacks began moving to the city center in the early 1980s— by 1986 about 17 percent of one central city district (a place called Hillbrow) was black.29 While residence in the city was still at this point restricted to whites, Hillbrow was home to several hotels and nightclubs that legally catered to people of all races. It was said that these hotels had “international status.” Like the so-called international music of the time, these hotels appealed to the notion of an aesthetic outside, that is, to the idea that somewhere outside South Africa racial segregation had been overcome (see chapter 2). In contrast to terrestrial locations (i.e., townships) these hotels were referred to as “locations of the skies” (Kesting 2009, 152–53), a term that seemed to harbor a double meaning: on the one hand, that the hotels were vertical structures but, on the other hand, that they were not of this earth. 97

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Townships, on the other hand, were very much a piece with apartheid’s concern or even obsession with surveillance and movement control. Consider, for example, Soweto’s lighting infrastructure. Until the 1970s, there was no household electricity in Soweto, and high mast streetlights were installed to provide lighting in homes. According Julia Hornberger (2008, 288), this had a “prison-camp effect, illuminating everything from far above and sneaking into backstreets and backyards.” When houses were electrified in the late 1970s, the mast lights were replaced by sodium streetlights. Generally used on highways, sodium lighting emits a monochromatic orange that “does not allow for color rendering and dips everything within its reach into an abnormal atmosphere” (ibid.). Known locally as “Apollos,” these newer streetlights were important for state surveillance and transformed “the township evening into daylight” (Mbembe, Dlamini, and Khunou 2008, 243). Soweto was built in a tightly structured manner, with each township comprising rows of identical “matchbox” houses, each on a plot of about 260 square meters.30 Although houses were built in a highly structured way, their layout was intentionally “extraordinarily inefficient” (R. Tomlinson et al. 2003, 6). For the security of the regime, roads were constructed to make internal circulation difficult: all major roads lead directly to centers of employment or retail, while within the townships roads circle around, stop in dead ends, and make travel generally quite frustrating. Circulation within a single township is not always particularly difficult, but to move from one township to the next— even when the two townships are directly adjacent to one another— is often extremely cumbersome and frustrating. A. J. Christopher summarizes this spatial logic in his Atlas of Apartheid: The [urban planning] guidelines proposed that group areas be drawn on a sectoral pattern with compact blocks of land for each group, capable of extension onwards as the city grew. Group areas were separated by buffer strips of open land at least 30 meters wide, which were to act as barriers to movement and therefore restrict local contact. Accordingly, rivers, ridges, industrial areas, etc., were incorporated into the town plan. Links between different group areas were to be limited, preferably with no direct roads between the different group areas, but access only to commonly used parts of the city, for example, the industrial or central business district. (1994, 105–6)

The original apartheid layout of Soweto can still be clearly felt, where a distance of one mile as the crow flies often requires that one traverse several miles. Consider, for example, the journey from Mahogany Street in the township of Protea Glen to Baratane Street in the township of Protea Outlying. The distance, by road, is 1.8 miles, although the distance as the crow 98

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flies is roughly only 0.9 miles (fig. 4.1). Or, take the journey from Levubu Street in Naledi Extension 1 to Halolo Street in Mapetla. The journey is 3.6 miles, although the distance between the streets is only 0.6 miles (fig. 4.2). Soweto has, of course, experienced dramatic changes since the demise of apartheid. The nature of these changes is nicely articulated through Manuel DeLanda’s (1997) observation that there are two main ways that urban areas are constructed: either as preplanned assemblages organized from the top down or as self-organizing systems with no central decision maker. Clearly, Soweto’s early development was determined by the former method. That is to say, the apartheid state designed Soweto very rigidly, incorporating modernist planning principles, including a unique interpretation of the work of Le Corbusier— an interpretation that took quite literally his emphasis on the relationship between formal planning principles and social engineering (Haarhoff 2010). However, although Soweto was originally planned and built in a very top-down manner, it soon yielded to processes of immanent self-organizing. As early as the 1970s, housing shortages led to overcrowding and the construction of shacks in backyards. At this time, however, Soweto was still closely monitored 99

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route from Levubu Street (A) to Halolo Street (B).

by apartheid police, and informal housing remained limited— in 1978, for example, only 1 percent of properties had backyard shacks. But shack life exploded in the 1980s, when Soweto became far more difficult to control because of increased protest against the apartheid regime.31 By 1987, 40 percent of formal houses had at least one backyard shack and 23 percent had a formally built “garage” that was inhabited by subtenants, and by 1997 there were nearly as many backyard shacks as there were formal houses in Soweto (Beall, Crankshaw, and Parnell 2003, 200). The anthropologist Adam Ashforth (2005, 23) comments on these changes in his ethnography of Soweto: “The severe crenellations of the original streetscape, bare but for the symmetrical rows of 70,000 ‘matchbox’ houses, softened as trees grew, outhouses sprang up, and, after the administrators lost control, the mass-produced dwellings were expanded to fit the comfort and means of their occupants.” (I refer the reader to figs. 4.3 and 4.4.) What is interesting about these organic processes is that they have not eclipsed the basic regular structure of the original Soweto. Shacks are built onto the highly organized scaffold, but the scaffold remains. Informal, bottom-up organization has been unleashed within and on top of the framework of formal modernist planning. Today, each original township has a population density that is three to four times higher than was intended, but the matchbox houses remain, as do their backyards. 100

Figure 4.3.

Soweto ca. 1960. Source: The City of Johannesburg: Official Guide, 3rd ed. ( Johannesburg: r. Beerman, 1962).

Fi g u re 4.4.

Soweto in 2014. Photograph by the author.

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Creativity and Music Production in Contemporary Soweto The post-apartheid processes of self-organization, embedded in the original rigid construction of Soweto, have led to a complex space that is highly conducive to particular forms of creative practice. Although Soweto has developed fairly “chaotically” in the post-apartheid period, these immanent processes are hinged to the basic original structure of restricted access and limited mobility. Each township is home to dozens of musicians and other creative people, but these people are still— to a certain extent— trapped, noosed, and bulwarked in their respective areas. This form of “immobility” is accompanied by others— for example, when musicians stay at home because they feel anxious about leaving their belongings unattended. Of course, not all people are equally trapped, which is to say that immobility is not equally distributed among men and women, adults and children, the able-bodied and the disabled. What follows is a partial account of musical life in one Soweto neighborhood; certainly, a more comprehensive analysis would require greater attention to a wider array of intersectional dynamics. Because most people in Soweto are not formally employed and make ends meet through odd jobs and support from family and friends, they generally spend their days wandering around the neighborhood and visiting friends. In such a context, individual houses become nodes of communal creativity, and in this chapter I will focus on one such node: my primary interlocutor Sizwe’s room. Sizwe (b. 1976) lives in a formally constructed room, adjacent to a main house, on a typical plot of 260 square meters owned by his mother. His mother, sister, and two nieces live in the main house. The main house and Sizwe’s room share a gate leading to the street, which is locked only at night. It is generally considered discourteous to lock one’s gate during the day, as friends and neighbors may want to stop by. In most cases, at least when residents are home, house doors remain unlocked or even standing open. Sizwe’s house is therefore not, properly speaking, a private space. In many ways, it is an important node in the musical and informational network of the township.32 Because of his anxiety about household theft, Sizwe often does not leave his room for weeks at a time. And largely because of the physical construction of Soweto, when Sizwe does leave he does not go far. Generally, he only walks to a local grocery store or to a nearby friend’s house. When people are walking outside and are asked, “Wenzani?” (What are you up to?), they almost invariably respond, “Ngishaya e-round” (I am walking around) or “Ngiya lapha nolapha” (I am going here and here). 102

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Notice that the latter expression is not “lapha nolapho” (here and there) but “lapha nolapha” (here and here). To move “here and here”: this is a perfect articulation of township space. Like most Sowetans, Sizwe generally makes music with whoever lives nearby, and because of the conditions of immobility and sedentariness, each township is a musical topology, a space of musical possibilities.33 In other words, Soweto is in some ways marked not only by immobility and obduracy but also by an “aesthetics of propinquity” (i.e., of closeness), in which musical practice is largely determined by who and what is physically near. The topology of each township is circumscribed and narrow; one might say that it is aggressively partitioned. At the same time, immobility has definite generative effects on musical creativity. It is therefore a mistake to conceptualize immobility only in terms of lack— that is, as not being mobile. Instead, immobility makes as many things possible as impossible. What I am calling the aesthetics of propinquity would not be possible without a very particular arrangement of township space in which a finite group of musicians perform together in different permutations for extended periods of time. In Soweto, musicking is usually an informal and loosely structured activity that takes place alongside other activities. For my interlocutors, a typical afternoon begins with four to eight people gathering at one person’s house. They share soda (and occasionally beer) and cigarettes (or sometimes marijuana) and discuss a range of topics from current political events to neighborhood gossip. These social gatherings are also opportunities for people to exchange movies and MP3s through memory sticks or hard drives. Finally, music is commonly performed at such gatherings when the people present take turns singing or rapping over steadily repeating electronic tracks known as imizimba (bodies). Performances begin when one person in the group presents an electronic track that he or she has produced on commercial software such as ProTools or Sonar. These tracks are usually between five and twenty seconds long and are looped repeatedly, providing a platform on which individuals may perform for, or reveal themselves to, one another. Vocal lines are usually improvised, but fragments of these improvisations are sometimes seized upon by others in the room and then turned into repeated melodies that are subsequently sung in unison or harmony by several people simultaneously. Nonetheless, the electronic tracks and vocalizations maintain relative autonomy, and although electronic tracks are often repeated on multiple days and transmitted through digital storage devices, lyrics and vocal melodies are more often transient, lasting only for a single afternoon. 103

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Each improvisation over an electronic track is known as ikhopa (a copy) but resembles less a literal copy than a creative new version of the track. People take turns interacting with a constantly repeated musical ground, thus generating multiple “copies,” or versions, in a manner redolent of John Chernoff’s generalized description of “musical occasions” in Africa. As he writes: “A musical occasion is an occasion to see people, usually at their best. Music puts people on display” (1981, 167). To more clearly elucidate and nuance the musical setting I am describing, I offer an ethnographic vignette. On a Tuesday in March 2009, I was in Sizwe’s room playing guitar over an electronic track that he had recently produced. It was a typical track, comprising a basic four-on-the-floor synthesized drum rhythm, an ostinato bass riff, and two higher-register synthesized layers filling out the I– IV–V–I harmonic progression suggested (or at least afforded) by the bass line. At around noon there was knock on the (already slightly open) door and I called out, “Ngena” (Come in). Four young men entered and we exchanged greetings. They had brought a few quarts of beer and Sizwe went across to the main house to fetch glasses. Together, the six of us drank beer and smoked cigarettes. A few people smoked marijuana. When the men entered the room, Sizwe had hit the “loop” icon on the digital audio editing program and the track reverberated repeatedly. The track itself lasted about twenty seconds, but while we talked, drank, and smoked, it continued to play, incessantly turning back on itself and beginning again. Finally, after about thirty minutes, or roughly ninety repeats of the track, someone began to sing. Soon, someone else joined in. Over the duet, another young man began “chanting” in Zulu. Sizwe was seated in front of the computer, and he began playing with the digital equalizer, cutting various layers out of the mix and then adding others. To add layers, he employed a technique known as “musical typing” in which the standard QWERTY keyboard is used as a kind of electronic piano.34 I picked up my guitar and began to improvise a few licks. Before long, I had come up with a riff that I liked. I repeated it over and over again, transforming it subtly, experimenting with the timbre and inflections. Sizwe was mixing the track, listening carefully, and feeling where we all wanted the music to go. After about twenty minutes, the six of us were singing together: Life is easy if you take it day by day. There’s no need to complicate your life, okay! Life is easy if you take it day by day. There’s no need to complicate your life, no way!

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These simple words, and the melody that accompanied them, were not the creation of any single individual in the room. Instead, they emerged from a concatenation of creative input from six individuals sharing sonic and physical space. But even though the words in a sense “belonged” to all of us, and even though we mainly sang these words together in unison, each individual voice exceeded the words and melody. After all, each human voice belongs to a singular body, which is unique in its fleshy materiality.35 We sang those simple words for nearly an hour, taking short breaks here and there to drink, smoke, and chat. The four visitors were all unemployed and were in no hurry to leave. Like many people who roam Soweto’s streets on weekdays, Sizwe’s guests had nowhere that they needed to be. Minutes, hours, and days blur into each another. “As the possibility of the Event recedes,” writes Achille Mbembe (2011a, 10), “South Africa is faced with the ‘liquid’ character both of the present and of the future, their dizziness, their miragelike qualities, the weakness in our grip on the future.” Mbembe may be correct, but by performing the song together the present was registered as meaningful and even exuberant— “life is easy if you take it day by day”— and any sense of the pragmatic future of tomorrow was bracketed. This aesthetic orientation toward the world is what Mbembe (2006, 63) calls, in the more extreme context of Congolese dance music, “serenity in the face of tragedy.” We continued to sing. People were laughing, experimenting with their voices, stopping to take a swig of beer, inserting various kinds of “chanted” vocalizations. Indeed, a substantial amount of time passed before we all started to feel lethargic, and before the beer bottles ran dry. Sizwe turned the electronic track down and we resumed talking. Slowly, the crew began to leave. I stayed behind to hang out with Sizwe after the four friends had left. A few hours later the sun disappeared and the township grew very quiet, save for the odd taxi horn or the sound of a late-night worker scurrying home quickly in an attempt to avoid muggers. Sizwe opened a file on his computer and played for me, at low volume, a song he had produced years earlier. I craned my neck toward the speaker to listen. At the beginning of the song, a person whistles. Then, a dull and muted drum sound begins thudding away. To my ear, it resembled the sound of someone knocking on a door. Other drums enter the texture as well, but there are no melodic or harmonic instruments in this song: no melodies, no harmonies, just the knocking and throbbing of drums. After a few seconds, Sizwe’s voice becomes audible on the recording:

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Sijiva emini

[we dance in the afternoon

Sijva eb’suku ’lele

we dance at night when you are sleeping]

Sizwe and I remained seated, listening attentively. Others may be sleeping, I thought to myself, but we certainly are not dancing. I looked at Sizwe looking at the computer screen, seemingly mesmerized, and at that moment I recognized the extent to which the musical imagination— for example, of dancing while others are sleeping— departs from actual social conditions in Soweto. On other days, Sizwe’s sister and a few of her friends would join us. Together, we watched movies, listened to music, and again performed for extended periods of time over constantly repeating electronic tracks, taking short or long breaks to drink, eat, or smoke. I also had the opportunity to play music with guitarists, bass players, and keyboard players. Because of the construction of township space and the limitations on mobility that I have outlined, I mostly encountered the same forty or so people repeatedly, although never all together at one time. Instead, different permutations of these forty people— in groups from two to eight individuals— visited Sizwe in his room. And although the motivation for these visits differed, there was almost always an element of musical performance. An electronic track serves as the background to every musical performance in Soweto. And in addition to a space for sounding electronic tracks, Sizwe’s room is a key location for their exchange— a practice that I describe in greater detail below. The existence and transmission of such tracks constitute perhaps the most fundamental condition of possibility for any musical performance, and importantly for this chapter, the maintenance of these tracks is dependent upon a functioning storage device (a hard drive, for example) and the requisite computer processor to transform stored information into sound.36 In what follows, I explain why and how this dependence on technology both constrains and affords musical practice.

On Immobility and Theft On a general level, crime is one of the most crucial structuring elements of South African sociality:37 indeed, horror stories of murder and rape in South Africa’s major cities are prevalent in the international news. Although there is no simple explanation for the ubiquity of crime in South Africa, it is not difficult to discern contributing factors. Most obvious is the brutal history of the apartheid system, which systematically marginalized 106

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black South Africans for decades and caused deep social and psychological trauma. But the transition to liberal democracy was difficult as well. As John Comaroff and Jean Comaroff (2008, 2) observe, the twin processes of political liberation and economic liberalization have been closely tied to the “deregulation of monopolies over the means of legitimate force, of moral orders, of the protection of persons and properties.” New regimes of value have been created through those chaotic processes, and in what follows, I show that ownership and private property in Soweto cannot be adequately understood in terms inherited from Euro-American discourse. I bracket more violent forms of crime here in order to focus on the less aggressive and more banal practice of household theft, which is a major contributor to immobility in Soweto. As I learned, music producers seldom leave their homes, because they need to protect their musical equipment. As Sizwe often told me: “I am always here. I am always at home.” Nonetheless, a couple of years ago a conspiracy was orchestrated to force Sizwe out of his house. Someone planted drugs in his room one morning, and an hour later a police raid occurred. Sizwe was left with two options: go to jail and have his things stolen; or give the police responsible for the case R500 (approximately US$45 at the time of the incident).38 With my financial support, Sizwe was able to pay the R500 and the matter was quickly resolved. The plot against Sizwe was essentially an elaborate bribe. Because Sizwe is concerned about the theft of his belongings, and most importantly his computer— a device that not only makes, shapes, and arranges music and musical experience but also stores vital information— he only hesitantly and briefly leaves his house. What does Sizwe’s extreme sedentariness say about a person’s relationship to things, about private property, about techne (or “craft”)? For one thing, it implies that in Soweto a musician’s computer is almost a kind of prosthesis— it exists as a veritable extension of his or her body.39 In the absence of rigorous state protection in the form of police, and with the entropy of criteria for determining legitimate uses of force, people tend to relate to their property directly. In other words, private property is seldom mediated by the force of law. Instead, there is an unmediated relationship between a person and a thing, where the thing is owned through physical use. Thus, Sizwe can only be certain that his computer is in his possession for the duration that he is actively engaging with it. The moment he leaves his room or even falls asleep his relationship to property disintegrates. The situation is even more extreme, since property is often pried from individuals through robbery and mugging. In these cases, too, things have a prosthetic quality: since a thing belongs to an individual only when it is somehow attached to the human body— for example, when it is in a 107

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pocket or grasped tightly in the palm of a hand— that thing is configured as an extension of the body. Things, then, do not belong to citizens in the form of private property as much as they belong to human bodies that grip on to things or else protect them with physical force. Surprisingly, although people in Soweto go to extreme measures to safeguard their belongings, they often lend things out easily, without a second thought. In fact, people do not only lend things out easily but often freely give them away. The reason for this apparent contradiction is actually quite simple: lending is a social obligation. Ashforth (2005, 32) notes that in Soweto “people survive because others feel obliged to share and support them as members of their families, as neighbors, and as friends.” There is an almost ubiquitous assumption, in fact, that resources will be distributed “equitably and according to need” (ibid.). This does not mean that people lend things or give them away happily or unbegrudgingly. But it is uncommon to refuse a genuine request if one can reasonably meet it. On the one hand, then, property is treated as a kind of bodily prosthesis, but on the other hand, a person’s relationship to his or her property is understood as fragile, provisional, or temporary. A Sowetan might guard a phone, a hard drive, or a wad of cash with her life but then only a moment later give all these things away without a second thought when a friend knocks on the door and makes a simple request. The giver might part with her belongings begrudgingly, but she will usually part with them nonetheless because she knows or, at the very least, trusts that she will receive the same treatment at a later date. To use Maussian (1990) terms, we could say that in Soweto any gift impels a countergift. In most cases, the Zulu word gcina is employed for “keeping” material possessions such as equipment. The word can also refer to “not revealing” something or “keeping a secret” (ukugcina imfihlo), and in these latter meanings one begins to hear overtones of mystery and even, perhaps, of magic. In Soweto, in fact, the accumulation of wealth is often understood in terms of witchcraft: the thinking here is that only an occult force will allow a person to stockpile an unreasonable amount of money or possessions. This explains why witchcraft accusations have increased since the end of apartheid with the ever-widening gap in income inequality (see Ashforth 2005). Witchcraft offers a way to understand the unreasonable and unjustifiable fact that some black South Africans suddenly became wealthy in the mid-1990s, as if by magic, while the vast majority remained very poor. It offers a way to make sense of democracy’s anarchical principle that “those who rule do it on the grounds that there is no reason

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why some persons should rule over others, except the fact that there is no reason” (Rancière 2009c, 276–77; see chapter 1 for a further discussion). For these reasons, ownership itself is often associated with occult forces. To further explain this, I offer two ethnographic vignettes. On one occasion that I witnessed, a dead man’s will went mysteriously missing and therefore complicated the inheritance of his house. His son believed that, as male heir, the will had likely contained instructions for the transfer of the house to him. Nonetheless, confronting his sister, who had since assumed residence in the house, was no mean feat, because she was a sangoma (i.e., female traditional healer who deals with occult forces). When I accompanied my friend to the house to try and negotiate, we were greeted by an overwhelming odor of incense and not one, but two, sangomas: for my friend’s sister was now in a relationship with an older sangoma, whom I was instructed to address as “Baba” (Father). Although my friend referred to Baba as a “lesbian” (he used the English word),40 it is clear that Baba’s gender cannot be understood in simple binary terms. Sporting a dress and head scarf traditionally worn by women, she also brandished a thick beard— Baba is therefore not so much a “man” or a “woman” as a person of “biologically-mixed third sex,” as Donham (1998, 7) puts it (see chapter 3 for a more careful analysis of gender conceptions in South Africa). In any event, when Sizwe and I left the house and explained the scene we had witnessed to a group of friends, they told us to drop the matter of inheritance and never return to that place. Clearly, they said, there were all sorts of things happening in that house that we could never hope to understand. Pursuing the matter further would be both fruitless and dangerous. In short, the question of who owned this house was no longer a legal matter— it was now a matter of unseen and dangerous occult forces. In another instance I heard about, a young boy rode to his friend’s house on a bicycle and left the bicycle outside the house while he went inside. During the course of his visit, the bike was stolen and the person who lived in the house (I will call him Lunga) was accused of orchestrating the theft. (The accusers held that although Lunga did not personally steal the bike, he had likely told someone that the bike was sitting unattended outside his home.) When Lunga denied the accusation and refused to return the bicycle or adequately compensate the boy whose bike had been taken, strange things began to happen. The following Friday afternoon Lunga was sleeping on the sofa in his room when he was suddenly woken by the sound of a door opening. The door had no handle and could be pushed open without much force, so he assumed that his cat was responsible for nudging it ajar. But when Lunga attempted to turn over on the

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sofa to confirm his suspicion, he found that his body had become paralyzed. He explained to me: I couldn’t turn! It’s like in a dream, like you’ve got no control. But now because I’m so used to those kinds of dreams, I know that I have to relax a bit and then use all my might— but it will only work for one move. So I do that. And when I turn . . . it’s dark [but some] light is coming from the window. Then when I look, I’m expecting a cat, so I’m not going to look up here [at eye level]; I’m checking down there at the foot of the bed. I meet up with eyes wide apart. Eyes. And the reflection from the light reflects from those eyes. I thought it would be a cat.

Transfixed by those radiant eyes, he was “released” only after his cousin knocked on the door. And after being released, Lunga finally inspected the door only to find that it was completely shut— it had not moved an inch. About this, he commented (referring to the famous science fiction television show): “I’m left with something from X-Files.” He then checked with his mother, who confirmed that the cat had been with her the entire time and had gone nowhere near his room. Finally, and most troublingly, a few months later he was visited by a strange man who had full knowledge of the story, even though Lunga had not told a single soul about it. This man told Lunga that if he did not come up with the money for the bike and bring it to him in three days, then he would be a “dead man.” As these vignettes illustrate, ownership is no simple matter in Soweto. And considering the violent histories of expropriation and racial capitalism in South Africa, it should not surprise us that the very concept of private property is vexed. Indeed, occult practices and theft take place alongside radical antiprivatization movements and political organizations advocating the nationalization of natural resources and banks. Furthermore, even while individuals cling to their possessions, the “right to private property” is either explicitly or implicitly contested through lending and borrowing, occult forces and witchcraft accusations, and theft or rumors of theft. The accumulation of wealth and possessions thereby constantly comes up against dispossession and redistribution. Hence, while individuals are often disappointed when belongings are “stolen” or borrowed indefinitely, this disappointment is seldom registered in the form of moralizing judgment. True, there are those who refuse on principle to steal from other black people or others in the township.41 On the other hand, there are those for whom the problem is not so much “stealing” as the accumulation of personal belongings and indeed private property itself.

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On Information Storage and Technological Failure The way that people in Soweto relate to property also has profound implications for the storage of information. As I have been emphasizing, there is always the threat that computers will be stolen. This happened to me during fieldwork: both my laptop and my external hard drive were stolen, along with hundreds of photos and recordings. In fact, during the first three months of fieldwork I had four cell phones and three cameras stolen. If I went out to a concert, usually my belongings did not last longer than thirty minutes. So after a while I stopped bringing them, stopped taking photos, stopped making field recordings nearly altogether. I have observed that there is another side to this story as well. Musicians are obligated to lend storage technologies such as external hard drives and memory sticks to friends. But external hard drives are not plentiful in Soweto, and it is more common, in fact, for people to lend hard drives from their own computers or even to lend the computer itself. For example, Sizwe removed the chassis of his desktop computer years ago. When a friend wants to copy information from Sizwe’s computer, or when Sizwe wants to transport information, he removes the hard drive from his computer (see figs. 4.5 and 4.6). There were many days when I arrived at Sizwe’s house to make music only to find that a friend had borrowed his hard drive for an undetermined period of time. When storage technologies are lent to friends, and then to friends of friends, they often get lost along the way. Furthermore, hard drives are more susceptible to theft when they are being carried about than when they are at the home of their owner and under his or her watchful eye. Finally, hard drives that circulate among an always expanding network of people are liable to break or get viruses. Thus, recording— and not only performance— is ephemeral: the traditional opposition between transient performance, on the one hand, and archival permanence, on the other, does not hold. One might say that the archival impulse is replaced by the inevitability of continual loss. “To live in South Africa,” write Sarah Nuttall and Liz McGregor (2007, 12), “is to be subliminally primed for major loss.” In a place where “the accident has become normal” (Marks and Andersson 1990, 44), music production is a form of pure mediality, a process of means without end.42 Here it is necessary to recall Larkin’s observation that technology influences through its failure as much as its success. As he suggests, “The inability of technologies to perform the functions they were assigned must

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Figure 4. 5.

Sizwe’s computer. Photograph by the author.

Figure 4.6.

Sizwe’s setup. Note the hard drive on the floor. Photograph by the author.

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be subject to the same critical scrutiny as their achievements” (2004, 291). Hence, although I have been describing technology use in Soweto in terms of difficulties and problems, the township context also enables alternative aesthetic forms. For example, it is not uncommon to lend a hard drive to a friend and have it returned weeks later with a wealth of new movies, intimate photographs, and instrumental tracks. These photographs may be of unfamiliar faces and the tracks of unknown origin. But the person in possession of the hard drive often adds new layers to the tracks and then lends it out again, setting in motion the process of digital accumulation once more. In this way, the failure of smooth information transmission generates a particular cumulative creative process that might otherwise not exist. On one occasion that I witnessed, a neighbor visited Sizwe’s room to download movies from Sizwe’s PC directly onto a laptop. When Sizwe requested something in return, the neighbor dug around on his computer until he found a few electronic tracks. He could not recall where he had received these tracks from or who had created them, but Sizwe happily accepted them in exchange for a few movies and spent most of the afternoon playing with them, tweaking the various instrumental layers and adding a few of his own. This process happens not only with hard drives but also with other devices such as cameras. For example, when I lent my camera to a friend a couple of years ago, he returned it a week later with dozens of photos saved on the memory card. It would of course be unethical to reproduce such pictures here, but I will simply say that my camera picked up some very personal and even erotic moments on its brief excursion. As such, the circulation of digital storage devices collapses the boundary between private and public, allowing glimpses into intimate visual and sonic worlds. In his discussion of Nigerian film, Larkin focuses on the aesthetic forms generated by analog reduplication. The films that Larkin analyzes are copied from tape to tape, and as is the case with any analog format, the content degrades with each copy. “Constant copying erodes data storage,” he writes, “degrading image and sound, overwhelming the signal of media content with the noise produced by the means of reproduction” (Larkin 2004, 290–91). In this way, Nigeria’s informal networks of copying and distribution produce “a set of formal qualities that generate a particular sensorial experience” (291). It is often said that with the advent of digital information the problem of content degradation had been solved, and indeed theoretically this should be the case. After all, the successful duplication of digital information requires nothing more than the faithful transmission of a string 113

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of binary digits. Nonetheless, digital storage does not necessarily prevent corruption of files: in fact, I have many MP3s from friends in Soweto that contain glitches, pops, abrupt silences, and crackling sounds. According to Microsoft’s official website, “It’s very rare for a file to become corrupted.” Nonetheless, Microsoft tells us, there are several ways that file corruption can happen: “The most common way it happens is when something goes wrong while a file is being saved. For example, the program saving the file might crash, or your computer might lose power just as the file is being saved” (Microsoft 2014). These “very rare” situations are actually very common in Soweto. Computers— which are often many years old and have gone through several rounds of repairs— crash frequently and hard. Additionally, since about 2008 South African citizens have become all too familiar with rolling blackouts and power failures. Power loss is quite frequent in South Africa, and Sowetans, in particular, do not find it a very rare occurrence. In brief, statements about technology in Europe and North America cannot be easily transferred to the Global South.43 In contrast to analog malfunction, in which degradation takes place incrementally with each copy, digital malfunction tends to be unanticipated and rather dramatic. As Jonathan Sterne (2009, 64) observes, “digital files do not age with any grace.” But graceful or not, digital malfunction also has very particular sonic characteristics. Analog degradation tends to muffle sound by smoothening the divisions between sonic events. Digital malfunctioning, by contrast, generally results in glitches, crackles, and pops that disrupt or spike the sonic texture. There exists a particular aesthetics of digital failure, which differs markedly from analog formats. Digital aesthetics, it seems to me, are redolent of what Virilio (2009) calls “picnolepsy”: a general “epileptic” state of consciousness produced by gaps, glitches, and “speed bumps.” These miniature accidents are congenital to modernity but are perhaps only fully realized with the onslaught of the digital. Throughout this chapter, I have shifted the emphasis from the content of music (e.g., pitches, harmonies, rhythms) to the infrastructures of musical production and circulation. It is worth emphasizing, however, that Soweto’s infrastructures are not simply conditions of possibility for music; rather, they have profound consequences for the way that music sounds. My aim, in other words, is not simply to show how people use equipment and technology to make music or to distribute it. Instead, my argument is that music technologies and infrastructures have their own sensorial and aesthetic effects— that is, they have their own content. Consider, for example, a simple electronic track that Sizwe produced. An orthodox transcription would present this track graphically as shown 114

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F i g u r e 4 . 7.

Transcription of excerpt from electronic track. All “instruments” are synthesized in MIDI format.

in figure 4.7. It is quite possible, based on this small transcription, to make a number of speculative analytical observations. For one thing, the synthesized guitar part on the first staff produces what a rock musician would call “power chords,” that is, a root and fifth without a third (see Walser 1993). The use of power chords immediately raises a number of questions, since in contemporary South Africa rock music is associated primarily with whites. One may therefore ask if this electronic track is an appropriation, or even subversion, of white styles? A different analyst may zoom in on the second chord (a D power chord) and point out that the low D is below the range of a guitar in standard tuning. This observation might bring up issues of the relationship between synthesized guitar sounds and the guitar itself as an instrument. For example, would it matter to an electronic musician if she were using guitar sounds below the range of a standardly tuned guitar? Does digital technology “free” the user from such concerns, and if so, does this mean that technology is potentially liberatory? Finally, it would of course be possible to analyze the rhythm. Do the bass drum accents on beats 2 and 4 imply an association with Brazilian samba music, perhaps? And might this association, in turn, have something to do with samba’s African “origins”? All of the above questions are potentially interesting. But if one actually listens to the electronic track— or at least to the MP3 that I copied from Sizwe’s computer— it is evident that some extremely significant sonic events take place that are not susceptible to orthodox analytic procedures. What one hears first and foremost on this massively corrupted file is a series of breaks and ruptures that tear through the sonic fabric. Figure 4.8 is a spectrogram of a fourteen-second excerpt from the MP3. The rectangles in the spectrogram signal points at which there is a total gap in the sound. These glitches were not produced intentionally by musicians 115

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Figure 4.8.

Spectrogram of MP3 excerpt.

in Soweto but resulted, instead, from a failure in the transmission or storage process. Thus, what one hears above all else in these moments is the obduracy of “failing” technological infrastructure.44 I do not know of any cases in which the glitches, crackles, and gaps audible in corrupted files have been used intentionally for aesthetic purposes. But lack of intentionality does not mean that these noises are without generative, aesthetic effect. Many aspects of the musical process in Soweto are not the result of individual agency or intention but instead emerge through complex human and technological networks.45 As a final rumination on storage and failure, consider that while the transfer of a material object to one person necessarily results in its dispossession from another, this is not true of musical information, which can be simultaneously given and kept. In contemporary economic terms, one would say that musical information is “non-rival,” meaning that it can be duplicated without being depleted. The capacity for certain entities to grow (rather than diminish) through exchange is present already in Zulu cosmology, for example, in the principle of “keeping-while-giving” (i.e., of giving certain kinds of “inalienable” possessions).46 But here it is necessary to add one important caveat: against the theoretical possibil-

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ity of music’s inexhaustibility (i.e., its capacity for infinite shareability), it is clear in the Sowetan context that the repeated duplication of musical information often leaves a residue or produces a glitch. Thus, while a person in Soweto can certainly give a song to someone else and simultaneously keep it, the exchange process itself is often audible in the glitches generated through imperfect duplication— such as when a computer crashes during the a transfer of files, or when a virus interferes with the exchange.

Memory and/as Storage In this chapter, I have tended to think of storage and preservation in terms of information saved on technological devices. I have suggested, moreover, that music in Soweto is produced under the sign of ephemerality and that, for a number of reasons, music is continually “lost.” The “loss” of music and musical information, however, is not something to necessarily bemoan, and it is inappropriate to assume that people should preserve things. A further complication is that in this chapter I have conceptualized information storage in purely technical terms and have thus far neglected the obvious point that in many musical cultures information is “preserved” through memory and transmitted orally.47 Instead of beginning a new and separate discussion of memory as a mode of music preservation, it seems to me that a more efficacious approach would be to think through the relationship between memory, on the one hand, and the storage of music in various material archives, on the other. In the case of Soweto, the relevant archive would not be scores or recordings on physical formats in a library, of course, but rather the storage of music on computers in digital formats. What then is the relationship between memory and material archives? In her work on South African sacred music, Carol Muller observes: Even though many of us have worked with historically rich oral traditions, it would appear that in our work as ethnomusicologists the tendency has been to locate the idea of the “archive” in cultures with technologies of repetition, such as writing, sound recording, and film, and to use the word “memory” when dealing with “oral” or preliterate communities. (2002, 409)

Drawing on Jacques Derrida’s seminal text Archive Fever (1996), Muller destabilizes the binarism memory/archive and proposes that “we begin to

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consider certain kinds of music composition as archival practice: as constituting valued sites for the deposit and retrieval of historical styles and practices in both literate and pre-literate contexts” (2002, 410). For example, in the case of Nazarite music in the KwaZulu-Natal Province of South Africa, songs are “archived in the bodies and memories of individual members only” (417). As such, the body is conceived as an archival repository, and the archive that it holds is “exteriorized and repeated daily in gestures of ritual and devotion” (ibid.). In Soweto, human memory— which I take in the broadest sense as conscious, unconscious, bodily, and even “cultural”— is a primary archival mechanism. Although vocal utterances are seldom stored on computers, much of what people sing is obviously remembered in multiple ways. Thus, for example, my friend Innocence sang the same ragga-style rap (although with variations) almost every time he visited Sizwe, irrespective of the electronic track that was looping.48 Because it was only quasimelodic, he needed to change the rap only subtly in order to make it fit with whatever electronic track Sizwe was playing. In this particular case, Innocence’s memory was the main archival repository, and of course after hearing his rap for the third or fourth time, Sizwe’s and my memory had also to some extent begun to “archive” it. If Muller’s important gesture is to collapse the binary opposition between material archives and memory,49 it is nonetheless necessary to recognize certain differences. For the purposes of this book, I emphasize only one: although material archives and memory are both mechanisms of preservation, material archives, unlike memory, are simultaneously mechanisms of forgetting.50 To further explain this distinction, I turn briefly to “Archive Fever in South Africa,” a text in which Derrida reflects on his earlier work through the lens of post-apartheid archival practices. Derrida (2002a, 54) comments that an impulse to archive the entirety of South Africa’s history may in fact be predicated upon the desire to sequester that history away so that “everyone could just forget it.”51 To elucidate this logic, he observes: “When I handwrite something on a piece of paper, I put it in my pocket or in a safe, it’s just in order to forget it, to know that I can find it again while in the meantime having forgotten it.” “If there is pure forgetting,” he continues, “it’s because the archive, in order to be safe, in a safe, should be external to me, okay?” (ibid.).52 Derrida implies that with material archives one is able to forget something because she knows that she can retrieve it at a later date.53 For example, I am not anxious when I forget a theme from a Beethoven symphony, because I know that at any moment I can look it up in a score at my university library. But memory works differently. For “storage” to occur without a (nonhuman) material 118

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archive, a melody or rhythm must be “kept” in the minds and bodies of people. This does not mean that when something is preserved in memory it is necessarily present to consciousness, as though the only way a person can remember a melody is to sing it repeatedly without ever stopping. But if something is to be remembered, it must always be at the “back of one’s mind”; that is, it can never be fully externalized in the manner of a score in a library. Like the computer to which Sizwe must remain in close proximity in order to ensure continued possession, for musical information to be remembered it must be kept close at hand. In Soweto, the difficulty of storing musical information often implies, not that melodies, rhythms, or lyrics cannot be remembered, but rather that they must not be forgotten.54 Or, to state things more precisely, if a melody (for example) is to be remembered, then it must necessarily be remembered. With material archives, musical information can be both remembered and forgotten, can be remembered (or archived) in order to be forgotten (because it can be retrieved at will). Without a material archive, however, people are not able to fully externalize information: to remember something one must, at the very least, retrieve it from time to time to refresh one’s memory. (Recall Muller’s observation that information archived in human bodies is “exteriorized and repeated daily in gestures of ritual and devotion.”) Musicians in Soweto can therefore either remember information or they can forget it— always one or the other. But the “problem,” as I have been implying, is that in Soweto human bodies (like technical archives) are vulnerable. Therefore, music is indeed often forgotten— forever. From this perspective, it is possible to detect a significant difference between memory in Soweto and in the Nazarite Church (as discussed by Muller). When Nazarites archive information bodily through repeated daily gestures of ritual and devotion, they draw upon the church as an institution to support and indeed protect their bodies.55 The archiving of Nazarite songs requires both human bodies and institutional support, whereas in Soweto this institutional support is mostly absent, and the bodies that archive musical material are precarious and, in a manner of speaking, bare.56 Although uncommon, on a few occasions I witnessed people in Soweto deliberately repeating a song multiple times (and, hence, going against the grain of a more typical improvisatory approach to musicking). On one such occasion, a vocalist was repeatedly getting stuck on one part of a song until someone took him aside for a reprimand, stating fiercely: “You want to be a musician? Then you need to practice! You need to sing these words every day. Every day! You need to keep on singing them over and over again so that you don’t forget!” But the difficulty for this singer 119

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was that there was no record of the song that he could return to. Once he had forgotten the melody of the song, it was irretrievable. Thus, when he trailed off repeatedly at one point in the melody, it was clear that the only way to proceed would be to compose new material. This material could perhaps be retained in memory through consistent and repeated vocalizations, or it might be stored in digital format on a computer, but neither system of preservation could be relied upon. Both archives would be unreliable, fragile, precarious. The question of memory in Soweto is marked by a further complexity, namely, that in Zulu a single word (khumbula) is used for “remember” and “miss” or “yearn.” This implies that to remember something is simultaneously to miss it, which means that memory is always marked by a certain distance and loss— even when functioning “well.” Thus, memory does not imply a full re-presencing (or bringing back) of something from the past. Instead, by remembering something, one acknowledges that it is gone— to “remember” (or “call to mind,” as the English etymology suggests) is simultaneously to recognize the irretrievability of the past, that is to say, the pastness of the past. In a more general sense, archiving processes are articulated by Zulu speakers through a constellation of terms, two of which I have already mentioned: khumbula (remember, miss) and gcina (keep, not reveal). But there are other terms as well: londoloza, for example, means “save” but is associated additionally with practices of “caring” or “preserving.” It is considered a “deep” Zulu term and is seldom used in contemporary Soweto. Finally, the term wonga is restricted to the saving of money, for example, in a bank (see chapter 7). This term is of recent vintage and was appropriated from a British slang term for money (the British word, in turn, is allegedly borrowed from a Romani language). Each term speaks to, and of, entangled histories, temporalities, and aspirations. Taken together, the constellation of terms alludes to the heterogeneity of a Sowetan archive encompassing “indigenous” cosmologies, long histories of capitalist penetration, and the experimental reuse of audio technologies.

Concluding Remarks In this chapter, I have presented a detailed picture of musical life in Soweto that emphasizes obduracy and immobility along one axis and failure and archival fragility along another. As my ethnography suggests, there is every reason to be suspicious of technophilic notions regarding musical circulation as an unimpeded flow. A question nonetheless remains: 120

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why, if there is so much evidence to the contrary, do ethnomusicologists continue to emphasize this alleged frictionless musical flow? I believe that there are three main reasons. The first, as I have already suggested, is an implicit and unthoughtful technophilia— that is, an assumption that technology is advancing toward greater perfection. As it turns out, this assumption is wildly exaggerated and relies on faulty theoretical assumptions. Second, most studies of musical circulation are based on examples from Europe and North America. Consider, for example, that the aim of the Oxford Handbook of Mobile Music Studies is to examine “how electrical technologies and their corresponding economies of scale have rendered music and sound increasingly mobile-portable, fungible, and ubiquitous.”57 With forty-two chapters and over one thousand pages, this massive compendium does not contain a single chapter on (and reserves hardly a word for) Africa. A third and final reason that scholars have celebrated flow over obduracy is that music itself is often considered fluid and labile. Amy Cimini and Jairo Moreno (in press) have addressed this conceptualization of music and sound under the rubric of the “fiduciary,” that is to say, the conjunction of fidelity and faith. They suggest that Western thinking about sound is largely governed by a fiduciary logic according to which “perception always already believes that it senses and in what it senses.” From phenomenology and performance theory to the affective turn, we are asked to trust what we hear and, before that, that we hear. In short, we trust that there will be sound. In South Africa, however, circulation is better apprehended in terms of obduracy than in terms of flow. This is not difficult to illustrate. But this chapter also makes the more important point that obduracy is not simply the lack of circulation. Instead, the various kinds of blockage and noncirculation that I have documented lead to novel forms of creative practice. There is a full-fledged, albeit heterogeneous, aesthetics of obduracy that is enacted daily in Soweto by people like Sizwe and his friends. More specifically, I have examined several effects that are generated by and through obduracy or failure: the aesthetics of propinquity (i.e., musicking of a finite cohort within a circumscribed area), the ownership of musical equipment as a kind of bodily prosthesis, the exchange of intimate images and sounds via hard drives, and the glitches and gaps in corrupted files. While these examples are seemingly negations of smooth and fluid systems, each example is simultaneously a productive singularity with its own contours and affective dimensions. Many unemployed or underemployed people in Soweto spend large portions of their days, their years, and even their lives on musical activities. With this point in mind, I conclude this concluding section by antici121

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pating a question that I take up in more depth in the following chapter: why? Why do people spend so much time on an activity that— seemingly, at least— gives them nothing? Money is clearly not the aim. Although some musicians in Soweto do dream of “making it,” this is not a real consideration or even motivation for Sizwe and most of his friends. Of course, asking why a certain group of people does things harbors dangers, since the question implies that their choices require explanation or even justification. Nonetheless, it may be helpful to briefly consider musicking in Soweto from the perspective of “practice,” at least as this term is defined by Ingrid Monson (2007, 26): “what people choose to do given the particular structural and discursive configurations in which they live.” Tentatively, I suggest that there are two main motivations for musicking in Soweto. First, although creating music in Soweto seldom participates directly in the monetary economy, it is deeply entangled in economies of gift exchange. For example, Sizwe may allow friends to copy electronic tracks from his hard drive and then receive services or goods in return. As an important node in the musical and informational network of Soweto, Sizwe’s room mediates and concentrates material resources and social energy. From this perspective, it is indeed possible to advance an economic explanation of music in Soweto.58 But a second motivation is more important, it seems to me, and far grander. In Soweto, music is a site of experimentation, of risk. People perform for one another, revealing themselves to one another, on unstable ground. Things break, circulation trips: out of the failure, new and unanticipated sounds are born. At the most fundamental level, then, I contend that musical action in Soweto is a form of experimentalism in search of an “otherwise” (see Piekut 2011). When I asked Sizwe about his motivations for making music, he responded: “We are looking for a new frontier, a new utopia. But only the new generation can see it, only the acrobats, only the dreamers.” I follow Benjamin Piekut’s (2011, 19) suggestion that “experimentalism can be usefully understood as an ethical practice.” Piekut adopts a Foucauldian understanding of ethical practice as a means through which to “control, to manage, to cope with the self in its ‘riskiness.’”59 Observing that “all experiments harbor the possibility of failure,” he links the ethics of engaging riskiness to an epistemological experimentation of the limits of knowledge (ibid.). Drawing on Foucault’s famous late text on the Enlightenment, in which he directly challenged the Kantian prohibition against trespassing the boundaries of knowledge, Piekut suggests that experimentalism opens the possibility of not only establishing the limits of knowledge but even, perhaps, of “crossing-over” (franchissement) them 122

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(173). For Piekut, as for Foucault, this crossing-over or transgression moves between various forms of knowledge: from knowledge (connaissance) to knowing (savoir), from pure reason to practical reason. The aim of experimentalism, in other words, is to turn the Kantian limit into an affirmative questioning, as Foucault (1997, 315) concludes: “The point, in brief, is to transform the critique conducted in the form of necessary limitation into a practical critique that takes the form of a possible crossing-over.” This Foucauldian injunction applies to the context of Soweto, even if somewhat imperfectly. In Soweto, it seems to me, people do not merely shift from “pure” to “practical” reason. Instead, there is a blurring of boundaries between various types of knowledge. To search for a new frontier, as Sizwe states it, is at once to speculate on what lies beyond the threshold of human perception and to challenge the distinction between knowthat and know-how. It is to engage a process of accumulation, of feedback loops, of versions of versions, of endless appropriations, of risky encounters, and of means without ends. It is to save and reveal, to remember and yearn, to care and preserve, and to circle around. But it is also, and at the same time, to develop a taste for the secret beyond this circle, for the secret exit to an elsewhere and an otherwise. My aim is not, however, to simply celebrate Sowetan musical practices or the conditions of their occurrence. Although I have emphasized that obduracy and failure generate new effects, the fact remains that conditions in Soweto are hard and life is difficult. It is therefore crucial not to valorize challenging or onerous conditions, lest we lapse into a kind of fetishization of “degraded” situations. At the same time, there are good reasons not to valorize efficiency and productivity, and so in the final analysis the only responsible mode of thought is dialectical and nonreductionist. In this chapter, I have therefore pursued an ethnographic approach that charts music’s strange and unpredictable movement, the way it twists and crumples, spurting, flailing, touching, withdrawing, arresting, hesitating. Music in Soweto is both an expression and a consequence of this movement, which reveals itself finally as a jitter at the very heart of post-apartheid society.

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Acoustic Assemblages and Forms of Life Every day, most South Africans jump with stretched-out legs from one solid knowable stone, hoping to land on another— but they are mostly out of reach. If one misses, one wades in an unknown morass until one reaches something recognizable to stand on for a while and catch one’s breath. . . . what I am trying to assert here is the possibility that on the African continent the dominant framework is not western (as opposed to “ought not be western”) and that this framework should be more articulated, discussed, refined and acknowledged with its own vocabulary.

ANTJIE KROG, BEGGING TO BE BL ACK

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In the previous chapter, I looked at the quotidian musical practices of formally unemployed residents of Soweto, emphasizing immobility, obduracy, and the precarity of archives. In this chapter, I widen the lens in order to examine these practices in relationship to the larger Johannesburg metropolitan area as well as sites further afield. After discussing various modalities of economic, political, and geographical marginalization, I examine the strategies that my interlocutors in Soweto employ to interact with centers of power and hegemonic cultural production. More generally, I consider the ways that Sowetans encounter other times and places through the construction of what Ana María Ochoa Gautier (2014, 22–23) calls “acoustic assemblages,” that is, the heterogeneous relations generated between “entities that hear, notions of the sonorous producing entities, and notions of the type of relationship between them.”2 In Soweto— as in places described by ethnomusicologists such as Steven Feld, Katherine Hagedorn, Theodore Levin, 124

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and Anthony Seeger— acoustic assemblages are produced through an engagement with “the outside.”3 This outside may be human, but also animal4 or occult: in most cases, the construction of an assemblage entangles various kinds of outsides, draws them together. I explore the different ways that musicians in South Africa encounter such outsides and, subsequently, the multiple forms of assemblages that result therefrom. Soweto remains a crucial site in my analysis: acoustic assemblages are produced in, from, and with Soweto in uneven and contradictory ways. While most of my interlocutors remain economically and spatially marginalized from centers of production, they are nonetheless cosmopolitans insofar as they actively participate in “global” processes. Taking a cue from Ackbar Abbas, I suggest that the nonprofessional musicians with whom I work enact a “cosmopolitanism of extraterritoriality” by opening themselves to and appropriating multiple outsides.5 On the other hand, I will have occasion later in this chapter to examine commercially successful musicians who appropriate and refract images of Soweto to international audiences. Again following Abbas, I suggest that these musicians enact a “cosmopolitanism of dependency” since they are sustained almost exclusively by foreign interest and support. Both forms of cosmopolitanism participate in acoustic assemblages— the term “acoustic assemblage” refers to any network of relations that involves a subject who hears. But where cosmopolitans of extraterritoriality construct acoustic assemblages by listening for outsides in the townships, cosmopolitans of dependency project sounds from the townships to the outside. The distinction between “for . . . in” and “from . . . to” implies a markedly different set of acoustic relations as well as a different politics and way of being in the world. Irrespective of their particular cosmopolitan commitments, all the musicians discussed in this chapter grapple with the politics of life.6 What kinds of life are valued or should be valued? What kinds of living beings should be part of the political community? How are these regimes of value and political participation expressed in and through sound? In contemporary South Africa, as we will see, vitality and survival are entangled in webs of association that are equally technological, social, and political. The administration of life by pharmaceutical companies, NGOs, and state departments imposes “epistemic hegemony” on national subjects, producing clear-cut definitions of healthy or sick, able-bodied or disabled, and dead or alive.7 But the construction of acoustic assemblages at times points toward an alternative epistemology (or even, I will argue, ontology) characterized by a radical openness. This openness challenges the purity of categories (e.g., the living/dead, the human, the animal, the divine) 125

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and instead operationalizes a transduction or translation across entities and domains. And in this openness, it may be possible to hear the traces of a fundamentally different acoustic relation than that espoused by the market and the state. I proceed in four parts. The first section examines the marginalization of Sowetans in terms of economics and space, emphasizing the way that ordinary people respond to structural repression and exclusion. This section is intended to offer background information and is not focused on music. I then turn to an analysis of how musicians in Soweto engage historical and spatial outsides from their marginal position at the edges of economic life. This leads to the third section, on experimental interventions in technological and biological bodies. Finally, I examine three internationally successful performers or groups in order to elucidate their similarities and differences with musicians in Soweto. My aim throughout is to provide a highly textured, if not comprehensive, account of the heterogeneous acoustic assemblages that are perpetually under construction in the post-apartheid milieu.

Two Forms of Marginalization: Economic and Spatial Despite the many changes that have taken place in South Africa over the past twenty years, Soweto remains a “ghetto” in the sense that it is spatially and economically marginalized from centers of political power and capital concentration. Contemporary Soweto might be conceptualized as one example of a planetwide archipelago of slums generated through “new forms of apartheid” (Žižek 2009, 91) ubiquitous in both the Global North and the Global South. At the same time, and without treating South Africa as exceptional, it would be a mistake to overlook the specificities of townships within larger structural dynamics of urban history and racial capitalism. A closer look at the economic and spatial marginalization of South African townships, and Soweto in particular, is therefore required. Economic Marginalization Tracking broad economic shifts over the course of South Africa’s twentieth-century history, Achille Mbembe (2008, 43) observes that during apartheid black bodies were seen as both “indispensible and expendable.” Because labor power was necessary for the functioning of the apartheid state, black bodies were highly valued. At the same time, however, black life was seen as excessive and “constituted wealth that could 126

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be lavishly spent.” As Hannah Arendt (1968, 190) comments, the settler colonialist in southern Africa lived “on the native as one might live on the fruit of wild trees.” In the post-apartheid period the calculus of superfluity— of excessive wealth that can be lavishly spent— is only exacerbated. Unemployment rates have risen dramatically, leading to the emergence of nostalgia for any kind of labor, even the exploitative type. As David Coplan (2008, 31) says of life in post-apartheid South Africa, the only thing worse “than a job as a mine migrant is the inability to find one.” A new class of expendable and dispensible people has developed, resulting in a mass of superfluous labor power— what urban studies scholar Mike Davis (2006) calls a “surplus humanity.” Valueless people are pushed to the edges of the city, to the townships and shantytowns far away from centers of formal production and trade. For township residents who have not entered the “path to middle-class prosperity,” says anthropologist Mark Hunter (2010, 199), “life seems to have stood still. Inhabitants use the [Zulu] verb ukuhlala (to stay) to describe, with resignation, how the unemployed just hang around the township.” Echoing this sentiment, a young unemployed man from a shantytown told anthropologist Rosalind Morris (2008b, 205): “You are saving us for dying. We want to make a living.” For this young man, life is meaninglessly delayed until death. What remains out of reach is a way to make a living, a way to make a life. Despite the desperate situations in which marginalized people often find themselves, they nonetheless reimagine and reactivate regimes of value that are not reducible to formal markets or the state. Seen this way, and as ethnographic accounts of everyday life imply, speaking of a “surplus humanity” or of “superfluous life” harbors serious dangers, since it “can lead us to imagine that there are really disposable people, not simply that they are disposable in the eyes of state and market” (Denning 2010, 80). It is crucial, then, to attend to the creative practices and everyday strategies of disenfranchised people. Furthermore, to say that many township residents are excluded is not to say that they are excluded entirely, which means that from an ethnographic standpoint there is no need to resort to extravagant metaphysical categories such as “bare life.”8 Although most black South Africans are not active citizens in the strict sense of that term, they are citizens nonetheless. Like many social groups, they are placed on a “limit, a symbolic and material frontier between minimal rights (or ‘resistance’) and a straight denial of rights” (Balibar 2008, 530, emphasis in original).9 There is one sense, in particular, in which citizenship has very real con127

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sequences for black South Africans: it is the necessary criterion for receiving social grants. And as I will show, social grants entangle technological, biological, and cultural registers in ways that generate new forms of political belonging. Approximately one quarter of the country’s population claims social grants each month, a system that has prompted some researchers to characterize South Africa as a kind of Scandinavia of the Southern Hemisphere.10 As such, citizenship is literally a means of survival for over thirteen million people, and seen this way, neoliberalism cannot be synonymous with the absolute recession of state power. On the contrary, the system of social grants is necessary for the neutralization of conflict: the political arrangement in post-apartheid South Africa would likely not function at all without these grants, which restrain “what might otherwise be an explosive situation” ( J. Ferguson 2007, 78). Social grants in South Africa are available for the elderly, the disabled (a category that additionally includes various kinds of illness), and those responsible for children but not, importantly, for able-bodied people of working age. South Africa has one of the highest unemployment rates in the world (estimated as high as 40 percent), and it is precisely those unemployed citizens who are able to work who have very little connection to the state. For many young people the most direct way to access state resources is through various forms of “disabling”— for example, by generating dependents or becoming sick. South Africa has thus witnessed the entrenchment of a very peculiar form of “biomedical citizenship,” that is, a series of articulations between human bodies, medical technologies, and political communities.11 In his ethnography of White City, Soweto, Caswell Matima (2010, 20) describes the “serious allegations . . . that some young girls of school going age deliberately and repeatedly fall pregnant in order to tap into the grant system as an alternative way of earning a living for themselves and their families.”12 Prior to bearing children, such women are considered capable of working and therefore ineligible for social grants. In a job-shy landscape, it seems, being able-bodied and unburdened by the responsibility of childcare becomes a liability. Matima (ibid.) goes on to note that HIV-positive mothers receive “several grants, one for each child she raises and the other for being HIV/AIDS positive and sick.” While partially true, a more accurate assessment is that only people who are HIV positive and too sick to work (defined by a CD4 count of less than or equal to 200)13 are eligible for social grants. With the careful administering of antiretrovirals (ARVs), however, people can reach and maintain a “healthy” (as defined by the state) CD4 count well above 200. And because the South African government supplies ARVs free 128

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of charge, a CD4 count of more than 200 is within reach of most HIVpositive citizens, particularly those who live in or near urban areas. But herein lies the problem, since an HIV-positive but healthy individual is no longer eligible for a social grant. As Claire Laurier Decoteau (2013, 102) observes: “It has become de facto policy that poor, HIV-infected South Africans must ‘choose’ either social subsistence or life-saving medication.” For this reason, those who are able to maintain a viral load above 200 often end up selling their ARV medication for food and, subsequently, without the medication, become sick once again (157).14 For able-bodied people of working age, the options are limited. Because South Africa has one of the highest unemployment rates in the world and one of the highest levels of inequality, it is not surprising that many young people turn to crime— for example, house robbery or carjacking. Somewhat ironically, crime has given rise to one of the country’s fastestgrowing and largest industries: private security (Blaine 2005). For millions of South Africans, and black South Africans in particular, the only options available are to “appropriate” private wealth or protect that wealth against those who intend to appropriate it. The preceding discussion makes clear the severity of economic marginalization in South Africa’s townships, while additionally emphasizing that in order to gain access to state resources poor people must subject themselves to policies that are often quite harmful. Furthermore, if healthy young men and women hope to make a living, they must necessarily position themselves in relation to elite property relations: either by protecting elites or by turning to crime. This means that responses to economic marginalization are at least partially shaped by the very forces of exclusion that those responses are attempting to circumvent. Spatial Marginalization The economic axis is closely linked with spatial-geographic marginalization. The spatial-geographic marginalization of post-apartheid Soweto is largely a result of the historical construction of urban and peri-urban areas in South Africa. Apartheid doctrine held that participation in the life of the city is the exclusive prerogative of whites. Blacks were considered temporary residents in urban areas, and according to the so-called Stallard doctrine of 1922, “The Native should be allowed to enter the urban areas when he is willing to minister to the needs of the White man, and should depart therefrom when he ceases so to minister.”15 Initially only a doctrine, Stallard’s idea became law in 1923, with the Native Urban Areas Act. Blacks were forbidden to live within cities proper, and in the 1950s 129

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the apartheid state implemented a number of forced removals, expelling blacks from white areas and razing multiracial neighborhoods to the ground. Evicted populations were transported to new townships within reach of, but at a strategic distance from, the city center. As such, Soweto is essentially “an invented sub-city, a ‘dormitory town,’ created to meet the material needs of industrial, commercial, and domestic employers in Johannesburg and, incidentally, to set aside an ‘urban area’ for the city’s large African population” (Starfield and Gardiner 2001, 69). In light of this spatial arrangement, a key function of apartheid policies became the regulation of human movement between township, city center, and suburb through curfews imposed on the black populace, raids, and “pass laws.”16 These policies harnessed the labor power of black South Africans in the gold mines surrounding Johannesburg but denied them political participation in the life of the city. In the post-apartheid period, the boundary separating township and city center has become porous, and all South Africans are legally entitled to move about freely in any public space. Mobile fluidity has in fact become something of a trope in academic writings about post-apartheid Johannesburg, with one well-known author (Lindsay Bremner) contrasting townships during apartheid— which she calls “places of non-life, urban warehouses for black bodies”— with townships in the post-apartheid period. “Now that apartheid has ended,” she writes, “these townships are, in a sense, no longer there. They have slipped out, leaked and scattered. The city, Johannesburg in particular, has become a Township-Metropolis” (Bremner 2004b; see also Bremner 2004a, 2004c). Xavier Livermon (2008, 282) argues similarly that in the post-apartheid period new connections are revealed between city and township, especially through kwaito, which he sees as “the music of this new black mobility.” Just as ethnomusicologists affirm the progressive acceleration of music and sound in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries (see chapter 4), so too do urban studies researchers affirm velocity and smooth circulation as hallmarks of the modern city. These two affirmations occasionally function together, for example, in the above quotation from Livermon and in his succinct statement that the greater Johannesburg metropolitan area (including Soweto) is a “critical node in the circulation of global sounds that characterizes the increasingly networked age of late capitalism” (2008, 273). But as should be clear, a more accurate assessment would be that Johannesburg is both a critical node and a space of exclusion: indeed, it is this contradiction that requires urgent analysis. Hence, to Bremner’s slips, leaks, and scatterings it is necessary to add clogging,

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blocking, and stymieing. To Livermon’s valorization of mobility it is necessary to add an analysis of obduracy. While documenting the kinds of movement made possible by the repeal of apartheid legislation is laudable, in material terms this mobility is limited almost exclusively to the middle class. For those without access to private vehicles, travel between township, city center, and suburb is expensive, extremely inconvenient, and often dangerous.17 Consider, for example, Livermon’s (2008, 276–78) claim that township residents travel effortlessly to and from the Bohemian area of Melville near the city center, constructing what he calls a “Soweto-in-Melville.” This assertion was continually contradicted during my fieldwork— for example, when I took a friend from Soweto to a bar in Melville one night only to find that he had never been there before and that traveling to Melville without my car was unthinkable (if not exactly impossible). Thus, while recognizing that the black middle class is necessary for a comprehensive analysis of contemporary South Africa, one should not forget that the vast majority of Soweto residents are not middle class and so find it very difficult to move about the city of Johannesburg without access to personal vehicles. This is not the end of the story, though, since township residents are forced to devise creative strategies for accessing the city— especially at night when taxis are scarce.18 Achal Prabhala observes that “the walking classes have their own way of making nightlife safe”: when, for instance, people need to get back home— after working the kitchens and tables in Midrand, Melville, and Norwood, or just enjoying a good night out— they take South Africa’s safest form of late-night transport: the Armed response Taxi. Security company employees [working for private companies], driven to boredom on their late-night patrols and eager for a quick buck, will pick you up and take you home for the same price as a taxi. (2008, 309–10)

But the “Armed Response Taxi” cannot possibly service the entire workforce of the hundreds of restaurants and bars in Midrand, Melville, and Norwood. Another common, although precarious, form of transport hustling is to enlist the services of a sugar daddy. Many young women rely on boyfriends with cars to get them home at night, and for this reason sugar daddies are known as “Ministers of Transport” (Kaufman and Stavrou 2004, 379, 384). These various forms of informal and improvisatory transportation notwithstanding, working in or going to Melville is simply not a viable option for most township residents. The city center and areas like Melville

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that surround it are considered inaccessible by many Soweto residents, as a member of the Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee (an organization that protests the privatization of electricity in the area) states succinctly: “Johannesburg is a different place. It is where the municipal offices are located. . . . It requires transport money to reach, which is not a reality for most people here [i.e., in Soweto].”19 Finally, those who are required to move between township and city or suburb for work are constantly subjected to danger. In a short article penned for the music and culture magazine Mahala, Dudumalingani Mqombothi describes the palpable sense of fear that ripples through a train when workers returning home to the townships outside Cape Town prepare to disembark. Titled “The Township Will Mug You,” Mqombothi’s article is a remarkable document that deserves to be quoted at length: [A]s the train gets closer to the township worry seems to, at once, dominate everyone’s thoughts. Commuters in a bid to get home safe begin to telephone a brother, sister, father, mother, boyfriend, friend to collect them from their stations so they will not walk home alone. A sinister laughter echoes through the carriage; the commuters begin to ask if anyone is getting off at Site C, Site B, kuyasa or Chris Hani and which way are they are taking. Strangers unified by the fear of getting mugged. A lady sitting across me, shortly after making a call, disassembles her mobile into pieces. She takes out her sim and memory card and puts them inside her shoe. She keeps the phone in her pocket. The muggers can take the phone, a phone that she has worked hard to buy. She has made peace with that. I think immediately of rape, I suspect everyone is, including her along with everyone else in the carriage, but if I bring it up, if anyone brings it up, what is one to suggest she does when the muggers try to rape her? (2013)

As this excerpt shows, simply arriving home safely is an ordeal that many black workers face each day. And in Mqombothi’s account it is not simply one or two bad apples in the township that are feared but rather the township itself is personified: “The Township Will Mug You.” At the same time, he emphasizes that “The Township Will Mug You”— if not today, then tomorrow. It is inevitable, in short, that the township will mug you. To conclude this section, I stress not only that townships remain spaces of marginalization and exclusion but also that this exclusion is never total. From the perspective of space, I have shown that people do move between townships and other areas; it is just that this movement is marked by a number of obstructions and difficulties. In terms of economics and value, to say that people are excluded does not necessarily imply that they 132

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are completely beyond the orbit of the state and capital— many, if not most, people dwell at the precarious limit between inclusion and exclusion. There is additionally a sense in which even excluded life is included within the political, as Judith Butler suggests: “the jettisoned life, the one both expelled and contained, is saturated with power precisely at the moment in which it is deprived of citizenship” (Butler and Spivak 2007, 50). In a similar vein, Agamben (1998) notes that modern biopolitics is characterized less by exclusion than by what he calls “inclusive exclusion”— excluding certain bodies precisely by including them within a particular political apparatus. It is therefore not simply a matter of being “inside” or “outside” of political power: rather, a comprehensive understanding of contemporary life must necessarily deal with borders and limits— what Jairo Moreno (2013, 215) calls “general liminology”— as well as remainders and paradoxes.

Encountering the Outside On township streets and in township homes, the world beyond can seem out of reach, while the horizon of the future threatens to collapse into a “present that is infinite and a landing” (Mbembe in Blaser 2013). Along with wealth and income, it might be said that in South Africa opportunity is distributed in a completely unequal fashion. As one interlocutor from a shantytown in Soweto told US-based anthropologist Claire Laurier Decoteau (2013, 111): “You know, I thought that if there could be access to health, access to jobs, access to, you know, basic services, that would enable communities to decide to live. But no one could take a different path, no one could choose from various types of lives . . . like you could. We don’t have an option but have to live in the dark . . . we have to live there.” Nonetheless, although young men and women in Soweto often describe the truncation of life opportunities as unfair and even unjust, structural conditions do not completely determine cultural practices. In what follows, I look at the often ingenious ways that people in Soweto produce acoustic assemblages by engaging the “outside.” This outside can be temporal (the past, or history), spatial (another place), or cosmological (encountered through dreams or the occult)— most often, it is a combination of all three. I present openness to the outside as a core characteristic of life in Soweto and as an imperative of the assemblage process. I look first at the three overlapping outsides— temporal, spatial, cosmological— and then turn toward a closer analysis of the acoustic environments in which, and through which, these outsides are engaged. 133

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History as an Outside As a way into the historical axis, I begin with the observation that during informal performance settings in Soweto, people often told me that “there is nothing new.” (For a general description of these settings and the key actors involved, see chapter 4.) I found that this axiom is usually uttered when an individual realizes that the music he or she is playing or listening to closely resembles something that the individual already knows. For example, when listening to a riff that he had created on his desktop computer one day, Sizwe realized that its formal structure closely resembled an old R&B song from the 1970s and then disclaimed with delight: “Hayi! There’s nothing new, you know!” To say that there is nothing new, then, is not a melancholic acceptance that we are doomed to repeat everything indefinitely. Instead, it is a recognition of the manner by which the past animates the present. This returns us to the practice of ikhopa (the “copy”)— as described in chapter 4— a practice that implies less an exact repetition than an active engagement with preexisting sonic material, often an electronic track or “body” (umzimba). Sizwe once explained ikhopa to me like this: “Okay, so Mgavan, I play you a track and you play guitar over it. Then I play the same track again and say, ‘Okay, now look how Sizwe does it.’”20 All creation is based on prior creation, and the task of the musician is to present his or her own interpretation of what came before. In this way, musical production is conceived of as a series of “copies” where the creative process is an encounter with preexisting material. Similar aesthetic practices have been documented both in South Africa and in other parts of sub-Saharan Africa. To take just one example, in her ethnography of kiba performance in South Africa, Deborah James (1999, 84) found that compositions “consist of different parts which were composed by different people at different times, with the most recent contributions being those of the contemporary performer/composer herself.” The musical practices I witnessed in Soweto are redolent of what Eduardo Viveiros de Castro (2004, 477–78), in a different context, calls “the paradigm of exchange: an exchange event is always the transformation of a prior exchange event.” Under this paradigm, it is not the case that nothing new or different ever happens but rather that every action is a response or transformation and not the “imposition of mental design on inert, formless matter” (477). Therefore, the expression “there is nothing new” should be taken to mean that there is nothing absolutely new. The maxim emphasizes that things exist in relation to other (older) things 134

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while simultaneously implying that these “others” are also subjects, as Viveiros de Castro suggests: “the subject’s ‘other’ is another subject (not an object)” (ibid.). This approach to history has several consequences. For one thing, it refutes an assumption— critiqued some time ago by Appadurai but still retaining much currency in contemporary scholarship— “that the past is a limitless and plastic symbolic resource, infinitely susceptible to the whims of contemporary interest and the distortions of contemporary ideology” (Appadurai 1981, 201). Participating at least partly within a paradigm of exchange (rather than of production), my interlocutors in Soweto engage the past through its many vibrant and perduring forms and not simply as a limitless, inexhaustible canvas. Rather than viewing the past as something that can be infinitely manipulated, they tend to engage history as a constellation of active and agential forms, bodies, and figures. For all these reasons, the idea of a complete and unified musical work is anathema to musicians in Soweto, where music functions instead as an assemblage constituted by what DeLanda (2006, 9) calls “relations of exteriority.” Contrary to the organicist model, in which component parts function only in relation to other component parts, thus forming a coherent and bounded whole, in assemblages parts are not fused together and may be detached and used in other assemblages. Relations are only “contingently obligatory,” which “guarantee[s] that assemblages may be taken apart while at the same time allowing that interactions between parts may result in a true synthesis” (11). To make music, in this sense, is to insert a component part into an assemblage of other component parts. In Soweto, this usually happens when a human voice is inserted into a preexisting electronic track. Singing over an electronic track does not permanently fuse the vocal melody with the track, as though the track and the vocal melody have no meaning independently of one another. Instead, the electronic track can accommodate a potentially infinite number of vocalizations, which, I submit, suggests a remarkable level of openness. To further elucidate the concept of ikhopa, I present an example from the realm of “commercial” kwaito, where copyright occasionally presents a particular difficulty. Commercial kwaito musicians who sample or rework existing music are often forced to acquire licenses and pay heavy royalty fees, which can be costly and therefore prohibitive.21 Zwai Bala of the group TKZee told me that as a Sony Music artist he is required to secure permission from his publishers if he wishes to sample music but also that he has developed techniques to circumvent this problem. For example, he recalls: 135

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I remember when I did “we Love This Place” [a song by TkZee]. In fact, we were gonna do [and here Zwai sings the melody]: “Here we stand, trying not to fall, there’s no need to worry, love will conquer all.” which is actually Lionel richie.22 So I called my publisher at 2 a.m., because we were in the studio. He was like, “No, we’re going to have to pay them if you use the melody. You can use the chord structure, but only if you come up with a different melody.” I said, “Thank you very much.” And I wrote a new melody. I’d rather keep the chords, which actually have the melody in. But I wrote a [new] melody.

Zwai hides the melody of “Love Will Conquer All” by presenting it within the harmonic structure. Nonetheless, as he told me, the original melody is still audible. Figure 5.1 presents the first four measures of the melody from Lionel Richie’s “Love Will Conquer All.” The first four measures of the chorus for “We Love This Place” (1998) include a new melody, but Zwai voices the chords in such a way that the contour of Richie’s melody appears on top; see figure 5.2. “We Love This Place” is therefore less a copy of “Love Will Conquer All” than an ikhopa. In fact, “We Love This Place” illustrates succinctly the operation of ikhopa as a process of encounter and exchange with previously existing music. The preexisting music is still audible, but it is not foregrounded. Even more importantly, the relationship between Zwai’s new melody and “Love Will Conquer All” is not fixed— after all, one could easily compose other new melodies over the harmonic structure employed by Richie. But this does not mean that the various melodies and harmonies I am discussing are totally discrete, floating into and out of relations with one another and never touching at all. Instead, the relations are “contingently

F i g u r e 5 .1 .

Excerpt from melody of “Love will Conquer All” performed by Lionel richie. Transposed to E♭ in order to facilitate easier comparisons with figure 5.2.

Figure 5.2.

Melody excerpt from “we Love This Place” by TkZee.

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obligatory,” which means that relations are in fact formed (e.g., between the harmonies and melody of “Love Will Conquer All” and the melody of “We Love This Place”) but that these relations are operative (and obligatory) only when plugged into the assemblage. From this perspective, musical fragments can change or take on new meanings when they form relations with others, but they can also be detached and used in other assemblages. Furthermore, to say that “We Love This Place” is an ikhopa of “Love Will Conquer All” does not mean that the Richie song is somehow a true original with no relation to history— for the Richie song, like TKZee’s “copy,” harks back to earlier music. All musical creations are “copies” of what came before, and what came before are copies, too: we are left with an infinite regress in which “there is nothing new.” As Zwai’s comment elucidates, the precise manner by which a particular set of sounds relates to the past is not always obvious because past configurations are “hidden” within the present. This explains why hearing the past within a song is understood as a process of investigation and discovery. In “We Love This Place,” preexisting sonic material is transformed. The song that results does not erupt ex nihilo but rather exists as an acoustic assemblage in relation to historical forms. The electronic substrate that serves as the basis of “We Love This Place”— the bottom two staffs in figure 5.2— would be considered the song’s body (umzimba). To call it a body is apt: for it is not a seed that grows organically, nor is it a deep level.23 Instead, it is the part of the song that supports and conjoins other parts but is yet without additions or appendages.24 Spatial Outsides Acoustic assemblages are constructed not only temporally in relation to past forms but also spatially in relation to various “soundscapes” and through the strategic accessing of the distant and the far-off. Although people in Soweto are largely excluded from centers of cultural production, they devise creative ways of appropriating songs, melodies, and rhythms to use in their own acoustic assemblages. We have already seen how people like Ganyani Tshabalala accessed house, or “international,” music in the late 1980s (see chapter 2). As a more recent example, consider Internet hacking as practiced by one of my interlocutors in Soweto— I will call him Elias. Elias is known for his dual identity as a music producer and techgeek— in Soweto, notably, repairing computers, illegally downloading from BitTorrents, and producing hot electronic tracks are closely associated practices. Elias told me that he started hacking in 1996, when the new 137

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government— as part of its post-apartheid Reconstruction and Development Program— set up a computer lab with Internet access at the Soweto branch of the Department of Education. Like many similar projects, the state failed to train its clerks to use the computers and the lab remained vacant for years. Elias’s friends had helped install the new systems and from them he received the Internet password. In the weeks that followed, he found a way to access the Department of Education’s system from his home and downloaded and studied online texts such as the Hacker Manifesto. “That system was like a river,” he recalled some years later. “Water was always there.” Because of the provisional and experimental nature of all online government work at the time, Elias was able to easily access the accounting files of Johannesburg’s municipalities. As he told me: “There were so many loopholes in the system. And the people working for the municipality were just end users who had taken a crash course in computers.” He downloaded obscure films and MP3s from peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing sites, and as one of the few people in Soweto to have access to P2P sites at the time, Elias became well known as a source of knowledge. Having downloaded thousands of films and songs, he distributed them to friends offline via CDs or memory sticks. Through him, dozens of people in Soweto had access to the latest house, hip-hop, and dancehall tracks. He also downloaded and distributed music software so that he could create and exchange electronic tracks with friends. In the previous chapter I emphasized that in Soweto mobility constantly comes up against failures, glitches, and accidents. But despite these multiple forms of obduracy, people and music move, and the case of hacking illustrates one particular kind of movement. From an analytical perspective, then, one does not have to choose between circulation and noncirculation (or stasis). Instead, it is more efficacious to denaturalize the commonly used figures of “flow” and “scape”— which assume unimpeded movement in frictionless space— and move toward an analysis capable of tracing nonlinear trajectories with jagged edges. James Ferguson produces exactly such a tracing in his discussion of global finance. As he notes, “capital does not ‘flow’ from New York to Angola’s oil fields, or from London to Ghana’s goldmines” (2006, 38). Instead, he says, “it hops, neatly skipping over much of what lies in between.” Capital does not “cover” the globe with an inexhaustible flood but rather connects highly selective points upon its surface. Discrete zones are connected in a point-to-point fashion, resulting in a world that is not so much seamless as it is discontinuous and patchwork, thus requiring leaps and jumps in order to traverse (47–49). 138

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Ferguson goes on to argue that the topological model of networked points renders scalar thinking meaningless. Ethnomusicologists are accustomed to thinking in terms of scales or levels: we often begin with local communities, for example, and then scale outward in concentric circles to the national, then the regional, then the global. But as the case of capital hopping in Africa shows, the global is not a level or scale that is somehow larger than the regional or the national. The situation is better apprehended in terms of “point-to-point connectivity that bypasses and short-circuits” scalar mappings ( J. Ferguson 2006, 42). Elias’s hacking is a case in point of the kinds of movement Ferguson describes. By accessing MP3s and computer programs online, he activates a long-distance, point-to-point connectivity that bypasses a large swath of contiguous terrain. Although he likens this setup to a river, he alone has access to its gushing flow. Indeed, the information jumps directly to Elias, and so in terms of movement, at least, the category of the nation-state is largely irrelevant. There is, however, a catch: Elias’s hacking is reliant upon a state-owned computing lab, which means that the nation-state is in fact an active component in his process. Therefore, it would be possible to argue that Elias’s hacking process does engage various levels of “scale”: one might call these the local (his neighborhood), the national (the state-owned computer lab), and the global (the American-, European-, and Asian-produced music and software that he downloads). The interesting aspect here is that the various scales (if we are to maintain that term) are related in a decidedly nonlinear fashion, since Elias does not scale “upward” from the local to the national and then the global. Instead, it would be more accurate to say that from his local position he employs the national to access the global, but that he then bypasses the national on the way back to the local. Hacking in Soweto therefore requires a particular operationalization of human and technical capacities that traverse and interrelate various levels of scale. Elias can only successfully access information through a careful set of articulations that results in an effective yet somewhat fragile acoustic assemblage. The assemblage required for hacking is, of course, related to other assemblages— many of which are constructed offline. And although the situation is rapidly changing, before 2014 few people in Elias’s neighborhood had reliable or robust Internet connections, and most people exchanged music person-to-person through technologies like external hard drives and memory sticks (see chapter 4).25 In contrast to the hopping, nonlinear movement that Elias encounters online, when he exchanges music and computer programs offline with friends, distribution takes the form of a slowly expanding web, constructed one person 139

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at a time. Following Frank Gunderson (2004), it would be possible to map this movement as a kind of viral contagion that replicates via contiguous attachments. Although spreading “slowly” from individual to individual, offline circulation can also reach quite far and wide. Offline circulation thus generates unanticipated linkages, linkages that are seldom concatenated into an “identity,” “community,” or even “scene” as traditionally conceived. Rather, alongside imagined communities— for example, of nation26— the transmission of MP3s in Soweto may be said to constitute what Robert Thornton calls an “unimagined community.” This “unimagined community” extends beyond human associations through a relay between humans and nonhuman actors— for example, MP3s, memory sticks, and hard drives. Thornton, for his part, focuses on the particular unimagined community of the sexual network in South Africa. As he emphasizes, this sexual network “is necessarily implicated in a broader flow of values, some of which are physical or economic values (such as use of a car or cell phone, a place to sleep, a new dress or clothes) and some of which are intangible values (such as a good conversation, a shared joke, a good time, or a sense of closeness or intimacy)” (2008, 207). In a similar fashion, the circulation of MP3s is implicated in many other trajectories (I avoid the word “flow” for reasons outlined above). Some of these trajectories are “imagined” or represented, while others remain unimagined and unseen. In most cases, assemblages are constructed through the overlapping and entanglement of various registers. While the transmission of MP3s is part and parcel of a musical network, musicians in Soweto engage not only with musical “information” (stored, e.g., on an MP3) but also with music as tangible, affective, sonorous matter— that is to say, as sound. During the course of informal performance occasions (such as those described in chapter 4), nonprofessional musicians interact with sound on several registers: sound produced digitally through computers speakers, the sound of other people sharing the space, and the various sounds of township life outside. But we have already seen that such environments are fragile: for example, digitally stored sounds are often corrupted due to power outages, which shows that even though the MP3 may be a “container technology” (Sterne 2012, 194), that container is nonetheless precariously open to the infrastructure through which it moves and in which it operates. To more fully elucidate how nonprofessional musicians in Soweto relate to “outside” sounds, I begin with a brief description of a contrasting context, one that will be more familiar to readers. In her ethnography of a professional recording studio in Johannesburg, Louise Meintjes (2003, 73–74) argues that “the quality of the space can come to be constructed 140

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and experienced as magical and as a fetish by music-makers who work within it.” By “fetish,” she means a “reif[ied] . . . object that can procure for those who have earned access to it the services of that force, or ‘spirit,’ lodged within it.” In addition to seeing the entire studio space as a kind of fetish, Meintjes points out that certain technological devices take on magical qualities through the invisibility and relative unavailability of their processes. Thus, when the voice of a black female vocalist named Joana is encapsulated by a recording console, Joana loses control over her voice and requires a male studio engineer to access it (100). The relative inaccessibility of the voice inside the machine is coupled with the more general mysteriousness of shiny interfaces concealing intricate circuitry that can be manipulated only from outside. This results in a feeling of alienation and awe, which is exacerbated for those without technical or scientific knowledge. In her rigorous history of architectural acoustics, Emily Thompson (2002) observes that modern acoustic spaces are often designed to dissociate space from sound, such that acoustic space becomes a nonreverberant and idealized zone without sound that can then be filled with sounds from everywhere and anywhere. In recording studios, the process of filling up “empty” space is carefully controlled and manipulated from within the confines of a tightly insulated room. Sound becomes a resource for the studio engineer or music producer to exploit. Turning back to Soweto, consider Wills Glasspiegel’s contrasting description of studio space in his excellent account of Soweto-based producer Richard Mthetwa27— who goes by the stage name Nozinja (i.e., “Dog”): The setup included a computer that looked a few years old, two monitor speakers, a small mixer, a microphone, a MIDI keyboard, and a small vocal booth. . . . This was not the hermetically sealed major label studio of downtown Johannesburg, rendered so poignantly in the work of Professor Louise Meintjes when she wrote “the world out there sounds faraway” (p. 91). In comparison, this form of home production— a small, cluttered room beside the family kitchen with a window that leaks sounds— seemed precariously open to the outside world. I could hear Nozinja’s dog barking at passing trains and I asked him if that was the bark I had heard on some of his recordings. He laughed. “Yes, I did sample him,” he said, “but the train, not yet, I will do that,” he promised. (2013, 17–18)

As Glasspiegel suggests, in Soweto the boundary between inside and outside is porous. Outside sound sources like trains and dogs are not de facto excluded from studio space but rather enrich the heterogeneous sonic environment. Although his mention of the barking dog may seem arbitrary, 141

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we will see that the sounds of animals are particularly resonant in township space. During my time in Soweto, I have noticed many similar instances of acoustic environments being precariously open to the outside. For example, sounds of cars, dogs, birds, and vegetable vendors are often audible when I play music with Sizwe. Perhaps most importantly, musicians in Soweto seldom consider these sounds intrusive or annoying. Instead, a dog gnarling might add tension to a performance, while a vegetable vendor’s cry might contribute a touch of pathos. When I asked Sizwe about “outside sounds” (and without any mention of dogs), he responded: “You can hear a dog barking. And now it gives you an idea. You can use that idea; you can use that sound of the dog.” (See chapter 7 for a further discussion.) The situation is somewhat different for “commercial” kwaito musicians working outside Soweto, who tend to more tightly control the studio’s acoustic environment. Nonetheless, commercial kwaito musicians frequently employ everyday sounds and noises, albeit in a more deliberate fashion. One particularly striking instance is the song “Siyabangena” (2007) produced by a duo that goes by the name DJ Vetkuk vs. Mahoota. The song begins with an energetic bass line supporting what sounds like a flock of twittering birds. Over this busy sonic layering, we hear first a female voice in the style of North Indian Bollywood playback singing and then a male voice “chanting” the Zulu words: Siyabangena

[we are entering them

Siyabarocka

we are rocking them

Siyabathatha

we are taking them

Siyabahlafuna

we are swallowing them]

On the level of both music and lyrics, the song “Siyabangena” engages different forms of transmutation. Indeed, it would be possible to take the male vocalist quite literally, conceptualizing music not simply as a means of expression but as a process of entering, rocking, taking, and swallowing— in short, as a process of exchange. The male vocalist Thebe proclaims in a heightened voice that he and his fellow musicians are “entering” (or “coming into”) the audience, that he is “taking” the audience and “swallowing” (or “masticating”) them. The song’s production likewise participates in a series of sonic exchanges, of transatlantic crossings (across both Atlantic and Indian Oceans), and of human/animal traversals. In both nonprofessional and commercial kwaito, then, music functions as a “mutually constitutive and transformative relation” between 142

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sound-producing entities (Ochoa Gautier 2014, 22–23).28 Music opens a line of exchange between South, East, and West and between humans and their various outsides— including animals. As an additional example of how sound opens a line of exchange specifically between human and animal, briefly consider Luvuyo Dontsa’s fascinating research on South African whistling practices. As Dontsa (1993, 32–33) documents, whistling is widely employed for multiple purposes, including calling dogs, guiding oxen, praising a cow that produces a substantial quantity of milk, and increasing “the sexual tendency of a bull.” The boys and men who herd cattle in Soweto likewise employ a variety of sound-producing techniques (whistling, speaking, singing), as do the men and women who ride horsedrawn carts through the townships. Although referring to a different time and place, Ochoa Gautier’s remarks regarding animal sounds are particularly relevant here. “If sounding like animals, learning sounds from animals, or incorporating nonhuman entities in sound is not a problem but an objective,” she writes, “then it becomes evident that the human-nonhuman relation, or the relation between nature and culture present in the voice is not one that debases a person” (2014, 61). From this perspective, when producers in Soweto engage outside sounds, this should be understood not as a failure that debases their integrity as musicians but rather as a creative interweaving of multiple sonic trajectories. Opposing the “anthropological machine” (Agamben 2004) that delineates a clear line between human and animal, certain sonic practices in Soweto open humans to their animal others. Cosmological Outsides Dontsa also refers somewhat elliptically to a “diviner’s whistle” that is believed to “come from the ancestors.” “It is blown from the roof of the house,” he says, “and is often heard by everybody in the room. It is understood only by the diviner, who is the only person capable of explaining it to the people” (1993, 34). As this brief example implies, not only do people in South Africa employ sound as a way of relating to “material” entities (whether those be musical recordings or outside sounds), but similar forms of relation are at work additionally in encounters with “cosmological” outsides— for example, ancestors. Consider the case of dreaming. Citing Jedrej, Carol Muller notes that in many sub-Saharan African cosmologies dreams are “not communications from different localities within the architecture of the dreamer’s personality [as is the case with post-Freudian psychoanalysis] but communications from components of a cosmology in which the dreamer is situated.”29 Unlike the Western notion of an au143

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tonomous subject who works through her unconsciously processed yet deeply personal traumas, certain African cosmologies understand dream content as an encounter with other subjects. Hence, when Joseph Shabalala of Ladysmith Black Mambazo fame dreams of ancestors giving him ideas for songs, we should understand these ancestors not simply as projections of Shabalala’s own psyche but as actual subjects or “persons.”30 Of course, one cannot reduce complex individuals like Joseph Shabalala or my interlocutors in Soweto to indigenous cosmologies, and I do not mean to suggest that such people are somehow non-Western. Instead, like most people in the world today, they participate in hybrid cosmologies and inhabit multiple worlds. Sizwe often explains his dreams with references to television shows such as The X-Files, cartoons like Tom and Jerry, and even scientific documentaries on neural nets. At times, these juxtapositions may seem like attempts to reconcile contradictory realities. On the other hand, the effortlessness with which Sizwe moves between Zulu cosmology and contemporary science suggests that clichés about the West’s commitment to “autonomous subjects” and “objective truth” have run their course. Indeed, much of the scientific discourse with which Sizwe engages (neural nets being a case in point) already challenges the supposition of an autonomous rational subject as the guarantor of true statements. As Yates-Doerr and Mol (2012, 58) point out with an eye toward human/animal relations and different “cuts of meat,” there is no “coherent ‘Western’ repertoire”: “Instead, ‘Western’ practices are complex juxtapositions of different modes of ordering— containing contrasting and overlapping repertoires.” While it is of course absurd to deny a certain level of cultural difference between South Africa and “the West,” it is also crucial to remember the long histories of interrelation between the two and the lack of “purity” of either geopolitical entity.31 In Soweto, people often speak about interacting with different dimensions— the here and now, the far away, the long dead, and the unseen. In addition to actively relating to such outsides, they create musical or audiovisual products that relate to those relations. Consider, for example, the independent film Crazy Toilet, which was directed by a friend of Sizwe’s. To the best of my knowledge, this film no longer exists in viewable form, but fortunately I had the opportunity to view it in Sizwe’s room one day in 2009. True to its title, Crazy Toilet begins as an extended (and excessive) exercise in toilet humor. Much of the film focuses on a young man with diarrhea in a typical township lavatory (a small square room with a tin roof located in a yard several feet away from the main house), with close-ups of his contorted lips, nose, and eyes accompanied by very unpleasant sound effects. Soon, though, the film takes a strange narra144

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tive twist. Approximately ten minutes in, the lavatory begins to act like a portal transporting people between different dimensions. The young man with diarrhea is shocked when people begin appearing in the lavatory out of nowhere, and soon those people move from the “crazy toilet” to the yard outside as if nothing strange is happening at all. When the scene opens out onto the yard, the people from the crazy toilet find Sizwe, donning huge sunglasses and a strange hat and playing the role of a charismatic preacher. On that sunny day in 2009, I watched Sizwe as he watched himself on the small computer screen— between drags on a cigarette, he roared with laughter as he witnessed images of himself pontificating about all matter of bizarre and apocalyptic topics to an audience that traveled through the crazy toilet portal to hear his sermon. In Crazy Toilet, township residents inhabit an alternative universe in which it is possible to move seamlessly between locations and dimensions through the most unlikely of portals— a crazy toilet. The portal portrayed in the film could not be more different from actual township conditions. On the day that I watched the film, I lay huddled together on a bed with Sizwe, his sister, and his sister’s friend. The sense of immobility was palpable, and for me as an outsider, even a bit crushing. But our immobility notwithstanding, we engaged and imagined that we engaged multiple outsides. We entered what Virilio (1989, 115) calls the “audiovisual vehicle,” a static vehicle of “ecstasy, music, and speed.”32 The construction of assemblages usually involves various kinds of outsides at once, including human and animal, technological and occult. But the outsides with which my interlocutors engage (a historical form, an MP3, the sound of a train) are already assemblages— assemblages all the way down. In the following section, I shift the focus from assemblage construction to assemblage intervention, illustrating some of the ways that musicians in Soweto intervene in, manipulate, and bend equipment and even biological bodies.

Open Body Recall Louise Meintjes’s observation that in professional recording studios gadgets may acquire magical qualities through the invisibility and unavailability of their processes. In her account, technological devices are encountered as fully formed and unified wholes, giving them a “fetishistic” quality. Other ethnographers have made similar observations— Georgina Born (1995, 232), for example, describes how in the electroacoustic studio environment at IRCAM in Paris the “ordinary surface” 145

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of one machine “belied the intense interest stimulated by its inner workings.”33 This interest was deliberately intensified by the developer’s refusal to reveal “the machine’s secrets,” and as Born notes, the “preservation of secrecy encourage[d] a fetishism of the machine’s mystery” (ibid.). My interlocutors in Soweto, by contrast, largely reject a fetishistic relationship with technology, spending hours upon hours prying open computers and other electronic devices as a way to explore the inner workings of technical assemblages. When I visited Sizwe in early 2012, his room was scattered with literally hundreds of motherboards, hard drives, power supply units, and sound cards. Many of these component devices had been broken into even smaller parts. The computers looked like so many carcasses, disemboweled and gutted, and then strewn across floors, chairs, and beds. “I’m even opening things that aren’t meant to be opened,” Sizwe proudly proclaimed. Indeed, manufacturers often seal small devices such as chargers so that consumers are forced to purchase them anew after breakage. But Sizwe was melting down plastic, sawing things open, and breaking down parts repeatedly. He insisted that nothing is invisible or concealed if you crack it open and peer inside. Sizwe’s experimentations with and on various technological devices are empowering. By carefully studying motherboards, hard drives, and other component parts, he rejects the role of passive consumer. In fact, he is currently building his own computer system that is more amenable to township use. Called the Ramputer (a portmanteau of his English name, “Ralph,” and “computer”), this device will not be constructed as a selfsufficient or organic unit like a laptop. Instead, the Ramputer will comprise easily detachable component parts: keyboard, screen, motherboard, power supply, and multiple hard disks and solid-state drives. Because reliable Internet is a rare luxury for most of his friends, Ramputers will exchange information by swapping detachable drives and through Bluetooth technology. In other instances, musicians intervene in biological bodies— I elaborate with an example. In 2011 Sizwe grew weary after a number of thefts at his home. As a response, he purchased a fierce German shepherd and subjected the animal to a ritual surgery known as khipha isibungu (cutting out the worm), or what biomedical science would understand as the removal of the cartilaginous structure under the tongue. The point of this operation is to transform the dog into a permanently enraged beast, and indeed, after the procedure this animal became quite famous in the neighborhood for its terrifying aggressiveness. Biomedical science has bequeathed to the wormlike structure under a dog’s tongue the name “lyssa,” that is, the name of the Greek goddess of rage. There is thus an extremely wide146

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spread, layered, and even ancient history of associating this small chunk of connective tissue with ferocity. But while the Roman naturalist Pliny recommended the extraction of the lyssa as a protective measure against rabies, in Soweto cutting the “worm” out from under a canine’s tongue is intended to induce rabies-like symptoms, if not the virus itself.34 Before acquiring the animal, and before removing its worm, Sizwe was scarcely able to leave his house for fear of burglary. Even with the dog, he does not leave his home for long periods of time— after all, what is a German shepherd (no matter how fierce or wormless) against a group of tsotsis wielding knives, or even guns? Nonetheless, this dog does serve a particular function. Kept in a state of perpetual anger, it protects Sizwe’s eloquence. It frees him up, even if only briefly and in a limited way, from worrying about his belongings. And in doing so, it sheds light on the precarious fault line between anger and eloquence, fear and power, incapacity and potentiality (Meintjes 2004, 195). The dog, in short, participates in an assemblage that generates musical affect. Louise Meintjes notes that in Zulu cosmology “anger and emotion are considered to be located in the internal throat, also the location of eloquence, speech and song.”35 I speculate that the removal of a dog’s “worm” is lent additional significance because it is a manipulation of anatomy near its “internal throat.” When I inquired about the dog’s name, I was told that it is Mabubu, but as Sizwe went on to explain, Mabubu is not so much a “name” as the “sounds you make around babies.” In other words, he addresses the dog with the calming, nonlexical sound “ma-bu-bu” as one might playfully address an infant. This dog, to whom one can say only “Mabubu,” is deeply embedded in multiple associations of meaning and affect. Its body is changed, twisted, tweaked: removal of the worm transforms it from a sedate pet into a fierce beast. The animal is thus constituted not only by organic and inorganic matter (cells, bone, cartilage) but also by various parasites and occult energies. In Soweto, people experiment not only with the bodies of nonhuman animals but also with themselves. A couple of years ago, I encountered a particularly risky form of this when several of my interlocutors began smoking methamphetamines. In a context where black bodies are severely devalued and where opportunities for formal employment are extremely rare, several individuals began experimenting with and on their own bodies in a manner not unlike that of Kathy Acker or Paul B. Preciado. Eager to break out of the monotony of township life while simultaneously exploring the full range of experience and perception, they began administering methamphetamines to themselves and to each other in a systematic and even, in their own terms, “scientific way.” These people stayed up all night 147

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experimenting with sound and, as one of them told me, “looking for a new range.” This person likened the chemical experiments to the film Limitless (2011), in which a struggling writer (played by Bradley Cooper) becomes a financial genius after he accesses 100 percent of his brainpower by taking a special pill. I do not want to downplay the bodily and emotional damage that such drugs may have, but it is nonetheless crucial to avoid moralizing judgments. Instead, I suggest understanding this particular case of methamphetamine use in terms of broader experimental practices: with chemicals, animal bodies, and forces beyond the threshold of normal perception. The broader terrain of experimentation, in turn, is meaningfully understood only in terms of the long history of racial capitalism in South Africa, which has placed certain people and even entire social groups in a “desperate” position.

Multiple Cosmopolitanisms In recent years there has been a more general tendency in South African music toward experimentation with forms of life. To further elucidate this tendency while additionally moving the text in a comparative direction, I turn to three instances of acoustic assemblages outside Soweto. The cases that I will discuss— Spoek Mathambo, Die Antwoord, and Nozinja— have had considerable commercial success in Europe and the United States but much less in South Africa. While these three acts all create “electronic music” broadly speaking, their music is seldom labeled “kwaito.” Despite a great deal of stylistic overlap with kwaito musicians, Spoek Mathambo, Die Antwoord, and Nozinja are part of a separate musical scene in South Africa and seldom interact or collaborate either with nonprofessional musicians in Soweto or with nationally famous kwaito musicians (such as those described in chapter 3). There is a huge discrepancy, for example, between the success of a group like Die Antwoord among white middle-class consumers in the United States and the adoration of a figure like Oscar Mdlongwa (see chapter 3) among black South Africans in the townships. In general terms, whereas nonprofessional musicians in Soweto enact a “cosmopolitanism of extraterritoriality” by remaining open to and appropriating various outsides, acts like Spoek Mathambo, Die Antwoord, and Nozinja enact a “cosmopolitanism of dependency” by channeling highly refracted images and sounds of South Africa to the Euro-American market.36 In what follows, I briefly describe the three musicians/groups and then comment on the particular way that each establishes “modes 148

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and types of relation between and across networks and musical objects” (Ochoa and Botero 2009, 166). In other words, I first examine acoustic assemblages at the level of the audiovisual product and then, second, I trace the networks that those products generate or in which they participate. Spoek Mathambo Born in Soweto in 1985, Spoek Mathambo37 is a black South African musician and performance artist who positions himself firmly within the lineage of Afro-futurism. Although Afro-futurism is usually considered a form of expression motivated by conditions of alienation and loss among black diasporic subjects in the New World,38 Mathambo recognizes and engages a number of related issues in South African history, including dispossession, expropriation, and forced removal. Like Afro-futurists such as Sun Ra and George Clinton, Mathambo’s project has been to envisage alternative worlds, and as he stated in a recent interview: “If the white man is going to say we came from trees and the jungle and we were nothing before, we’re going to create our own incredibly proud alternate lineage based on our history but also based on whatever we see fit to do.”39 Mathambo openly declares a willful tinkering with history, drawing on North American Afro-futurism but perhaps offering something more ambivalent. In particular, he generates histories (and futures) that are not limited to the progressive events of humans (or certain humans) and that instead explore assemblages of humans, occult forces, ghosts, and disease. In his song “Germs (HIVIP)” (2009), Mathambo offers a sci-fi glimpse into a world populated by “zombie waiters sucking on jelly donuts’ dripping, terrorizing children on the elevator kissing.” In the refrain, he chants in English over a repeating electronic track that might easily be classified as “house”: Germs when you’re kissing when you’re holding hands They’re shutting down your system fucking up your plans They’re killing all your relatives killing all your friends And there’s nothing you can do for the germs in your head

In this song, germs are not only things that kill. On the contrary, they are both lively and alive. And as the portmanteau title of the song sug149

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gests, these HIVs (human immunodeficiency viruses) are also VIPs (very important persons). But viruses are not persons— or are they? Mathambo seems to suggest that in a certain way these viruses are persons, or at the very least actors (by which I simply mean something that acts or makes a difference). In this song, he makes audible what Thornton (2008) calls the “unimagined community” of sexual networks that spirals far beyond the intimacy of two people by means of a constant relay of humans and viruses. Mathambo presents the image of an entangled world in which humans, viruses, and the living-dead interact and clamor for space. This is a cosmopolitical world in which the kinds of subjects that count as political actors are not decided in advance.40 Die Antwoord Die Antwoord deals with similar tropes but in a very different way. Consisting of two white South Africans— Ninja (Watkins Tudor Jones) and Yolandi Visser— the group formed in Cape Town in 2008 and is widely known to appropriate stylistic features equally from working-class “Coloured” communities and zef culture (a derogatory term for working-class white Afrikaners in the Johannesburg area).41 For the most part, in fact, discussions of Die Antwoord have focused exclusively on the question of appropriation: since Ninja comes from neither a Coloured nor a zef background, he has been roundly criticized by many as both inauthentic and a fake. Others have defended Ninja and the group, pointing to the apparent self-consciousness of its multiple appropriations. Still others have retorted that— self-conscious or not, ironic or not— the group’s appropriations remain insulting and misplaced.42 Die Antwoord is invested in presenting what I will call “pathological assemblages,” that is to say, groupings in which the assembling of various component parts results in something unanticipated and abject. In one interview, Ninja stated: “When I say I represent all those things, it’s because South Africa is like a merger of all those things, where it used to be like forcibly kept apart, for a while now it’s been just like— not like harmoniously merging— but it’s all kind of fucked into one thing.”43 Ninja contrasts harmonious synthesis with a view of post-apartheid hybridity as a violent “fucking” together.44 And the group takes this view of hybridity much further, it seems to me, into the realm of horror. In Die Antwoord’s various music videos one witnesses worlds populated with monstrous hybrid creatures: Ninja with massive pincers for hands, Visser with pitchblack and bleeding eyes, strange spiked and horned creatures, human children with elephant trunks as noses. 150

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Alongside this view of hybridity, Ninja and Visser have launched an implicit critique of the notion of racial purity. In several of its videos, the group has employed images by photographer Roger Ballen, particularly from his collection Platteland: Images from Rural South Africa (1994). Resembling classist stereotypes in America of poor southern whites as “rednecks” or “inbreeds,” Ballen’s work captures “freakish” and “deformed” poor rural whites from South Africa’s platteland (“flatlands,” in Afrikaans). As Marx and Milton (2011) observe, taking a cue from Breyten Breytenbach, Die Antwoord deploys the concept of zef as a perennial “bastardization” or “mutation” of whiteness. Ninja and Visser explore whiteness either as inherently appropriative of blackness and therefore of contamination or as an autoimmune rejection of blackness that results in “inbred” deformity. In most cases, Die Antwoord simply presents images of deformation without attributing it to either wild hybridity or racial purity. The group may juxtapose— in a seemingly random fashion— images of bizarre hybrid creatures, Ballen photographs, and shots of Leon Botha, a white South African artist with progeria (a rare genetic disease associated with rapid aging and facial “deformity”). Despite the name of the group, which means “The Answer” in Afrikaans, Ninja and Visser present fewer answers than questions. They instead present images of pathological assemblages as wild and creative, as excessively hybrid and excessively pure. Nozinja Earlier in this chapter, I discussed Nozinja’s studio as a space that is open to outside sounds. Here, I examine the way that Nozinja explores and expresses this openness through his creative process as a musician. One particularly illustrative example is the music video for the song “Vanghoma” (produced by Nozinja and performed by Tiyiselani Vomaseve), which begins with quasi-ethnographic footage of a Tsonga initiation trance in Soweto. Nozinja is himself a Tsonga speaker and, as he explains: “My friend’s cousin asked me if I would tape the initiation ritual, which lasts nearly three days” (quoted in Glasspiegel 2013, 26). He then used this footage in the music video for his song, a fast electronic piece with vocals in Tsonga. The video begins with twenty-five seconds of straight documentary footage (including diegetic sound) of the initiation trance in Soweto. Set in what appears to be a typical Soweto backyard, a male figure dances virtuosically in the center of a circle of men and women drumming and singing.45 The scene then shifts abruptly: the diegetic sounds of the event in Soweto give way to Nozinja’s electronic track. The electronic track is 151

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accompanied by images of a woman sitting on a riverbank in a rural area and singing an incessant refrain. As the video progresses, the visuals shift back and forth between the scene in Soweto and the scene by the rural riverside, and in both cases we witness people sinking deeper and deeper into a trance state. Around two minutes into the video, a gruff male voice enters the sonic fabric, and unlike the piercing voice of the female singer, the source of this voice remains unseen. The male voice is powerful and authoritative, closely resembling the “groaning” style of mbaqanga legend Simon “Mahlatini” Nkabinde. Nonzinja explained to Wills Glasspiegel: “That’s actually my voice. It’s like a spiritual voice to make your blood shake” (Glasspiegel 2013, 28). “Like many of Nozinja’s music videos,” comments Glasspiegel (2013, 27), “‘Vanghoma’ spans a divide between exterior reality and interior consciousness, a divide that also is mirrored in his tendency to work across the separation of city and homeland, between urban and rural life.” Drawing on the work of Patrick Harries (1991), Glasspiegel observes that spirit possession has been a primary mechanism through which Tsonga people have historically dealt with these divides (27). In the late nineteenth century, n’angas (traditional healers) deliberately became possessed by the spirits of neighboring groups— for example, Zulus and Swazis— and negotiated with those groups by speaking to their spirits in their own languages. Nozinja continues to position spirit possession as a mechanism for negotiating movement between inside and outside, urban and rural, earthly and occult. In many of his audiovisual productions, he creates wide-ranging assemblages that produce, as Feld (2012b, xxviii) would say, an “acoustemological triangle that connects sound to ecology and cosmology.”

A Cosmopolitanism of Dependency The three acts I have just discussed resemble the experimental practices in Soweto but also radically depart from them. They resemble Sowetan practices in that they assemble and blur, each in their own way, the boundaries between the human, the animal/viral, the technological, and the cosmological. At the same time, Spoek Mathambo, Die Antwoord, and Nozinja differ markedly from Sowetan musicians due to their commercial success in the Global North. The music of these three acts tends to leap, as James Ferguson would say, directly to particular nodes in Europe and the United States and bypasses most of what lies between— including most of South Africa and most of the rest of Africa. These musicians have 152

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achieved international success primarily through a combination of new media platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, and Reddit and a loose constellation of “boutique” record labels and online magazines targeted at primarily white, middle-class, and “hip” audiences. As such, their mode of experimentalism does not happen so much at the level of action or even of sound; instead, these musicians produce suave music videos that distill images of acoustic assemblages for international audiences. In what follows, I briefly describe how each act has established “cosmopolitan” networks that are largely dependent upon consumption by international listeners. Spoek Mathambo was born in Soweto and refers to his music as “township tech” (see Bishop 2011). But it is surprising just how little connection Mathambo has with any of the musicians (other than those from Die Antwoord, perhaps) thus far discussed in this book. After working with primarily white South African electronic musicians in the early 2000s, Mathambo received a series of positive reviews in magazines such as The FADER and Dusted for his 2010 album Mshini Wami and was subsequently signed to American label Sub Pop— the label that first signed Nirvana and Soundgarden and that today has a roster of major international acts. After a collaboration with his wife, Swedish rapper Gnucci Banana (Ana Rab), Mathambo was featured in a short, quasi documentary produced by multinational telecommunications company Vodafone. That film was promoted entirely problematically as the “first musical collaboration with tribal communities.” In 2014 Mathambo codirected The Future Sounds of Mzansi, a documentary about electronic music in South Africa that contains scarcely a mention of any musicians outside Mathambo’s cohort. In short, his local activities bypass the vast majority of South African musicians and are directed outward, hopping via specialized channels to particular nodes in the Global North. Die Antwoord presents an even more extreme case in point. To be sure, Watkins “Waddy” Tudor Jones experimented with many personae before Ninja (and Die Antwoord) struck a chord with international audiences in 2008. Between 1994 and 2008, he rapped mostly in “standard” South African English and acquired a very small but committed following, first for his work in the band the Original Evergreens and later under the stage name Max Normal.46 And then, after more than a decade of performing for an almost exclusively niche white audience in South Africa, Ninja rose to international stardom alongside Visser in approximately eight days. Examining group blogs, social-media platforms, and news aggregators, journalist Mari Basson skillfully traces the routes through which Die Antwoord’s music traveled in those eight days. I quote her at length: 153

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An article featuring Die Antwoord appeared on BoingBoing on 1 february after blogger xeni Jardin picked it up on a friend’s blog, Sophisticated funk, possibly via YimiYayo, who blogged about them on 28 January. Also, on 1 february an article in the Guardian [a Uk daily] featured Die Antwoord. An article also appeared on Buzzfeed and Metafilter. A day later . . . DListed picked it up via BoingBoing, featuring it on their site too (under the section “Hot Sluts of the Day”), calling [the band] “equal parts horror and awesome.” Two days after their initial post, BoingBoing posted a more in-depth follow-up post. It seems it was only the beginning. On the same day they were featured on American television’s hugely popular Attack of the Show. Then Europe picked it up with a post on pop culture blog, TasteLikePizza.com. Ah the Dutch— always adoring Afrikaans artists, even though Die Antwoord is surely not rapping about kitties. On 5 february Die Antwoord was featured on New York Times.com and on Dutch Vk Mag, whose community call them all kinds of nice things like “vette shit” and “echt te dope” with their “lekkere beats” [“fat shit”; “dope/cool”; “nice beats”]. On 8 february they featured on iAfrica.com. The band also got mentions from katy Perry and fred Durst on Twitter, which, by the way, is still giving them a lot of love if you check out the search results.47

In the months and years that followed, Die Antwoord signed contracts with major record labels, performed in large concerts and festivals around the world, and collaborated with celebrity musicians. But notice again the extent to which Die Antwoord leaped directly from a small niche market to global nodes, largely short-circuiting South African and other African audiences. This group’s creative output speaks from South Africa to the Global North— indeed, Die Antwoord’s is an entirely “dependent” cosmopolitanism. Even more interestingly, Die Antwoord’s work— like Mathambo’s— has become increasingly “ethnographic” in recent years: for example, Ninja and Visser starred in a quasi documentary about the tokoloshe (a South African mythical and demon-like creature) and released a song called “Evil Boy” about Xhosa circumcision rituals. The latter features a littleknown kwaito vocalist named Wanga. Both productions are brazenly (and perhaps deliberately) insensitive to African traditions. Ninja and Visser speak disrespectfully to sangomas (traditional healers) in Soweto, present the tokoloshe as nothing more than a ridiculous superstition, and shock the viewer with images of massive sculptures of black penises. It is possible to assume, then, that the target audience of young American whites is amused mainly by the activities of these bizarre, “deformed,” and poor whites (Ninja and Visser) as they naïvely navigate their African surroundings.

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While the musical explorations of white people in Africa have been written about extensively, it is seldom commented upon that as a first point of entry, these “explorers” often connect with small pockets of white settler colonialists— especially in southern Africa. Prior to Die Antwoord, audiences in the United States and Europe had little idea how to make sense of the South African musical landscape in the post-apartheid period. The ordinary American perhaps knew, if she or he knew anything at all, about Ladysmith Black Mambazo from Paul Simon’s Graceland album and from an odd reference in the film Mean Girls (2004).48 I suggest that the staggeringly quick success of Die Antwoord can be usefully understood by updating an insight from Hannah Arendt’s Origins of Totalitarianism, in which she observes of British imperialists in the early twentieth century: “They concentrated on the southern part of the continent where they met the Boers, a Dutch splinter group which had been almost forgotten by Europe, but which now served as a natural introduction to the challenge of the new surroundings” (1968, 191). By performing the role of degraded whites, Die Antwoord offers a highly refracted view of Africa to whites in the Global North. Like the Boers in the early twentieth century, Die Antwoord’s primary function is to curate South African culture for international audiences. Nozinja’s success story is more striking still. Based in Chiawelo, Soweto, he initially marketed his music primarily to Tsonga speakers in South Africa and the neighboring country of Mozambique. This all changed rather dramatically in 2009, and fortunately, the sequence of events that led to this change has been meticulously documented in Wills Glasspiegel’s excellent and quite remarkable memoir, “Finding Shangaan Electro” (2013). Glasspiegel is a Brooklyn-based culture broker (and, for the record, a friend) who first encountered electronically produced Tsonga music on YouTube in 2008, but at that time the clips contained no contact information about the music’s makers or even reliable attributions. Captivated by the uniquely fast tempo of the music and the unusual imagery in the videos, Glasspiegel traveled to South Africa in 2009 in an attempt to locate the musicians behind the tracks. With the assistance of a close friend from South Africa,49 Glasspiegel visited Tsonga musicians throughout the greater Johannesburg area and even visited the “father” of Tsonga music, George Maluleke, in the northern province of Limpopo— but to no avail. The many musicians that Glasspiegel encountered were invested in acoustic and overtly “traditional” styles and had no information about the makers of those mysterious YouTube videos. Finally, toward the end of his trip to South Africa when he had just

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about given up searching, Glasspiegel visited a record store in downtown Johannesburg where he stumbled upon a DVD of the “Tshetsha Boys” with a phone number on the back cover. Recognizing the name of the group from one of the Tsonga music YouTube clips, he immediately called the number and a man named Nozinja answered. As it turns out, Nozinja had no idea that his music had listeners outside southern Africa. He did not even know that someone had uploaded his music videos onto YouTube. The trajectory from Glasspiegel’s first meeting with Nozinja to the latter’s success in Europe and the United States is complex and cannot be fully recounted here, but a few points along the way are certainly worth mentioning. After locating Nozinja, Glasspiegel and the elusive producer created an elaborate business plan for marketing the unusual sounds to an international audience. Together, they settled on a new genre label, “Shangaan Electro,” that strategically linked exotic flare (“Shangaan”) with a term “that does not carry the same exotifying [sic] baggage as ‘world music’” (i.e., “Electro”; Glasspiegel 2013, 36).50 Glasspiegel then immediately contacted a number of American and European publishing outlets and record labels. He wrote a short piece on “Shangaan Electro” for The FADER magazine and subsequently approached David Byrne’s Luaka Bop label, who rejected the music on the grounds that it was “too same-y,” and then the label Sublime Frequencies, who turned it down because it was “too modern and polished” (37). Finally, the British-based label Honest Jon’s signed Nozinja in June 2010 and released Shangaan Electro: New Wave Sounds from South Africa in digital and vinyl formats. The “compilation” included songs exclusively by Nozinja and artists from his stable and received largely positive reviews from a number of mainstream media outlets, including the Wall Street Journal and NPR. Following the release of Shangaan Electro, Glasspiegel arranged a European tour for Nozinja and several dancers. The process of assembling the group and preparing Nozinja for a very different musical environment is compellingly recounted in Glasspiegel’s memoir; here I provide only a thin summary. Having arranged passports, visas, and plane tickets, Glasspiegel was surprised to find that some of the performers “showed little interest in leaving their homes to go on tour, while others refused to work for Nozinja for various reasons not explained to me” (2013, 42). After much convincing, all the performers boarded the plane and the tour went ahead successfully— and yet, even between well-received performances to large audiences, certain members of the troupe seemed unhappy, unsatisfied. By his own admission, Glasspiegel could not ascertain what was happening, and despite his best efforts, relations remained strained throughout the course of the tour. Only after repeated questioning months after 156

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the tour’s conclusion did Glasspiegel gain some insight into what had been happening. He recounts: Nozinja explained to me that when he returned to Soweto, his group had accused him of stealing, that they had gone on the radio and accused him in public, but that he’d been able to successfully defend himself against their claims. He told me that he was uncomfortable at the beach in france because of superstitions associated with water in Shangaan traditional religion. Nozinja said he was deeply concerned that one of his dancers would go into trance when near the water and that she would die, and that her death would be on his hands. Nozinja also told me that one of the dancers was HIV-positive and that she wasn’t being treated. (51)

This passage from Glasspiegel’s memoir is very telling indeed. It shows clearly the sharp division between Nonzinja’s outward-looking gaze and the context back in South Africa. While in Europe, Nozinja was essentially the leader of the group because he had planned the tour with Glasspiegel. But at home in Soweto the dynamic changed and his fellow musicians publicly attacked him. During my extensive fieldwork in the primarily Tsonga-speaking township of Chiawelo, Soweto, I have often heard electronically produced “Tsonga music,” but Nozinja is seldom mentioned as a particularly important figure of this style. Even more interestingly, Nozinja and Sizwe are old friends, and many people in Chiawelo have told me that Sizwe taught Nozinja “everything he knows” about electronic music. But even as Nozinja continues to tour internationally and produce albums reviewed by NPR and the Wall Street Journal, the individual widely recognized as his mentor, Sizwe, remains firmly rooted to Soweto— hardly heard of beyond his neighborhood.

Concluding Remarks: The Open In this chapter I have employed the concept of an “acoustic assemblage” in order to examine various forms of relation. I have described musicians in the townships as well as those acting from the townships and have argued that these two groups enact different forms of cosmopolitanism.51 Nonprofessional musicians in townships like Soweto enact a cosmopolitanism of extraterritoriality through their openness to multiple outsides. By contrast, musicians like Nozinja, Spoek Mathambo, and Ninja and Visser from Die Antwoord have projected highly refracted images of local experimental practices to foreign audiences, enacting a cosmopolitan157

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ism of dependency. Despite the significant differences between these two groups of musicians, it is possible to detect thematic similarities. Stated in the broadest possible terms, in both cases one hears an exploration of forms of life, of intersections between human and nonhuman entities. In Soweto, musicians create acoustic assemblages by engaging multiple histories, foreign entities, and cosmological beings. These “outsides,” as I have been calling them, are often far removed from marginalized township spaces and are accessed only through much effort. In recent years, I think it is possible to discern an increasing riskiness and experimentalism in the connections and alliances that people are forging. In most cases, these alliances are fashioned in order to enable new practices and behaviors. At the same time, the entanglement of human capacities with technologies, nonhuman animals, and cosmological forces breaks down clear lines of distinction between these categories and produces new, hybrid assemblages. The notion of an acoustic assemblage implicitly challenges John Blacking’s (1973) classic ethnomusicological definition of music as “humanly organized sound” since genuine openness requires that outsides are not mere objects manipulated by humans but rather full-fledged subjects (see Ochoa Gautier 2014, 65). Stated in slightly different terms, others (whether they be humans, animals, or mythical beings) are not merely others for a subject; instead, they are independently real, they act, and they have their own perspectives. This chapter has thus adopted a decidedly nonanthropocentric approach to musicking but has additionally eschewed a narrow materialist view of animals or instruments (for example) as real and ancestors (for example) as merely imaginary. I have therefore conceptualized acoustic assemblages in terms of an “acoustemological triangle that connects sound to ecology and cosmology” (Feld 2012b, xxviii)— at least insofar as ecology refers to any environment (and not only a “natural” one)52 and where cosmology refers to beings that are “immaterial” yet resolutely real.53 The various examples provided in this chapter should not, then, be viewed as “posthuman” or “cyborg” practices that leverage modern technologies in order to overcome human limitations. Such a view is problematic because it assumes and affirms a notion of “the human” as a stable category opposed to “technology.” I contend instead that musical practices in contemporary South Africa challenge the West’s “epistemologies of purification”54 by reactivating associations between heterogeneous categories. This entails an openness to various outsides. I conclude, then, with a brief meditation on “the open” as a “revolutionary” political gesture, largely repressed by neoliberal governance 158

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but faintly audible in certain musical and sonic practices that people in Soweto incessantly restage. I have listened for various kinds of openness in this chapter: deep histories, speeding trains, nocturnal ancestors, and canine bodies. And others: powerful stimulants, virus communities, trance-induced spirit possessions, “inbred” genetic mutants. For the sake of expediency, and because of its broad relevance, in this brief concluding discussion I focus selectively on the human/animal relation. In post-apartheid South Africa the category of the human does a great deal of political and cultural work. For instance, the notion of the human, and even of a certain humanism, is constantly operationalized in the post-apartheid discourse of human rights. This discourse is taken up in unpredictable and sometimes paradoxical ways— for example, by a Somali immigrant who said about (black) South African perpetrators of xenophobic violence: “They are animals.” But also: “They treat us like animals.”55 Or to paraphrase the immigrant: “In treating us humans like animals, those humans become animals themselves.” This is a common sentiment, no doubt, that doubles the meaning of “animal” as a being that suffers and that causes needless suffering.56 At the same time, there is certainly a sense in which “the form of one’s humanity is expressed in the manner of treating animals” (Morris 2011, 201). This particular sense of humanity is often played out in contemporary South Africa in debates surrounding animal sacrifice. For example, a prominent black politician recently responded to charges of cruelty against animals by mostly white animal rights activists like this: “We African people will practice our culture and no one under the sun will ever stop us. This is part of our being human” (ibid.). The terms of animal discourse seem to shifts endlessly: to treat other humans like animals makes one an animal; to treat animals cruelly and with an excessive degree of difference to humans makes one an animal; to not recognize cultural difference with respect to animal treatment makes one an animal. In every case the “animal” is denigrated (since becoming an animal is considered degrading) at the very moment it is defended. Recall the paradox: “They are animals. They treat us like animals.” My aim in this chapter is therefore not to imply the absence of any concept of the human in contemporary South Africa. Instead, following Rosalind Morris, I want simply to note the “traces of something else, namely a way of comprehending the world that is not premised on the radical opposition between something called human and something called [for example] animal.” Morris concludes: “That these traces have not been entirely effaced, despite efforts to eliminate them, suggests something about the nature of signification— an open process that ‘has’ us as much as we 159

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‘have’ it. Perhaps the wind will ultimately take them. In the meantime, they give to be thought the possibility of being otherwise” (2011, 203). Calibrating Morris’s notion of an otherwise in terms of assemblages requires a consideration of at least three registers: ontology, politics, and aesthetics. First, the parts of an assemblage (whether human, animal, inorganic, or mythical) are equally ontologically real— that is, they are not mere social constructions. Second, recognizing or performing this ontological equality is a political act, for example, when black South Africans insist that honoring ancestors through animal sacrifice is not merely a “cultural” belief. Culture becomes political when it is given ontological weight. This is a particularly crucial insight for the decolonization of thought, at least insofar as it “breaks free of the glib relativism of merely reporting on alternative possibilities (‘worldviews,’ etc.), and proceeds boldly to lend the ‘otherwise’ full ontological weight so as to render it viable as a real alternative.”57 Third and finally, aesthetics is important since it is often on this register that people interact with heterogeneous assemblages. Even where the linking together of human, animal, and cosmological entities is prohibited by epistemologies of purification, people in South Africa engage nonhuman and mythical others, thereby doubling reality and presenting this other reality as a genuine alternative. Acoustic assemblages in particular open human subjects up, and onto, others— sound overwhelms and transverses individuals, passing between dogs, walls, bone, and flesh, through hardware, software, and “wetware.”

Postscript In terms of the larger framework of this book, a question remains: if electronic music in Soweto either stays there (as emphasized in chapter 4) or leaps directly to particular nodes in the Global North, how is it heard by others in South Africa? The preceding discussion suggests that musicians in Soweto lack two things: a sturdy technological apparatus and an extensive set of linkages outside Soweto. Yet kwaito is not tied to a particular place and, on the contrary, circulates widely. Given the twin problematic of technological precarity and immobility, we might ask how circulation is possible at all. An answer awaits us in the following chapter.

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Black Diamonds from downtown Johannesburg taunts white suburbia at the dawn of a new South Africa. It flaunts the promises and exposes the risks of fast change, slow change, wrong change, no change.

LOUISE MEINTJES, SOUND OF AFRIC A!

1

In Soweto, people create music within a circumscribed area and are largely immobile.2 Due to a number of factors adumbrated in the previous chapters, the music that they produce is somewhat ephemeral and is rarely experienced in repeatable form. But kwaito is simultaneously a mass-mediated popular music, heard by millions of South Africans on a daily basis. What are the mechanisms through which kwaito is distributed widely? What are the routes that kwaito travels? In order to answer these questions, it is necessary to shift the analytical lens to another social stratum: the black middle class, a social group that has emerged gradually since the end of apartheid.3 Members of this class, known locally as “black diamonds,”4 conceptualize the townships as “home” but reside primarily in the suburbs north of Johannesburg.5 Unlike township residents, they are highly mobile and shift effortlessly between township and suburb and between various social strata. As such, black diamonds are both very near to, and very far from, township life. Largely responsible for the production of music qua commodity, the post-apartheid black middle class coordinates the institutional and organizational networks through which commercial kwaito circulates. By “commercial” kwaito, I refer not to a style of music but rather to a particular mode of musical production. Commercial kwaito is produced by linking geographically disparate sounds and im161

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mobile groups of musicians in various townships throughout the country. Producers of commercial kwaito do not appropriate or co-opt the music of marginalized social groups as much as they create connections between them. As such, commercial production can be defined as the act of spatial and social linkage. Although the networks generated through this linkage are decentralized, they are nonetheless coordinated from a pivotal node in the northern suburbs of Johannesburg. One aim of this chapter is to broaden and enrich the concept of the “platform,” as described in chapter 3. The producers and stables examined in that chapter may seem worlds apart from the marginalized musicians discussed in chapters 4 and 5. But there is actually a dense interconnectivity in kwaito production, a constant process of articulation and assemblage. In other words, it is not the case that there are two groups of musicians: those who are geographically and economically marginalized, on the one hand, and those who are centrally located and economically empowered, on the other. Instead, there is a group of producers that are “powerful” precisely because they link and connect musicians in far-flung places. The powerful group, in other words, does not function parallel to (and separately from) marginalized musicians but rather produces kwaito by connecting with them, by forging multiple relations and robust networks. Commercial kwaito is constituted less by the sounds and groups that become linked than by the very process of articulation and linkage.6 By linking or connecting groups of musicians throughout the country, producers generate a plenum of aesthetic sensory experience that cuts across linguistic, ethnic, and class divisions.7 Sharing an aesthetic experience, kwaito listeners are able to suspend social antagonisms and enter into a virtual community that would otherwise not exist and that does not, in fact, exist beyond this virtual or aesthetic register. Significantly, the aesthetic experience that kwaito affords does not necessitate the objectification of the musical work as such in any concrete form— “real” or imagined. Rather, musical experience does this work of bracketing well enough on its own, without the reification traditionally associated with the Western work concept that supports the orthodox notion of aesthetic judgment. As an affirmation of sensory equality, kwaito traverses— or has a transversal relationship with— social and economic inequality.8 Because of this, kwaito at once links groups of people and makes explicit the deep division between those groups. Kwaito thereby participates in what Jacques Rancière calls a partage du sensible, where the French word partage designates both a sharing and a partitioning. As the term partage implies, the parceling out of sensory perception is a messy and ambiguous business. 162

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Sensory perception is always shared and partitioned, is always a sharing (a meting out) and a particular share (in the sense of “having one’s share”). As we will see toward the end of this chapter, the ambiguity of “sharing” is manifested in kwaito in a very particular manner. As a framing of sensory experience, kwaito is at once autonomous (separated or partitioned from “everyday” perceptual reality) and heteronomous (blurring the boundaries between the aesthetic and the everyday).

The City and Its Edges Before examining the ways that “black diamonds” redistribute the sensible, it is necessary to get a sense of their geopolitical context; I therefore turn to a brief discussion of the changing parameters of race and class within the greater Johannesburg area. In its original conception, the city of Johannesburg radiated outward along racial lines: the suburbs of the north housed mainly whites, while the suburbs of the south housed mainly blacks, “Coloureds,” and Indians. As the city grew, more suburbs were added on either end. In the post-apartheid period, this simple topography has changed substantially. While the southern “suburbs” and townships are still inhabited mostly by nonwhites, the wealthy, northern suburbs are racially very mixed. The latter extend from just outside the city center, through Sandton, to Midrand, which lies between Sandton and the capital city of Pretoria (see fig. 1.1). Although the province of Gauteng is naturally dry, the areas north of Johannesburg are home to what is often said to be the largest man-made forest in the world.9 The northern suburbs are often described as “leafy” and stand in stark contrast to the dusty townships, many of which are surrounded by mine dumps. Musing on the trees and dumps, author and literary critic Ivan Vladislavić writes: In Johannesburg, the Venice of the South, the backdrop is always a man-made one. we have planted a forest the birds endorse. for hills, we have mine dumps covered with grass. we do not wait for time and the elements to weather us, we change the scenery ourselves, to suit our moods. Nature is for other people, in other places. (2006, 94)

Vladislavić’s comment that Johannesburg’s residents have mine dumps for hills is not as glib as it first appears. In fact, the very first cover of a black, African lifestyle magazine (Drum) presented actress and singer Dolly Rathebe posing in a bikini atop a mine dump. In the 1950s, the mine 163

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dumps were not as grassy: Dolly posed atop, not a “hill,” but an imaginary sand dune. I have spoken of north and south, but what of the center? The city center is no longer the commercial center of Johannesburg. Beginning in the 1980s, major businesses and financial institutions began relocating to the northern suburbs, and in particular to Sandton. The shift from inner city to suburb parallels urban structural transformations in many cities around the world, especially in North America. Nonetheless, there are important differences. For one thing, the prosperity of the central business district in South Africa lasted until the mid-1980s, whereas urban decline began earlier in North America and Europe. Furthermore, whereas suburbs (or “edge cities”) in the United States tend to “complement their originating urban core, the suburbs of Johannesburg and South Africa have eclipsed them nearly completely” (Czeglédy 2003, 24).10 A literal inversion took place. When my parents bought their first house in Sandton in 1984, there were horse stables down the road. In the 1980s, in order to maintain a rustic ambiance, Sandton residents voted against installing streetlights. “As long as Johannesburg remained a racial city,” writes Mbembe (2008, 47), the “pastoral idea of the urban ensured that claims for a harmonious relation between the indoor world and the world outside formed the basis of white subjectivity. In the most extreme cases, a telluric bond and a sense of unity with the soil and the spirit of the people, fueled by a nostalgic pathos, were called upon to manifest the tragic character of the utopia of racial purity and segregation.” Fifteen years later, when the pastoralism inherent in settler colonialism was no longer viable, our house was demolished and a Mercedes-Benz showroom replaced it— and this, down the road from the new Johannesburg Stock Exchange. Today, Sandton is the new central business district. John Matshikiza writes in his typically ironic style: Ten years after we liberated the city from its oppressive past, most of the parks have turned into brownish wilderness— particularly those around the center of the city, where the former inhabitants have abandoned their green pastures and moved on to armed townhouse complexes and shopping malls in the north. It is a wealthy city indeed that can simply abandon its tallest buildings and move onward when the imminent arrival of the barbarians is announced. (2008, 221–22)

With the commercial center now considerably north of the old city center, the suburbs have continued to expand farther northward. Today the gated communities, shopping malls, and golf estates reach far beyond 164

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Sandton, ultimately blurring the boundary between the greater Johannesburg metropolitan area and the capital city of Pretoria. In most cases, however, the basic radial structure remains: most new informal settlements and low-income housing projects continue to be built south of the city center, while most new jobs are located between Johannesburg and Pretoria (R. Tomlinson et al. 2003, 14).

Smooth Operators Almost all successful kwaito musicians, many of whom grew up in Soweto, have relocated to the northern suburbs. According to Bhekizizwe Peterson (2003, 210)— whose position I only partly agree with— this has created a bifurcated form of subjectivity. He argues that upwardly mobile black entertainers struggle to negotiate their new identities and are caught in a constant “juggling act” between “an exaggerated need to re-affirm one’s continued affiliation to the townships” and the “compulsion to leave no doubt that with regard to material success, one has left the ghetto and its ‘botheration.’” This form of double consciousness is nothing new. As early as the nineteenth century, the mission-educated black elite was precariously poised between colonial civility and the reality, of which they were constantly reminded, that they were still “natives.”11 I would argue, however, that the post-apartheid black middle class is actually not as schizophrenic as one might assume. Although the relationship is admittedly quite fraught, today the black middle class in the northern suburbs generally maintains, rather than eschews, its relationship with township life. This relationship is maintained in a twofold manner. On the one hand, wealthy black people in the north often return to the townships for ceremonies and casual visits. On the other hand, township culture is transported directly to the suburbs. Xavier Livermon asserts that the physical presence of “kwaito bodies” (his generic term for upwardly mobile blacks) in formerly white areas disrupts apartheid-era partitioning. “[T]hey remind the racialized colonial elite that they will enter spaces of whiteness on their own terms,” he writes. “They will play their music loud, spin their cars on suburban streets, and slaughter animals to bless the new home” (2006, 246). In general terms, one might say that contemporary Johannesburg is constituted by “messy intersections and overlapping realities” (Bremner 2004c, 120). More generally, the emergence of a substantial black middle class in Johannesburg has given rise to what Sarah Nuttall calls “Y culture.” I quote her at length: 165

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Y culture . . . has emerged since 1996 from Johannesburg’s suburbs, in particular rosebank, and is crafted by urban black youth, but crossover in its appeal, occupying the borderlands of the local and the global. “Y” is a living letter, the livewire sign of the times in Johannesburg, now widely known by young hip South Africans as “Jozi.” It stands for Youth, but also for “why?” It inscribes itself against, kicks loose from, x (the name given to the generation who fought in the anti-apartheid struggle and subsequently had difficulty finding a place in society). Y is the assertion of a style, an identity for a new generation, which chooses as its sign a question mark. It’s a moving sign, with a roll-on effect across different media forms. (2003, 235–36)

Y culture is a hybrid of township styles and middle-class consumption behaviors. If X marks a location— “X marks the spot”— then Y designates a kind of branching, a network of dissemination, a transversal partage. Most of my interviews with successful kwaito musicians took place in the northern suburbs. I interviewed Stoan in his townhouse in Sunninghill; Mandoza at a golf estate in Honeydew; and Zwai Bala, Kabelo, and Brickz at coffee shops or bars near their residences in the northern suburbs. I also conducted several interviews at the Kalawa Jazmee studio, which is located in a residential property in Gallo Manor. Like many residential areas in or near Sandton, the entire neighborhood is closed off, and to reach the Kalawa Jazmee studio one must get permission to go through a boom gate controlled by a security guard twenty-four hours a day. My meeting with Brickz was particularly revealing; I therefore describe it in some detail.12 Our first interaction took place when I accompanied my friend, the film director Ziggy Hofmeyr, to a meeting with Brickz and his managers. Ziggy was planning to make a fictional film about a kwaito musician and I agreed to act as a consultant in the process. At that point he was considering using Brickz in the lead role, and he allowed me to accompany him, suggesting that I might be able to wangle a word with Brickz at the meeting’s conclusion. Sitting around waiting for my turn, I listened as Ziggy pitched the film to Brickz and his manager. Its story ran as follows. A kwaito musician named Stickz lives with a few musician friends in Soweto.13 Each day, they work on their music in a simple backroom studio. Stickz’s father, a businessman living in Sandton, has given Stickz until the age of thirty to become a successful musician. Should Stickz fail to meet that deadline, he will have to find a day job. On Stickz’s thirtieth birthday he has not achieved any success so he moves to his father’s house in Sandton and gets a job as a bank teller. He is completely bored by nine-tofive office work, but has made a promise to his father, so he goes to work conscientiously each day. 166

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One day, things take a turn. After helping a customer— a middle-aged, wealthy white woman— she asks him if he would like to have a drink with her that evening. Hesitantly, he agrees. They go out that night, and the woman offers him a substantial sum of money for sex. Completely bored with his life and earning a less-thanglamorous salary, Stickz accepts the offer. The woman is satisfied. Perhaps too satisfied. She begins calling him often and soon starts referring her friends. The rich, bored housewives of Sandton can’t get enough of Stickz. Soon it becomes too much. He calls his fellow kwaito musicians— still laboring away in Soweto— and requests their help. within a few weeks they are all involved, escorting dozens of Sandton housewives daily. Stickz and his friends are not famous kwaito musicians; they are wealthy gigolos. with cash in hand, Stickz and his friends decide to record a full-length album. This time they won’t be working in their Soweto backyard studio. They hire a top producer, make an album, and even have money to spare for advertising and distribution. The album, sadly, is a complete flop. Spoilt by the pampering of their sugar mamas, they have lost their township vibe. The album is too clean; it lacks authenticity. Stickz and his friends realize that if they are ever going to achieve success, Soweto is the only place to be. He resigns from his job and moves back to Soweto. (author’s field notes)

As I recall, Ziggy hadn’t quite decided how to end the film yet. He suggested that perhaps the first wealthy woman whom Stickz met— the one he had so pleasured that she recommended all her friends to him— helps him and his friends to produce the album in Soweto. Back with the township feel, the album is a huge hit. The pitch worked, and Brickz was eager to be involved in the project. But his enthusiasm probably had less to do with the actual narrative than the fact that, like many musicians around the world, he was keen to transition into acting. In fact, the story does not reflect the reality of kwaito production and presents a skewed view of “authenticity.” Brickz has remained successful long after he moved out of Soweto and has no plans to return there. Neither consumers nor producers believe that living in Soweto encourages “authentic” creation. Indeed, the story romanticizes township life in a way that few Sowetans would find appropriate. Ziggy’s story can also be meaningfully read alongside another pitch that I heard that night. Knowing that Ziggy is a well-connected director, one of Brickz’s friends came to the meeting to pitch his own story. In contrast to Ziggy’s elaborate narrative, Brickz’s friend presented the following simple tale: “A man from the rural areas goes to Johannesburg to become a kwaito star. He succeeds and goes back home to fetch his friends. Together, they go to the city and become rich and famous musicians.” This 167

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typical rags-to-riches story, which closely resembles the narrative of one of South Africa’s first films, Jim Comes to Joburg (1949), lacks any notion of poverty as authenticity. Instead, the story simply reflects the desire to “make good” in Johannesburg, the “city of gold.” Kwaito musicians, in brief, tend to valorize the assemblage of robust networks over township immobility; they tend to valorize fame over marginalization. Brickz refused to do the interview with me that night but suggested that I come to his townhouse in the northern suburbs later that week. I visited him a couple of days later, just as he had learned about his nomination for Best Kwaito Album at the South African Music Awards.14 He was in good spirits and told me that he was going to Soweto on the weekend to slaughter a goat in thanks for his success. He told me, too, that each time he wins an award, he returns home to slaughter a goat. In the living room of his townhouse is a large table. The table has a wooden top but above that is a transparent glass pane separated from the wooden top by a few inches. On the wooden top, and under the glass pane, I noticed a magazine lying open, as if a museum specimen on display. On closer inspection, I discovered that it was a 2008 issue of Drum magazine, open to an article about Mandela’s return to his home village for his ninetieth birthday. With this magazine on show, Brickz was apparently making the point that he— like the great Nelson Mandela— returns home to celebrate important events. But despite the obvious parallels between Mandela’s and Brickz’s returns home, it is significant that while Mandela returns to a village, Brickz returns to Soweto. I was surprised, in fact, to find that many musicians I spoke with have no sense that they come from anywhere other than Soweto— a striking fact, considering apartheid’s insistence that blacks were temporary sojourners in the city. Mandoza, for example, told me that even his grandparents are “from Soweto.”15 When I asked him if he has family outside Soweto, he responded: “I do have some other relatives, some unknown ones, of which the elders know them, but us kids we don’t know them.” A new conception of home is emerging. In Zulu, home (khaya) is clearly distinguished from the house in which one lives (indlu). Until fairly recently, most Sowetans conceived of their relationship to the rural areas in terms of a “home.”16 Indeed, this is still fairly common today (as can be seen by Brickz’s friend’s pitch to Ziggy). Recently, however, and especially with the movement of upwardly mobile black people to the northern suburbs, “home” has begun to shift to the townships. A question remains: why the impulse to leave the townships? Although there is a certain romanticization of township life by both township residents and suburbanites, few black South Africans stay in the township 168

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if they can afford to move out. This impulse and this desire are certainly related to what Nuttall (2003, 240) calls the “politics of aspiration,” but there is also a much more concrete reason that those who secure highpaying jobs or make sufficient money through entrepreneurial activities (including music) leave their homes in Soweto. Stated simply, people leave in large part so that they can avoid overwhelming demands for financial support from needy family members, friends, and neighbors. This is not to say that those who relocate to the suburbs do not provide financial assistance to their loved ones in Soweto. On the contrary, many families in Soweto survive primarily through the support of friends and family members who have achieved financial success in the “new,” post-apartheid South Africa. However, for members of the emerging black middle class, it is easier to be selective about whom to give money to, and when, if they do not reside in Soweto. The post-apartheid period has been economically beneficial for only a small minority of black South Africans, and for those who have benefited, the sense of responsibility and obligation can be quite crippling. According to kwaito musician Zola 7, being a “hero” is debilitating. When I interviewed him in 2009, he complained bitterly about the dozens of people who rely on him— often in unreasonable ways. “Even a hero needs a hero,” he lamented repeatedly.17 When I spoke about Zola’s anxieties with the Namibian kwaito musician Gazza, he told me: Yes, because what really kills us— because I do speak a lot to Zola and we are basically driving in the same boat— what really, really kills us is loneliness. really, it’s like people think you’re some kind of superhero, but they don’t see the loneliness inside you because sometimes you just need people to talk to. And we don’t get that anymore. I get that sometimes maybe when I go to South Africa, but South Africa is becoming like Namibia; I am becoming popular in South Africa as well. And so you see guys calling each other, “No, Gazza is here,” so they expect a table to be full of beers and stuff.18

For both Gazza and Zola, being a “hero” implies forms of obligation and responsibility that can be too much to bear. Although both men visit their respective home townships often, a certain amount of residential distance is required for both financial and emotional stability. I suspect that the dynamic I am describing has many parallels around the world. It may, in fact, be a common and almost inevitable consequence of contemporary capitalism. Brickz, Mandoza, and Zola 7 are all from the township of Zola in Soweto and have known each other for many years. They have maintained close contact since their moves to the northern suburbs. Brickz and Mandoza 169

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both live in Honeydew (see fig. 1.2), where they meet regularly, and like Brickz, Mandoza returns to Soweto frequently to see his family. Networks in Soweto have thus extended to the northern suburbs without losing their foundation in the township. Of course, although musicians like Brickz and Mandoza have maintained a connection to the township, this connection is voluntary. They own cars and can travel to the township whenever they choose.

Musical Relations Brickz’s and Mandoza’s relationship to Soweto is completely different from that of most Sowetans. Unlike these and other successful kwaito musicians who have moved north, musicians in Soweto seldom leave the townships. To make sense of these differences, it is useful to briefly overview David Harvey’s categories of spatial conceptualization.19 On the one hand, there is absolute space, which is “understood as a preexisting, immovable, continuous, and unchanging framework (most easily visualized as a grid) within which distinctive objects can be clearly identified, and event and process accurately described” (Harvey 2009, 134). Such was precisely the space of apartheid, of separate development, and of “ethnic zoning” (Bonner and Segal 1998, 43). As emphasized in chapter 4, the parameters of absolute space in Soweto have not been undone by the democratic dispensation of 1994— absolute space is therefore also the primary kind of space inhabited by most contemporary Sowetans. On the other hand, Harvey tells us, there is relative space, which is the space of processes and motion, and which cannot be understood independently of time. Relative space is not locatable on a map— it is the space and movement between two points. More pertinently, it is the space of capital— of commodity, monetary, and financial circulation. Thus, on the most general level, global capitalism might be defined as “a loose ensemble of lateral connections among contiguous but separate spaces” (Shaviro 2010, 41). In this book, I read this form of connectionism in terms of the space produced by middle-class black South Africans, who shuttle back and forth between suburb and township.20 What defines the so-called “black diamonds” is their ability to link distant sites and their capacity for forging robust associations. If this is so, then music production should be understood less as the manipulation of sonic “material” than as the establishment of relations “between and across networks and musical objects” (Ochoa and Botero 2009, 166). Such an understanding rejects the intrinsic unity of a musical genre or product 170

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and focuses instead on the open-endedness of the production process, along with its multiple nodes and sites (ibid.). In what follows, I bring ethnographic evidence to bear on these more general insights. Divisions of Labor: Organizers, Programmers, and Faces The majority of commercial kwaito is produced by three distinct groups of musical laborers. First, there is a group of people who organize all aspects of the recording session and who are therefore referred to as “organizers” (abahleli in Zulu). One musician in Soweto explained the history of kwaito to me like this: “After 1994, there was no formula for making music. So Oskido [i.e., Oscar Mdlongwa], Don Laka, Bruce [Sebitlo], and Christos [Katsaitis] got together and actually started organizing these young boys.” Organizers finance and arrange recording sessions, distribute payments, and write contracts, and they are often responsible for the transport of recording artists. Examples of such organizations are major labels (e.g., EMI, Gallo) and independent companies such as Kalawa Jazmee. Most of these organizations are based in the northern suburbs, some downtown, and very few in the townships. Although the organizations themselves are based in specific locations, they function by harnessing the circulatory flows between multiple sites. In doing so, they coordinate the networks of human actors and they develop human infrastructures.21 Most organizers at independent labels are middle-class black South Africans who grew up in one of the townships around Johannesburg and moved to the northern suburbs in the late 1990s. They are the first generation of black South Africans in many decades to “organize,” at least in the particular sense that I am using the word here. Organizers of major labels are most often white South Africans. Most of these labels (with the exception of Gallo Music) are part of multinational corporations. Because major labels have been less important in the history of kwaito production, I will restrict the following discussion to independent companies. The programmers, who create the electronic tracks of kwaito songs, make up the second group of musical laborers. In many cases, organizers are also programmers: for example, Oscar Mdlongwa is part owner of Kalawa Jazmee and he also “programs” music for the label’s artists. Similarly, Arthur Mafokate owns 999 Records and frequently programs music for the artists he signs to his label. A vocalist who sings over electronic tracks is often referred to as the face (ubuso) of the music; I will thus call the third group of musical laborers the faces. Faces are typically recruited or invited by organizers. Therefore, organizers are also talent scouts. The original organizers at Kalawa (Don 171

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Laka, Oscar, and Christos) and Arthur Mafokate are perhaps the most significant in the history of kwaito.22 Oscar is particularly well known for finding new faces, often from all over the country, and often from places far from centers of commercial production. Allow me to present an example.23 One afternoon in 1994, Oscar returned to Johannesburg from a gig in the town of Mafikeng (roughly 180 miles from Johannesburg) and played a song to Don Laka from a demo tape that someone had thrust into his hand. Laka recalls: “It was Sunday. After the first song, I said: ‘Oscar, go get me those guys.’” “Those guys” were Bruce Sebitlo, “Stoan” Seate, and Thebe, three of the most famous musicians in post-apartheid history. “Go get me those guys” is, in fact, about as good a summary of kwaito production as one will ever find. To produce kwaito, at least in its “commercial” form, is to forge relations with new styles and with people who are not yet related. It is to expand the terrain of what counts as music by gathering or collecting people from far-flung places. When Laka was a judge at the music competition Shell Road to Fame, he also “discovered” Thandiswa Mazwai, another major figure in the South African music industry.24 In the Bongo Maffin songs that Laka and Oscar would go on to produce, the highly individualistic voices of Stoan and Thandiswa are given a platform. Stables like Kalawa Jazmee locate and then forge associations with disparate voices and in so doing allow those voices to resound across time and space. As narrator of the documentary Vuma, Stoan declares: “We had a fire burning within us. Kalawa Jazmee ignited the fire and we added the fuel that made it a raging inferno.” This metaphor aptly captures the relationship between organizers and faces. Faces, therefore, might be conceived of as raw materials (or fossil fuels, perhaps) that are processed and curated by organizers.25 This is not to say that faces are excluded from the creative process. They often write their own choruses and verses, which may become the most recognizable parts of a song. Nonetheless, faces are not part of the organizational framework of the production process; they are called upon by organizers to record parts only when needed. Being “discovered” is not always a blessing, however, and stories about being ruined (creatively, emotionally, and psychologically) by powerful producers circulate in the musical communities of Soweto. One aspiring musician from Soweto told me that he was stricken with anxiety when Arthur Mafokate knocked on his door one morning. Realizing that he was about to receive an invitation to perform or record with the “King of Kwaito,” his first reaction was to hide. In the townships around Johannesburg, there exists a contradictory perception of successful kwaito musi172

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cians and especially those who now own powerful production companies. On the one hand, many musicians hope to be produced by these “masters” in the future. On the other hand, however, organizers at companies such as Kalawa Jazmee are referred to as a “Mafia,” and it is thought that they will thwart any aspiring musician whom they do not represent. Nor is this perception of Kalawa Jazmee lost on the company’s own artists. At the opening of Oscar’s restaurant, Groove Lounge, Stoan declared only partly in jest: “People here are dressed like Tony Montana and Mr. Soprano. You can’t mess with this family.”26 When a style of kwaito known as the “Durban sound” began to take off around 2005, Kalawa Jazmee quickly signed several of the style’s main innovators. Organizers, then, do not only scout for individual talent— they also recognize and channel emergent cultural forms. This relationship should not be understood in terms of co-optation, however— Kalawa Jazmee does not appropriate regional styles as much as it encloses and captures them. Kwaito’s circulation is nonlinear and does not subscribe to a simple vector running from subculture to commercial mainstream or from original to derivative. Musicians outside Johannesburg’s northern suburbs are seldom considered more “authentic” than musicians who have moved to the northern suburbs, and indeed, ethnomusicological commonplaces like “authenticity” are largely absent from local discourse. The history of kwaito music from the early 1990s until at least 2014 can be usefully narrated as a perpetual substitution of “faces” and cultural flows. Every two to three years, independent labels— Kalawa Jazmee in particular— locate an emergent form in a different township or region of South Africa and then channel and redistribute that form nationally. From the Tswana dance music of the Mafikeng crew, to the up-tempo kwaito of Durban DJs Tira and Sox, Kalawa Jazmee has consistently curated disparate musical scenes. An example will help clarify my observations. During a concert in the old diamond-mining town of Kimberley in 2009, DJ Mahoota (Zynne Sibika) and a few other producers from Kalawa Jazmee noticed an unusual local dance move and vocal refrain. This move, and the vocal “gimmick” that accompanied it, were processed by Mahoota, who produced a very popular song called “Potoko.” When the music video for “Potoko” was posted on YouTube later that year, Kalawa Jazmee added the following explanation: “Potoko is a famous dance from Kimberley. Better known as Diganje, Juice [Matute] met up with DJ Mahoota. His crazy dance and amazing energy got the guys so excited about him, that three weeks later he was in studio with DJ Mahoota working on this summer bubbler.” Explaining the origins of “Potoko” on another occasion, Tzozo (an artist at Kalawa Jazmee) stated baldly while pointing 173

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at Juice Matute: “We took this village boy from Kimberley and brought him here [i.e., to Johannesburg]” (Moloi and Maake 2009). But by bringing Matute from Kimberley, Kalawa Jazmee was in fact bringing “Potoko” itself— that is to say, a cultural form with uncertain origins and presumed collective ownership. Matute is simply one person from Kimberley who knew the dance routine. The term “appropriation” does not quite capture this process: instead, it would be more accurate to say that Kalawa Jazmee enclosed or congealed a regional style and subsequently disseminated that style— after processing it and adding an electronic substrate— via recordings. Mahoota did not merely “bring” the style to Johannesburg for redistribution— he brought Matute himself as an embodied form of that style. The Order of Production How, specifically, do organizers incorporate voices into kwaito recordings? How does this incorporation happen musically? While electronic tracks are occasionally created for (or, rather, “from”) a particular vocal refrain, it is more common for programmers to create electronic tracks before giving any thought to what the rest of the song may sound like. In both cases, programmers return to the song once the choruses and verses have been recorded, at which point they encounter an electronic substrate, or “body” (umzimba), several verses (some of which are chanted or rapped), and one to three choruses, which they must process and “sequence.” In most instances, then, programmers control the beginning and end of the recording process. Faces enter the recording matrix only briefly (and temporarily) somewhere in the middle. It is important to remember that in most cases the programmers are also the organizers, which means that faces are dependent in many ways. At one studio session that I attended, several producers from Kalawa Jazmee were recording two “shouting girls” (that is, backup singers) for a forthcoming recording. These young women had come up from Durban for the recording and, while in Johannesburg, relied entirely on Kalawa Jazmee personnel for transport and lodging. This reliance, or dependency, is often rather severe. Most young recording artists have very little money of their own and, thus, are not able to easily leave the session if they feel that they are being mistreated. I am not suggesting that these women were mistreated; on the contrary, they seemed to be having a wonderful time. My point is only that the conditions of possibility for recording artists (or “faces”) are often very limited— many would find it difficult to leave if they were being mistreated. The mobility of organizers, on the one hand, and the immobility of faces, on the other, 174

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thus constitute a radical asymmetry. This asymmetry is in fact a metonym for black South African society in toto. Kwaito songs are understood in dualist terms, as (1) a relatively robust substrate (or “body”) that is created by programmers who are often also organizers and (2) a number of vocal parts performed over this substrate by “faces.” We have encountered this conceptualization several times already: Arthur Mafokate’s free-styling over house tracks (chapter 2), the platform that acts as a space of appearance for multiple voices (chapter 3), and the electronic track as it is employed in Soweto (chapters 4 and 5). But musical material is conceptualized in a slightly different way as well, since the body itself is decomposable into its various component parts: for example, synthesized bass drum, snare, hi-hat, various synthesized melodic instruments, and occasionally live instruments such as guitar, horns, or piano. In other words, kwaito songs are either conceptualized in terms of a “body” that acts as a space of appearance for human voices or as a number of smaller, discrete component parts. Note that these two conceptualizations do not necessarily contradict one another but are rather two possible ways of apprehending the same music. By “part” (or what I will also call “layer”) I refer to a fragment of musical material between five and twenty seconds long that is stored in a computer and “activated” at various points throughout a song. For example, an electronic bass drum part may consist simply of four evenly spaced pulses. This part may be “looped” so that it repeats many times but may also “drop out” at certain moments. Indeed, this is precisely how kwaito is produced: after the various parts have been collected, programmed, and recorded, the producer sequences the material by adding and subtracting, exploring different combinatorial possibilities.27 The different sections of a song are thus constituted by different combinations of a finite set of component parts. For example, one section of a song might include synthesized bass drum, hi-hat, bass guitar, and sung male vocals, while another section may consist of these same layers minus the sung vocals and the hi-hat but with the addition of male rapping and a trombone line. Yet another section of the same song may include a different sung refrain with a female voice and may reactivate the hi-hat while leaving the other parts intact. Two points require clarification before continuing. First, because the term “track” is ambiguous and can refer either to an individual part (or layer) or to the entire substrate (or body), in the following discussion I use the term “part” or “layer” for individual parts and reserve the term “track” for the collection of layers that make up the larger substrate (or “body”). Second, vocal parts are not as easily conceptualized because they tend to 175

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be less consistent and less repetitive than electronic parts. I return to this point at length later. Arthur Mafokate’s famous song “Kaffir” (1995)28 might be conceptualized in terms of a body and chorus. See figure 6.1. Alternatively, the song can be conceived of in terms of discrete parts (or layers), most— although not all— of which are present in the body and chorus. In addition to the synthesized hi-hat, tambourine, and bass drum in the body, a synthesized ride cymbal occasionally enters the texture of the song.29 A synthesized string choir, which we hear unaccompanied in the introduction of the song, also returns intermittently.30 Finally, there are two sections of female vocals: a second chorus and a short, wordless vocal melody. In total, there are eight layers if we exclude Arthur’s vocals for convenience and to make things visually clearer (see fig. 6.2).31 Because the ninth layer is substantially longer than the other layers, I present it separately (fig. 6.3).32

F i g u r e 6 .1 .

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Body and chorus of “kaffir” by Arthur Mafokate.

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Figure 6.2.

Layers of “kaffir.”

Figure 6.3.

Layer 9 (vocal refrain) of “kaffir.”

Fi g u re 6 .4.

Layer analysis of “kaffir.” Each block represents four measures.

The nine layers of the song are used in various combinations, as shown in the graphic representation in figure 6.4. Another good example is Bongo Maffin’s song “Amadlozi” (The ancestors), released on the 2000 album The Concerto. This song consists of nine virtual instrument layers and several vocal parts. The nine “instrumental” layers repeat exactly every time they return and consist of reed flute, 177

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marimba, synth chords, baritone saxophone, bass, hi-hat, snare drum, bass drum, and shaker. The vocal parts are not as consistent. Thandiswa Mazwai sings a refrain (which repeats with minor variations) and several “praises” celebrating her ancestors and elders. Another section, which occurs twice in exact repetition, is particularly sensual: we hear Thandiswa exhaling in short rhythmic bursts. Finally, there is a section toward the beginning of the song where two of Thandiswa’s voices are stacked on top of one another. Thandiswa reveals herself to listeners through a variety of vocal techniques: her voice dips, it breaks, it cries out, it breathes. The song also provides Appleseed (Anesu Adrian Mupemhi) with a platform on which to appear. Unlike Thandiswa, however, he does not repeat himself at all. The song begins with Appleseed rapping in his typical ragga style.33 “One day I’m gonna be face reality,” he exclaims. “So love the way you live, and live the way you love.” His sermon-like ragga-style rapping returns toward the end of the song, where he raps: “Respect the elders, and your days will be longer.” The two other sections in which Appleseed’s voice is heard are variations of each other. Through similar melodic and rhythmic phrasing, he praises “Modimo,” the Sotho-Tswana name for God or the “supreme being.” Finally, we hear Stoan briefly just after the one-minute mark. He sings (in harmony with Thandiswa) at a high register that strains his voice. The various layers of the song are represented in figure 6.5. Because vocal lines do not repeat exactly in the same way as the various layers of the electronic track, layers 10–12 represent only the places where Thandiswa, Appleseed, and Stoan can be heard but do not illustrate actual musical content. The layers of the electronic track, by contrast, repeat exactly on each entrance. Layer 1: reed flute Layer 2: Marimba Layer 3: Synth chords Layer 4: Baritone saxophone Layer 5: Bass Layer 6: Hi-hat Layer 7: Snare drum Layer 8: Bass drum Layer 9: Shaker Layer 10: Thandiswa Layer 11: Appleseed Layer 12: Stoan

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Figure 6. 5.

Layer analysis of “Amadlozi” by Bongo Maffin. Each block represents one measure.

The songs “Kaffir” and “Amadlozi” exemplify some general principles of kwaito production. Most kwaito songs are based on an electronic track that repeats from beginning to end. This track, however, undergoes many transformations and variations: new layers are added and old layers are subtracted in ever-changing combinations. Introductions, choruses, and verses are produced from combinations of a finite set of component parts. Individual layers of the electronic track exist as discrete, unchanging musical blocks, and thus, each instrumental layer has only two “positions”:

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on or off. Programmers simply decide which layers to activate (switch on) or deactivate (switch off ) at various moments during a piece. In a sense, the producer becomes what Jacques Attali (2005) calls a Lego player, adding and subtracting blocks to build different acoustic assemblages. In kwaito, vocal lines are also added and subtracted in the musical texture. However, unlike the exactly repeating layers of instrumental parts, vocal lines are more varied. Nonetheless, the various sections of a vocal line are treated in much the same way as layers of the electronic track: programmers may loop several measures of a vocal line, or they might shift a fragment of the vocal line earlier or later in the piece. Thus, although vocal lines are less repetitive than layers of the electronic track, they are subject to the same kinds of manipulation. It is not sufficient, however, to understand these combinations as mere additions or subtractions, as I have been doing. Instead, the interrelation of layers often results in an emergent property, which is to say, something new that is not found in any of the individual layers. In musical terms, the simplest example of an emergent property is the interval. If we hear a C-natural and an E-natural together, we do not merely hear one note added to another: we hear, instead, the interval of a major third, which has a very particular quality not found in either of the individual notes. Consonance, dissonance, and other harmonic qualities thus emerge from the interrelation or interaction of several simultaneously sounding pitches. According to Manuel DeLanda (2011, 2), the fact that emergent properties seem to come from nowhere has led some philosophers to the erroneous conclusion that these properties cannot, by definition, be explained. But this conclusion, he says, is false: emergent properties can be explained, although not through linear or deductive logic. In kwaito, emergent properties are generated by the interaction between the various layers. Some of these properties are quite easy to discern: for example, the quality of major or minor (which is clearly absent from individual pitches) or the sense of a “beat” that emerges from successive and equally spaced pulses (which is clearly absent from a single pulse). Other emergent properties are completely nondeterministic and exceedingly difficult to explain in scientific terms. One may even argue that certain emergent properties are essentially impossible to explain, at least in any “scientific” sense. For example, while the stacking up of Arthur’s voice on an electronic track produces a result that is not reducible to a mere addition of the various layers, a procedure capable of explaining the combined effect is difficult to imagine. Nonetheless, we do have a sense of what emerges from the process: the song “Kaffir.” I contend that the emergent property of various layers is kwaito itself. 180

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These sonic interactions do not, however, diminish the singularity of individual layers. Vocalists in particular are valorized for their individuality: Arthur’s voice is defiant and exuberant, Appleseed’s is authoritative and spiritual, and Thandiswa’s is eclectic and sensual. Arthur chants in tsotsitaal, Appleseed raps in a mix of Shona and Jamaican-inspired patois, and Thandiswa sings primarily in Xhosa. But none of these vocalists are reducible to the languages in which they sing. Beyond linguistic, cultural, or even stylistic differences, in each case there is an attempt to reveal the singularity of the individual voice. In Arendtian terms, one might say that through singing an individual reveals who she or he is (see Arendt 1998).34 Vocal uniqueness is not undermined when it appears alongside other voices and instrumental layers, or when it is enclosed (or “captured”) by a producer. On the contrary, a vocal utterance can only ever be considered “unique” or meaningful when it resounds in an environment capable of supporting it— that is, when it has a platform.35 Nor should we confuse uniqueness with individualism per se. As Arendt (1998, 184) says: “The disclosure of the ‘who’ through speech, and the setting of a new beginning through action, always fall into an already existing web where their immediate consequences can be felt. Together they start a new process which eventually emerges as the unique life story of the newcomer, affecting uniquely the life stories of all those with whom he comes into contact.”36 With every individual action, the life stories of others are affected.37 One might also state this inversely: the more that other lives are affected, the stronger the individual action is. In other words, there is a reciprocal relationship between the disclosure of the individual and the strength of alliances between that individual and her programmer, organizer, and listener. Kwaito’s organizational apparatuses provide a space of support for human sonorization— they create a platform. And here it is necessary to reject a particular conceptualization of freedom: namely, that for an act to be free “the self alone will have been author of it” (Bergson 1959, 165).38 The problem with this definition of free acts is that it reifies individual subjectivity at the expense of relational human networks and the dense layers of mediation that are required for the audibility of the human voice, particularly— I would contend— in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. It is necessary, in fact, to understand kwaito’s organizational apparatuses not merely in terms of human networks but rather as humantechnological acoustic assemblages (see chapter 5). Thus, it is not simply the case that the actions of humans are strengthened through alliances with other human actors, but that the strength of any actant (i.e., any per181

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son or thing with the capacity to act) is largely dependent on the number of other actants with which it forms an alliance. From this perspective, the “strength” or even “power” of Thandiswa’s voice is proportional to the number of human and technological actants that it harnesses. Examples of such actants are numerous: programmers, organizers, recording studios, radio DJs, CD distributors, Internet websites, posters and fliers advertising concerts, newspaper and magazine articles, reviews, and fans. A more extreme (and inclusive) list is also possible: telephone wires (that carry conversations about Thandiswa), fiber-optic cables (that people use to download her music), dreams and fantasies (about Thandiswa), car tires (that transport Thandiswa to concerts), and the Afro-chic aesthetic (pioneered by Thandiswa). When Thandiswa’s voice forms an alliance with all these actants— which, indeed, it has— then it becomes stronger. From an actor-network theory perspective, we could say that one does “not gain access to reality by subtracting the layers of distorting perception added to the world, but only by increasing the number of mediators.”39 As Bruno Latour (1999, 137) suggests, it is “as if the more filters there were the clearer the gaze was” (emphasis in original). Accordingly, with every additional mediator Thandiswa’s voice becomes more real; with each additional attachment “the more it exists” (Latour 2005, 217). Finally, it is possible to view the proliferation of mediators, alliances, and attachments as a form of liberation, since “emancipation . . . does not mean ‘free from bonds’ but well-attached” (218, emphasis in original). Thandiswa never sings alone. Entering into multiple alliances, her voice soars. In contrast to the dominant Western notion that one’s perception of a thing is enhanced by hiding or reducing the medium between thing and perceiver, I argue that in kwaito perception is augmented through the proliferation of mediators. Thus, for example, when Stephens (2001, 260) writes of Arthur Mafokate’s 999 stable that while “people may listen to Arthur Mafekate’s [sic] fifteen or so bands because they like his solo success, they are [actually] listening cumulatively to a large amount of music produced by one person,” he misses the mark completely. By providing a platform for those bands, Mafokate does not obscure their voices so that all we hear is Mafokate’s music. On the contrary, without Mafokate’s wellconstructed platform we would not hear those voices at all. It is nonetheless significant that there have been very few female organizers in the history of kwaito. Thus, while a female vocalist like Thandiswa requires a platform for the audibility of her voice, she is entirely dependent on her male counterparts for this. Stated another way: although “manipulation” by a producer is required for the public expression of a recorded voice, an obvious problem arises when this manipulation is always the 182

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work of men, as is illustrated by the following ethnographic example. In 2009 I attended the filming of Kelly Khumalo’s video “Let Me Be.”40 At the video shoot, I was told that Khumalo was disappointed that they would be filming “Let Me Be” and not the more popular song “Ngiyamfela,” which features kwaito sensation Brown Dash.41 In fact, Khumalo had planned to film “Ngiyamfela” but Brown Dash had let her down at the last minute. The very choice of song had much to do with a male musician who by his absence had thwarted Khumalo’s plans. Watching the video now as a finished product, one might easily argue either that Khumalo is being objectified or alternatively that she is overtly sexualizing her body through a performative and erotic display. In one scene, she lies on a staircase, poised seductively, wearing a shiny silver dress. Her legs are completely exposed and she gyrates to the rhythm of the song. What one does not see when watching the video is that Khumalo did not want to do this scene. She told the director— a white male— that she was uncomfortable and felt exposed, but he simply commanded her to do what she was told. The director was in such a hurry to get to the next scene that he shouted repeatedly, “Come on, Kelly! Just dance sexily and let’s get out of here!” Khumalo’s protestations were useless. One may argue that it does not matter what happened “behind the scenes” because meaning is not determined by authorial intention. And from the perspective purely of audience interpretation this argument is not wrong. But it is nonetheless significant that Khumalo’s representation is controlled largely by men. Although “faces” require multiple relations in order to become visible and audible to a large audience, the coordination of these relations is never neutral or innocent. To say this is not to indict organizers but rather to acknowledge their embeddedness in all aspects of the production process. In South Africa, at least, networks are not “flat”: they are uneven, imbalanced, and jagged. “Faces,” of course, can become very famous and even quite rich. But they tend to enter the scene of production only temporarily when required by organizers. It is thus the dream of every face to become an organizer, even if only to organize oneself. Brickz, for example, originally rose to fame as a solo artist but today he is on the board of directors at TS Records. Labels like TS Records and Kalawa Jazmee continue to produce popular songs by locating and then linking new faces and cultural flows consistently year after year. Another recent chapter in this story is Zahara, a young female singer and guitarist who in 2011 became the most popular musician in South Africa almost overnight. TS Records cofounder TK Nciza “discovered” Zahara in 2009 at a small concert in Eastern Cape Province. Nciza then arranged for Zahara to perform live with his wife, Nhlanhla Nciza, who is also a 183

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musician. According to the official TS Records website, “Nhlanhla [Nciza] literally introduced Zahara and the crowd at the venue was taken aback with this amazing talent.”42 The Ncizas not only arranged performances for Zahara but also have provided her with accommodation in their house for the past few years. In short, TK and Nhlanhla Nciza linked Zahara to the commercial center of production, and in 2011 her debut album, Loliwe, went platinum in three weeks.43

Kwaito as a Sensory Distribution Kwaito is produced at the intersection of the black middle class and township musicians. Middle-class organizers coordinate individual musicians and channel cultural flows with a view to producing musical commodities that then circulate between various social strata. Hence, although Muff Andersson (2004, 217) is correct that “Kwaito’s strength . . . surely lies in the way it is able to straddle the class divide,” her assertion that the genre “speaks to, and of, life in the ghetto by people who are living comfortable middle-class lives” is problematic. As I have illustrated in this chapter, kwaito does not move according to a linear vector; it is not “spoken” by one social group to another. Kwaito is better understood as “a socio-economically hybrid culture that appeals to black youth across the borders of class, education and of course musical preference and taste” (Bogatsu 2002, 3–4).44 At least in part, kwaito is like this because of its organizers, who perpetually collect and redistribute styles, who redistribute the sensible across social divisions. According to Nuttall (2004, 450), only a form-sensitive analysis is pliable enough to make sense of the manner in which style is marked by race (and other divisions) while simultaneously harboring “utopian possibilities.” Nuttall is mindful of the gap “between an aspirational culture and real social conditions” but nonetheless insists that “forms have been shown to extend beyond the verbal cultures and spatial logics that have so often governed our interpretative frames until now” (451–52). These forms, furthermore, are not reducible to a single medium or modality of sense perception. There is instead a “dense interconnectivity” between the sonic, the sartorial, the visual, and the textual (433). Nuttall’s thoughts are echoed by Rancière (2002, 27), who states that in much twentiethcentury artistic practice there is “an interchangeability of modes of artistic production,” a “boundless and anonymous murmur of life and/or machines.” But for Rancière, whose views I support, this interchangeability has little to do with form. Instead, the circulation of signs and things is 184

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possible only because of an autonomous sensorium, a distinct domain of sensory experience unmoored from social condition. But aesthetic experience is not only autonomous from social condition. On the contrary, it is simultaneously autonomous and heteronomous. According to Rancière (2010, 119), aesthetics is the name of every attempt to come to terms with this “and,” which allows for three possibilities: art becomes life, life becomes art, or “art and life can exchange their properties.” In the greater Johannesburg metropolitan area, the third scenario is clearly operative. Indeed, aesthetic experience extends beyond the limited domain of music production to the experience of urban sociality itself. In the final part of this chapter I provide some speculations about how this happens. The oscillation between art and life is clearly visible and audible in a space called the “Zone in Rosebank.” Located about five miles from the city center, Rosebank is a residential area and business district that has been a center for the information, cultural, and service industries since the late 1980s (see fig. 1.2). Over the years, a series of shopping centers— for example, The Firs and Rosebank Mall— have expanded “by incorporating spaces and structures that predated them” (Nuttall 2004, 434). Located in the heart of Rosebank, the Zone is an assemblage of retail stores and restaurants connected by corporately owned walkways and roads. Although Tanya Farber suggests that in the Zone public space is turned inside out, it would seem that, inversely, public space is actually turned outside in— that is, public space is simulated in the privatized space of the Zone complex.45 “The main indoor roads in the Zone function as promenades,” writes Nuttall, “and signs appear on shop fronts that would once have been appropriate as outdoor signs” (ibid.). The Zone’s construction signals the fundamental crisis of public space in the greater Johannesburg metropolitan area. This crisis, which is particularly acute for members of the middle class, and which is tied to an anxiety surrounding the security of people and things, has generated a number of developments in Johannesburg’s northern suburbs— the Zone being just one. Another example is Melrose Arch, a private development resembling “a miniature European city,” including a system of roads, pedestrian walkways, cafés, apartment buildings, and a gym (Mbembe 2008, 54–55). Cordoned off by an elaborate security apparatus, guests drive to Melrose Arch, receive a parking ticket at the entrance booth, and then park their cars (usually underground) before proceeding to enjoy the simulated “sidewalks” and “outdoor” cafés on the corporate premises. As Mbembe notes, “Melrose Arch is sold to residents and visitors not as a theater of consumption but as a social environment, a ‘community’ and 185

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place where people come together to eat, dance, listen to music, enjoy good conversation, drink coffee, interact, and be entertained” (55). A somewhat different approach has been taken in so-called urban revitalization projects such as Maboneng Precinct, a “privately developed urban neighborhood” near the old city center.46 Here, too, most visitors drive to the precinct in order to walk about and experience a particular form of “cityness,” but Maboneng’s location in downtown Johannesburg and its reuse of older buildings do set it apart from places like Melrose Arch. In any event, my aim in this chapter is neither to valorize Johannesburg’s new developments nor to dismiss them as mere gentrification and fakery. Instead, I am interested in understanding the ambiguous relations between private and public, real and non-real. The Zone in particular is a favorite hangout spot for young, black, middle-class South Africans. There is an arcade parlor for young teenagers, and dozens of bars for those slightly older. There are restaurants, cafés, a bookstore, a CD store, and a cinema complex. There are also up-market clothing stores featuring both international designer brands and local brands, many of which fall under the rubric “Afro-chic” (Nuttall 2004, 437). A shop called Sowearto (a pun on Soweto) features clothes by local designers and claims to provide “a fresh perspective on the ‘Afro chic’ style.”47 Yfm, the radio station largely responsible for kwaito’s commercial success, broadcasts from the Zone. Its studios lie opposite a restaurant where the waiters— almost all of whom are black— are uniformed in bright orange workers’ overalls, indexing the history of industrial and mine labor upon which Johannesburg is built. Between 2000 and 2002, the blackowned fashion label Loxion Kulcha (LK) produced similar overalls in a variety of different colors. Simple features of public life— roads, lampposts— are aestheticized and commodified in the private space of the Zone. The Zone simulates the soundscape of bustling city life, of public space, and of urban sociality. People drink coffee at “outdoor” cafés, but these cafés are reachable only by driving to the complex and parking in private lots, and they are not really outdoors. Although they appear to be street-side establishments, the streets that they flank are owned by the Zone. It is not the case, however, that top-down organization completely structures and determines the lived experience of this environment. One popular nightspot at the Zone is called News Café. News Café, in fact, is a bar-café franchise, with over thirty locations in South Africa, four in other African countries, and two in Asia. In most places, this bar-café resembles those found in large cities throughout the world (particularly 186

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in the Global North): customers are seated by a maître d’, order from a waiter or waitress, pay after eating, and leave quietly. At the News Café in Rosebank, however, customers “turn the place into a shebeen” (or informal township tavern), as one of my friends put it. How do the Zone’s patrons turn News Café— an international, standardized franchise— into a shebeen? They do this by moving the chairs and tables to the side of the restaurant and stacking them as high as possible, thus clearing a space on which to dance. The News Café at the Zone is not a sidewalk café: it is located next to a parking lot, and this parking lot is connected to the Zone’s network of corporately owned “roads” that so cleverly simulate public space. In this environment, young, middle-class South Africans simulate the space of the township tavern, dancing until morning to the most recent kwaito hits. In what feels like the other side of the world, a handful of courageous jollers (partiers) congregate at taverns or outdoor parties in Soweto, where they listen to the same music. The majority of Sowetans, however, stay at home huddled in front of TV sets, where they view images and listen to sounds of people at home (like them) or at shebeens or at clubs in the northern suburbs that have been “turned into” shebeens— sonically and perceptually, the scenes are scrambled, muddled, blurred. Economically— and let us never forget this point— between Soweto and Rosebank there is a veritable abyss. Aesthetic experience, however, cuts transversally through and across this gap and in doing so attests to the fundamental equality of human capacities. Throughout the country, people experience heterogeneous sonic fragments, which seem to swirl and rush through the air like phantoms. And due to the industriousness of the black diamonds, kwaito music continues to circulate between township and suburb, between recording studio and broadcast media— shared across space and its geopolitical divisions.

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Times and Spaces of Listening for to dance in a regime of the ugly and the abject is to rid oneself, in an instant, of the labour of the slave. Suddenly, the demon falls silent. Shaped and sculpted by sound, the subject relinquishes himself or herself and erases from his or her face the expression of destitution. THE BEAUTIFUL”

ACHILLE MBEMBE, “ VARIATIONS ON

1

In this book, I have illustrated that kwaito’s organizers gather people and styles from around South Africa and provide a platform for their otherwise isolated and disparate voices. This platform, I have insisted, acts as a kind of framing device that suspends normative social relations and affords new ways of hearing. The current chapter examines the redistribution of kwaito songs and the way that these songs are experienced and listened to in a particular location— Soweto. With this chapter, then, we come full circle: from the immobile musicians of Soweto to the “black diamonds” who seek out and redistribute highly local styles, we now find ourselves back in the townships, where listeners actively engage heterogeneous sonic fragments and flows. Building on arguments from the previous chapters, the current chapter elaborates two particular facets of listening in Soweto. First, people often listen to more than one song at the same time. Such listening situations are less the result of individual choice than the fact (i.e., the materially constituted social reality) that in townships there are often multiple sound sources within close proximity to one another. As I found during my fieldwork, simultaneous expo188

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sure to multiple songs is seldom conceived of or experienced in terms of unwanted noise or sonic contamination; on the contrary, the proliferation and copresence of sound sources are more usually welcomed as an enrichment of the acoustic environment. In such contexts, listeners shift their attention between songs, toggle their focus from one sonic emission to another, and scan audible space. Second, I emphasize the dimension of time. In Soweto, people listen to music constantly. Because unemployment is rife in the townships, listening to music cannot be adequately apprehended as a “leisure” activity— the very division of labor and leisure is inappropriate in the South African context. For those without work, time unfolds slowly and uniformly. It is interesting to recall, here, that the term “unemployment” is of relatively recent origin and that Marx referred to those without work as die Unbeschäftigen, that is to say, the not-busy or unoccupied ones.2 Music plays a crucial role in the perception and construction of time. It is, as Achille Mbembe (2006, 91) reminds us, a “work on time.” Music works on time by transforming an undifferentiated flow of temporality into a periodic and meaningful experience; it “frames” time or at least imposes a certain form onto what otherwise is experienced as entirely formless. In John Blacking’s (1973, 27) words, “The essential quality of music is its power to create another world of virtual time.”3 With these points in mind, I address three places, or rather types of places, where kwaito is heard in Soweto: informal taverns, large outdoor gatherings, and automobiles. In each case, I present listening not as the “passive consumption of media” but rather as “a distinctly virtuosic and creative practice” (Novak 2008, 15–16). By conceptualizing listening as a practice I acknowledge the agency of those not directly involved in music production, and more radically, I conceive of listening as itself a form of “production.”

Informal Taverns: Poetics of the Skyf The history of informal taverns in South Africa dates back to the earliest days of the Cape colony. It was there that the word “shebeen”— which has only recently begun to fall into disuse— was first coined by Irish policemen to describe illegal drinking houses (Coplan 2008, 113). The form of tavern approximating the one found in Soweto today emerged later, around the diamond mines in Kimberley in the mid-nineteenth century, and reached full maturation in the slumyards and townships surrounding the Reef in the twentieth century (Coplan 2008, 19). One significant characteristic of 189

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these taverns, carried down from mid-nineteenth-century Kimberley, is the predominance of female ownership. David Coplan writes: In traditional southern African society, beer is an economic and social currency as well as a nourishing food. It is used to thank, reward, reconcile, ritually cleanse, honor, entertain, and generally bind people together. In the urban areas, these traditional forms of sociability remained strong among the working class. women were obliged by custom to brew beer for their husbands regardless of legal prohibition. women soon discovered that beer, and often stronger brews, could be sold at a profit to people their menfolk brought to the home or even to complete strangers. In addition, there was a large though necessarily undocumented number of single women who provided liquor, sex and other recreational services to men in order to earn a living on their own. (2008, 112)

Coplan is describing the almost mythical figure of the “shebeen queen”: a woman who not only sells alcohol but whose tavern acts as an important node for urban sociality. Shebeen queens were largely responsible, in fact, for the development of marabi, South Africa’s first urban proletarian music genre (Ballantine 1993, 32). In contemporary Soweto, shebeen queens are important community figures. In most cases, these women run taverns from their homes in one of three ways: in their kitchens or dining rooms; in backyard shacks; or as small shops with space for customers to sit in the driveway next to the road. Taverns are often run so informally that they do not appear to be businesses at all, as the following brief anecdote illustrates. During one of my first visits to Soweto, a friend took me to Ma Sibongile’s house (fig. 7.1). We sat in her kitchen and Ma Sibongile offered us a beer. We politely accepted, but then something strange happened: my friend gave Sibongile some money. Only later that week did it dawn on me that I had been to a “shebeen.” Already in the mid-1960s, on nearly every street in Soweto “one or even two homes were turned into all-night, seven-days-a-week drinking houses” (Bonner and Segal 1998, 61). This is still the case today. Across the road from where I stayed in Moroka North (a township of Soweto), a woman runs a tavern from her home. To buy alcoholic beverages, one enters through the driveway and then heads to the back of the house, where Ma Thembi sells beer through heavy burglar bars on a daily basis. Customers can either take their beer to go or sit on the driveway near the road. Several days a week, a more or less fixed group of young men buy beer from Ma Thembi and sit outside on the driveway between the hours of about 3 and 7 p.m.4 Almost all of them are formally unemployed and

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F i g u r e 7.1 .

Sibongile (pictured right) sitting in her yard enjoying a beer. Photograph by the author.

are supported through occasional casual labor or, more commonly, by family members. The men drink beer, listen to music, talk, and smoke. Like Geertz’s (1973) Balinese cockfight, these tavern “sessions” are distillations or magnifications of life in Soweto more generally. Although these men often sit outside, the social space that they inhabit is nevertheless the space of the tavern broadly understood, which I contrast to the larger outdoor gatherings discussed in the following section. For the young unemployed men, afternoons are devoted to three pastimes— smoking cigarettes, drinking beer, and listening to music— and in some ways resemble Mokone Molete’s account of his life as a teenager in Soweto: when bored of playing too much soccer or of fighting, we would find time to sit under one of the few trees in the kassie [i.e., township] and shoot bull. Much mischief and daydreaming came out of these bonding sessions. It was under these circumstances that we tried our hand at smoking— even though at this stage we only smoked dirwairwai (dried leaves and seeds we picked up from the veld close to where we lived) or mosunpere (dried horse dung). we practiced speaking English— in reality gibberish that made sense only to us, for example: “Hey you sonna-ofa-gun why you

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don’t squank wit me?” we lied to each other about what we ate for supper and made ambitious plans about what we would be when we grew up. we formed a cappella [sic] group that sang only for itself. (2007, 85)

An analysis of smoking tobacco and listening to music outside the tavern in Moroka North provides us with insight into the lived experience of the young men. I therefore examine these practices in turn. The smoking of cigarettes is highly ritualized. In most cases, the young men sit in a circle outside— on chairs, boxes, or simply on the ground— and pass a cigarette around. First, someone lights a cigarette and casually takes a few puffs. At a seemingly random interval, another man will say “skyf ” (“cigarette” in tsotsitaal), at which point the cigarette will be handed over.5 This process continues until the cigarette is finished and another is lit. At no point does one offer the cigarette, and there are no rules about how many puffs one can take or in what order the cigarette is passed around. But this does not mean that the process is random. On the contrary: all the smokers are mindful— in a more or less abstract way— of how much they have smoked and when it is their turn. In fact, each person smokes approximately the same amount on average. But this average is determined only over many days and over many cigarettes. However, the call for a cigarette— “skyf ”— is always uttered casually and nonchalantly, as though one has no idea how much he has smoked. Although far more expensive than buying a full pack, cigarettes are always purchased individually, as “loosies” (loose cigarettes). The reason for this is more complicated than one might assume and has to do with a particular practice of resource distribution. In Soweto, observes Adam Ashforth (2005, 32), most “people survive because others feel obliged to share and support them as members of their families, as neighbors, and as friends.” Because of this, it is exceedingly difficult to deny a request, especially when the person making the request knows that you are in possession of more than you need. Hence, although a pack of twenty cigarettes costs roughly R30 and a single, loose cigarette costs R2, it is still cheaper to buy cigarettes individually (even though 20 cigarettes × R2 = R40) because, as anyone who takes a full pack of cigarettes to Soweto soon learns, the entire pack will be gone before the buyer of the pack has had time to smoke three cigarettes.6 The same is true for other commodities as well, and in Soweto it is difficult to hang on to even a slight excess or abundance of anything. Under these conditions it is also quite difficult to save money, although in the case of money there is one exception: joining a stokvel, a type of rotating savings and credit association (ROSCA). Found in many places around the 192

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world, ROSCAs are associations in which a fixed group of people meet at regular intervals and each member contributes a certain sum.7 At the end of a regular interval (e.g., a week), one member of the group receives the full amount, until all the members have had their turn. In Soweto, the advantage of joining a ROSCA such as a stokvel “is that it allows members to restrict the money that would otherwise be subject to obligations from family and kin,” because friends and family members recognize “the importance of the obligation involved in members in a stokvel” (Ashforth 2005, 34). For commodities and monies that are not contributed to a ROSCA, however, denying requests is next to impossible. It is for this reason that buying a full pack of cigarettes is always a bad idea and that buying “loosies” makes much better economic sense. Few of the young men who spend their afternoons smoking outside taverns are able to join ROSCAs, which are primarily reserved for waged workers with steady incomes. Without the ability to save, any meager earnings from casual work are burned on cigarettes at the end of the day. The choice of cigarettes in this social interaction is not arbitrary. The young men do not share food, nor do they exchange useful objects. Instead, they partake of a particularly useless object that, in the end, goes up in smoke. For hours at a time, young men in Soweto share cigarettes without any objective, without goal, and without accumulation. The economy of tobacco, as Derrida notes in a different context, is an “expenditure on luxury”: “An unproductive expenditure— apparently at least— for the acquisition of a luxury product, that is, a product of pure consumption that is burned without leaving, apparently, any remainder.”8 Cigarettes also have a relationship to time, particularly to the time of the township. One might say that in Soweto there is too much time. For the young smokers, there is certainly an excess of free time. But what is free time? What does it mean for time to be free? From the perspective of classical economics, free time is what is left over at the end of the workday. As E. P. Thompson (1967) famously argued, the rise of industrial capitalism was intimately connected to time discipline. In precolonial South Africa, by contrast, the “Zulu used the moon and stars to keep track of time” (Atkins 1988, 230). Through a series of disciplinary techniques including flogging and jailing, in the mid- and late nineteenth century British colonialists enforced the uniform time of industrial capitalism on Zulu laborers in Natal. In twentieth-century Johannesburg, the relationship between time, space, and labor was further sedimented. The place and time of work— the mine and factory of the day— were clearly demarcated from the place and time of nonwork— the township or slum of the night. This rigid delineation of time has given way, in the post-apartheid period, to 193

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an empty expanse of time. For the unemployed, who constitute roughly half of the population, there is only one, undivided time of life. For those without work, the time of the smoke “break” gives way to a single, homogeneous time without differentiation between work and nonwork. In his quasi autobiography, Niq Mhlongo (2004, 9) writes about life in Soweto: “There was nothing exciting for me about living the life of the unemployed and unemployable, whose days in the township unfold without hope.” He refers to township life as “uneventful” and talks of looking for ways to “kill the slow-moving time.”9 Time becomes synonymous with purposelessness. When all time is free time, temporal unfolding moves slowly and without direction. As the makers of the documentary Vuma (Moloi and Maake 2009) say of Soweto: “Its culture is hidden deep in the characters of poverty, the monotony of life in the ‘hood,’ [where] the cycle repeats its self [sic] over and over and over again.”10 The unstructured passage of time affects those who do not work, but it also affects those who work only a little. Visiting a television repairman’s workshop one day, I was struck by his seeming nonchalance. Surrounded by approximately ten television sets in need of repair, he was reclining on a sofa watching a soap opera at around 10 a.m. When I asked him why he was watching TV when he could be working, he replied: “It will take me two days to fix these TVs. If I fix them all now, then what am I going to do for the rest of the month?” Because he had too much free time, he told me, he needed to pace out his work. But the economy of tobacco is not an economy of repair. The television repairman fixes a TV and then returns it to an owner who pays money for a service rendered. In the process, value is created. With smoking, by contrast, nothing remains. Therefore, smoking gives the appearance of pure expenditure. Like the ticking of the clock or the pulse of music, the exhalation of smoke appears to disappear without a trace. But precisely because of this, there is also no end to smoking. Without ever fulfilling desire, smoke is continually expended with nothing to show for itself. It appears that with smoking nothing remains— and yet, something always remains. Despite the symbolic appearance of pure expenditure, tobacco toxins remain deep in the tissues of the human body. Tobacco “tar,” after all, is an acronym for “total aerosol residue.” Tobacco’s disappearing act is thus given the lie by the ailing body, particularly by the cough. Appropriating Morris’s (2008a, 107) words for the present context, we might say that “in the lung’s spasmodic effort to guard the body’s sovereignty, it converts the muteness” of smoking tobacco “into the ‘language’ of coughing.” Morris is not writing about tobacco; her topic is the South African gold miner’s inhalation of pulverized stone. But in both cases the body 194

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fights against what it cannot fully emit. In the context of mining, the lung is exposed to dangerous particles for the duration of the workday. As living labor, the black body endures toxic environments for a wage.11 For most young men in Soweto, by contrast, there is no subterranean workplace, no division between the underground toxicity of the workday and the freshness of the terrestrial night. Instead, there is one time and one place of life, every day, day after day. In the absence of meaningful activities, time is dimly perceived as a homogeneous expanse of nothingness. For the young men who congregate outside Ma Thembi’s tavern, the temporality of the township is translated through cigarettes. Sartre once wrote that the cigarette has only a collective identity; since every cigarette is the same as every other, cigarettes are “interchangeable tokens.”12 Moreover, cigarettes cannot be appropriated through use, because they vanish during the very act of using them. Because each cigarette disappears, and disappears like every other cigarette, it is also a kind of clock. The function of the cigarette is fulfilled in its disappearance. It marks the passage of time (thus making the smoker conscious of temporal unfolding) but in so doing also marks the destruction of time. Like the cigarette, the essence of time lies in its withering. While the young men sit and smoke, they listen to music for hours. Like smoking, music exposes time by making it present but also, simultaneously, by making present its disappearance. These unemployed men listen primarily to electronic music of the kwaito/house variety,13 and while many authors have emphasized that kwaito is a form of dance music, it is crucial to point out that kwaito is not only dance music.14 The young men who listen to kwaito daily outside the tavern never dance; nonetheless, it seems to me that even without dancing they have an affective and even physiological relationship to the music. The soundscape outside Ma Thembi’s tavern is constituted by multiple audio systems playing different songs at the same time. For example, while seated on the tavern’s driveway a listener may be simultaneously exposed to music from several cell phones, multiple home sound systems, and a number of cars (both stationary and on the move). On certain days the overabundance of stimuli can be quite disorienting; as one of my interlocutors put it: “Sometimes when you are in Soweto, music comes at all corners of your head. And you don’t know which one to listen to.” Note that this person was not complaining. Instead, he talked about music “coming at all corners of his head” with pure delight. My primary interlocutor, Sizwe, told me that when presented with multiple sonic vectors— as is so often the case in Soweto— an individual “can choose which one you concentrate on.” “Otherwise,” he continued, 195

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“the ear has to take in all of them. So instead, you have to channel the sounds.” When I asked him to elaborate, he explained: “It’s similar to analyzing an orchestra. You can concentrate on the violins. Or you can concentrate on the flutes. If you don’t concentrate on something, it’s just a whole gibberish of sounds.” In terms of listening in Soweto, he told me: “You can’t concentrate on everything— unless it’s all the same tempo. But you can choose one entity or combination of sounds and see how it gels.” Sizwe also mentioned that the heterogeneous soundscape in Soweto can in fact be somewhat disturbing or alienating. But he made it clear that listeners are themselves partly responsible for negative experiences of this sort. “It can be difficult to deal with all the sounds,” he said. “People call it annoying. But this is only if you are not accustomed to it. This is only if your mind doesn’t know what to do with the sounds, if it doesn’t know how to channel the different sounds.” He then offered an example— by now familiar— of how to channel annoying sounds: “You can hear a dog barking. And now it gives you an idea. You can use that idea; you can use that sound of the dog.” Another Soweto resident told me that the heterogeneous soundscape is attributable to the fact that “everyone wants to listen to whatever music loudly, because they either are competing with another person or because they have new music— or a better sound or a new phone.” Nonetheless, he continued: “It’s funny because you hear all the music at the same time [but] it’s not confusing. I listen to what I want to hear at the time.” In other words, this listener has learned to “channel” components from the soundscape. I have often experienced this channeling firsthand on uneventful afternoons and evenings in Soweto. On a cool evening in 2009, for example, I sat perched on a wooden box outside Ma Thembi’s tavern and shared a cigarette with four young men who live on Tsotetsi Street. My friend Juice was playing a new kwaito song on his cell phone. He called out “skyf ” and I handed him the cigarette, tilting my head up slightly to exhale at the same time. As our fingers touched briefly during the handover, I noticed that Juice glanced over and past my head. As I turned around in an attempt to ascertain what he was looking at, I noticed the faraway thudding of a synthesized bass drum. I was not surprised to find, as I gazed in the same direction as Juice, that no person or image met my eye. Instead, we were looking in the direction of a concealed sound source, probably some speakers tucked into a room or a shack somewhere along the narrow street. In looking to see what Juice was gazing at— even if I found that the object of his gaze was not a thing but a vector of sound— my attention was partly pulled away from the other three men in the circle. The break 196

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in my attention was accompanied by a break in my attending to the pulse that the other three people were likely locked into. Focusing on the new and faraway bass drum, I began to feel its pulse over and above the pulse in the song on Juice’s phone. The focus of my attention had flipped, if only momentarily. Although I cannot be certain about what Juice was thinking or how he was listening, it seems likely to me that he was channeling particular sounds from the dense soundscape. Reflecting on my own experience, I know that I was forced to concentrate— if only by feeling the pulse— on one particular sonic vector, since the acoustic environment in its entirety sounded like mere “gibberish” (to use Sizwe’s term). At the same time, I was able to move between auditory foci by rechanneling my attention. In Soweto, one might say, the listener is situated in the interstice of competing sonic vectors, his or her consciousness emerging as a kind of tensional flux. Attention is pulled in multiple directions, and so musical listening in Soweto is torsional, twisted in different directions. This torsional quality cannot be accounted for by the simple addition of the two or more sonic vectors, however. Instead, the tension is an emergent quality of the listening subject her- or himself. It is from within this torsional field that listeners learn to channel specific sounds. At the most fundamental level, then, and as Sizwe implies, the very act of listening in Soweto is already a kind of analysis. The township itself is an acoustic assemblage (see chapter 5). Various actors contribute to the emergent soundscape with cell phones, radios, televisions, and other audio systems. The various sonic vectors, emanating from formal houses, informal shacks, and mobile devices outside taverns, interact and comingle. “Music,” in the Soweto soundscape, is the emergence of multiple sound sources without being reducible to any of them. There, the body is the region where sounds are transformed into music.15 Recall Sizwe’s analogy between the Soweto soundscape and an orchestra. This analogy implies that the intersection and interaction of multiple sound sources are experienced as a kind of musical composition— it is just that in Soweto the composer is distributed and scattered along various points in the soundscape. A comparative discussion of phenomenological approaches to African music will help clarify the above account. In his analysis of vimbuza drumming in Malawi, Steven Friedson (1996, 143) observes that several “rates of motion” are always available. According to him, musicians can shift meters at will, not by changing the music in an objective way but rather by altering their perception of the music. Drawing on Don Ihde’s phenomenological approach, Friedson suggests that meter in vimbuza drumming is 197

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“multistable,” which is to say that it contains several possible (metrically) stable states, none of which is privileged over the others. Successfully experiencing the various stable states of any given phenomenon “constitutes a kind of systematic ‘logic of discovery’ that opens up experience to a full range of descriptive possibilities.”16 In a similar way to vimbuza drummers, kwaito listeners in Soweto explore the available stable sonic states and in so doing “discover” something about their environment. However, I disagree with Ihde that this phenomenological technique can reveal the essence of phenomena:17 even if such essences exist (which is doubtful) they are certainly not available to consciousness. Nonetheless, although kwaito listeners may not be able to access the essence of phenomena, they do develop a profound knowledge of their environment. Not quite Ihdean phenomenologists, kwaito listeners more closely resemble the Kaluli, who, according to Steven Feld, interpret everpresent sound patterns as clocks of quotidian reality, engaging the soundscape in a continual motion of tuning-in and tuning-out, changing perceptual focus, attending like an auditory zoom lens that scans from micro to wide angle to telephoto angles as forest sound textures shift in figure and ground and change throughout the daily and seasonal cycles. (1988, 87)

In other words, what listeners in Soweto “know” is not an essence (as Ihde would have it) but a particular sonic and social configuration. A listener may shift attention between different sounds. Or she or he may attempt to make a collection of sounds “gel” by listening to various sonic vectors together. Or, alternatively, a particular unannounced sound— such as a dog barking— may give a musician an idea. By simply sitting in one place and smoking a cigarette, listeners analyze their surroundings.

Larger Outdoor Gatherings: The Shisanyama In the dusty townships of Soweto, there are few pastures for grazing animals. But because cows and goats are often sacrificed at ceremonies and major events, live ungulates are big business. Signs throughout Soweto advertise: “Cows for Sale: Dead or Alive.” The best— and indeed only— grassy areas available for grazing are cemeteries. Several times a week, on my way out of Soweto, I would drive past the newly constructed and flashy Maponya Mall. There, a large sculpture of an elephant welcomes Soweto’s burgeoning middle class to a consumerist paradise unimaginable only a few years ago. But beside this elephantine shopping complex— and sepa198

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rated from it by a set of train tracks— lies an old cemetery. On this sprawling piece of earth ragged young boys guide their little herds of cows and goats among the tombstones. In the northern suburbs, private gardens are kept green and healthy with elaborate sprinkler systems, some of which tap deep into the earth with finely crafted boreholes. Without sprinkler systems, these British-style gardens would quickly turn to dry, brownish veld. In the cemeteries of Soweto, grass is nurtured only by occasional rains and the flesh of the dead. The cows and goats that ramble and trip over weathered tombstones will one day be sacrificed to the amadlozi, the ancestors, whose spirits never die. Animals and meat have retained a powerful symbolic and spiritual resonance in Soweto. For this reason, social functions such as weddings, funerals, and tombstone unveilings are often centered on the consumption of animal flesh. At one post-unveiling ceremony lunch I attended in White City in 2008, about twenty people gathered in a courtyard after honoring a friend and relative who had passed away. Elderly men and women sat on chairs and younger people sat either on boxes or on the brick-paved ground. A goat had been sacrificed earlier that day, and bits of meat were handed out from large steel tubs, along with the ubiquitous maize porridge known as ipapa. Men wore thin bracelets of goat or cow leather (isiphandla), with the animals’ hair fanning out around the wrist. On this rather somber occasion, people spoke softly while the music of the American rock band Toto blared out of speakers from the main house. Looking around at the forlorn faces of the elderly men and women as they delicately placed bits of goat flesh into their mouths in remembrance of a deceased friend, the words of Toto’s famous song felt oddly appropriate: It’s gonna take a lot to drag me away from you There’s nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do I bless the rains down in Africa Gonna take some time to do the things we never had18

The consumption of meat serves an important material and spiritual function at such events. Recalling my analysis of smoking in the previous section, one might say that tobacco and meat form two lines of a “Sowetan counterpoint”— a term I borrow and adapt from Fernando Ortiz (1995). In his seminal text, Cuban Counterpoint: Tobacco and Sugar, Ortiz sought to demonize sugar (its relationship to slavery, uniformity, and stupidity) and valorize tobacco (its relationship to freedom, subversion, and flights of fancy). While sugar in Cuba is not analogous with meat in Soweto, some of the ways that Ortiz describes the two-part counterpoint of Cuban so199

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ciety seem strikingly apropos of the Sowetan context. Substituting meat for sugar, it is possible to schematize the binarism as follows: meat and tobacco, “[f ]ood and poison, waking and drowsing, energy and dream, delight of the flesh and delight of the spirit, sensuality and thought, the satisfaction of an appetite and the contemplation of a moment’s illusion, calories of nourishment and puffs of fantasy” (Ortiz 1995, 6). As tobacco burns, it rises in a gray-blue plume. Outside taverns throughout Soweto, these puffs of fantasy rise against Johannesburg’s dramatic orange sunsets that, as is well known, are the result of the mining-industrial complex upon which the city was built. At twilight, the firmament bears traces of South Africa’s violent history, revealing the subterranean origins of the “place of gold” in the luminous and smoky skies. Meat darkens as it burns but, unlike tobacco, does not catch fire. External to the inert flesh, flames cauterize meat and, by closing it, seal in the blood. Fire opens tobacco, releasing its vital substance (smoke), which “ascends to glory” (Ortiz 1995, 43). Tobacco enters the lungs and exits with breath: this is why it is associated with voice and spirit. Eating meat, by contrast, is a deeply gustatory pleasure. It mixes with saliva, is ground by teeth, and enters the belly. Meat disappears into the body; it is ingested. In Soweto, eating— that is, the act of mastication and ingestion— is often a metaphor for sexual acts. Men often speak of “chowing” women, and HIV is often said to “chow” men and women alike. As is the case in many parts of Africa, in Soweto eating is therefore also an act of power.19 Unlike smoking, which is always renewable and appears to leave no trace, the consumption of meat is associated with less frequent activities of clearly defined duration. Particularly in ceremonial contexts where animals are sacrificed, the notion of an end— and, thus, of a new beginning as well— is crucial. An unveiling ceremony, for example, happens at a specific time and, once completed, does not happen again. The time of the unveiling is closely connected to the time of sacrificial consumption— beginning with a sacrifice, unveilings end when the animal has been consumed. Smoking, by contrast, is always renewable and without end. This is the counterpoint of meat and tobacco. In the early 1990s, Soweto butcheries began setting up braai (barbeque)20 stands on the outside pavement. This innocuous gesture quickly led to an entirely new form of sociality that is often referred to as shisanyama. Shisa means “hot” in Zulu and refers both to the fire cooking the meat and to the “heat” of the occasion, while nyama means “meat.” In contemporary Soweto, shisanyamas range from a single braai stand outside a butchery to massive social occasions where thousands of people gather around dozens of fires. In most cases shisanyamas are completely 200

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self-organized, with no top-down arrangement. A few people gather outside a butchery and others join them until the pavement outside becomes a full-fledged party. At other times, the gathering does not build any momentum and remains small and intimate. These gatherings differ from the smoking sessions described in the preceding section in the following ways: shisanyamas include food, they occur less frequently (typically once or twice a week), and they occasionally evolve into street parties (known locally as “bashes”) hosting thousands of people. At root, these are meat parties. They are spatially organized around meat, are named after meat, and end once meat has been consumed. Music plays a central role at all shisanyamas. At large gatherings, music is supplied by cars or other sound sources, sometimes including DJs. At small gatherings, butcheries usually supply music with an audio system consisting of a basic amplifier and two speakers. Different as they may be, these technological apparatuses are all sound systems. And, indeed, they share many features with sound systems around the world— from London to Kingston, from Goa to Ibiza. As in those other contexts, at shisanyamas sound is a resource for the production of both community and space. Unlike similar contexts in other parts of the world, though, shisanyamas are often shaped by several, competing sound sources. The sonic space of the shisanyama, like the space of the tavern, is therefore heterogeneous. At a large shisanyama, a DJ booth and several nearby cars may compete for sound dominance. A small shisanyama might emerge down the road from a large shisanyama and begin luring away attendees. Cars with loud sound systems drive from one shisanyama to another, thus transforming the soundscape of both shisanyamas and the space between them. Mhlongo describes the heterogeneous soundscape at one Soweto street bash: Everyone was trawling up and down the street searching for the best kwaito music from the parked cars. If Mdu’s Mashamplani song wasn’t humming enough they would go to the other end where B.O.P.’s Ngengoma was playing. If Thebe’s Sokola Sonke wasn’t to their taste they would quickly turn to another corner where Brenda’s Weekend Special was pumping. (2004, 99)21

Shisanyamas seldom have DJs— at least not in the strict sense of that term. The “DJs” are more commonly anonymous sound providers. In Jamaica, by contrast, selectors and emcees are well-known personalities who attract large crowds. Sonideros fulfill a similar role in Mexico, as do DJs at raves in London, Sydney, Ibiza, and Goa. In all these cases, the person who selects, mixes, and presents music is known to, and often adored by, the audience. At shisanyamas, music is provided by cars on the move and 201

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by makeshift setups outside tiny butcheries. Even when a DJ booth exists, such as at the Rockville shisanyama described below, celebrity DJs are seldom invited to spin. In general, the production of music is relatively anonymous— music is always present, arriving from different angles, accumulating and diffusing. During my fieldwork, the most popular shisanyama in Soweto took place several times a week outside a bar and restaurant called The Rock in the area known as Rockville.22 The Rock is a popular spot for international tourists, whites “slumming” in Soweto (a nascent but growing phenomenon), and the black middle class from around the Johannesburg area.23 However, as locals know, drinks at The Rock are expensive and the environment inside is formal and staid. Outside The Rock, on a patch of nondescript land, people gather around braai stands and make their own party. On one side of the patch is a butchery (called Panyaza) and a liquor store. Partygoers visit these outlets, make their purchases, and then continue on to the shisanyama. People may either bring their own braai stands or pay a small fee to a number of young men and women cooking meat around the periphery of the plot. Many people bring camping chairs and sit for hours sipping beer. Others spend the day dancing. Although one can attend this shisanyama at any time— after all, it is nothing more than a public patch of land— it is most crowded on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. Sometimes, the party extends late into the night, but drunkenness and violence deter many attendees, who prefer to leave at dusk. Dancing is prominent at shisanyamas and is structured in a particular way: people form circles (often more than one) and take turns entering the middle to display their moves.24 On occasion, a man and woman may enter the middle together and symbolically enact sexual poses. Mhlongo (2004, 101) describes one such lascivious scene: “We were all watching Neo who was in the centre of the circle. He was doing an obscene phallocentric dance, wriggling himself like a snake. He grabbed his penis with his right hand at regular intervals to the excitement of the crowd.” Women, too, enter the center and dance in ways that are humorous, lewd, or risqué. This form of dancing provides each person from the circle with an opportunity to perform for her peers. By putting herself on display, the dancer in the center of the circle discloses herself to others in a public space. As one of my black female students at Wits University said during a presentation on kwaito, dancing “shows voices in another way.” Especially for women, these circles enable the breaking of the social codes of hlonipha (respect) and afford experimentation with novel bodily postures and overtly sexual gestures. The circle itself acts as a protective symbolic barrier, guarding dancers against real danger and suspending, momentarily, the precarity of 202

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human bodies in townships. Certainly, other codes apply to the space of dancing and I do not mean to suggest that when dancing in a circle social pressures (related to gender, for example) simply evaporate. Nonetheless, such circles bracket normative bodily postures and afford certain behaviors that might otherwise be socially unacceptable. In other words, while dancing in Soweto is not necessarily an emancipatory activity in and of itself, it opens the body to the future by affirming that we do not know what a body can do.25 In her novel Kwaito Love, Lauri Kubuitsile (2010, 82) writes about the experience of dancing: “The music circled and swirled around them. Notes slipped between their lips, moved among the curves and edges of their bodies. The notes held them together. As long as the music played, they were safe in their unreality.” While this particular scene in the novel concerns a heteronormative, “romantic” couple’s dance, music nonetheless creates the conditions for unreality. Because of this unreality, the female protagonist, Mpho, feels completely safe in her romantic and mildly erotic encounter with the charismatic Thabang— this is no small feat in a context of extreme vulnerability. Hence, despite the somewhat “conservative” nature of Mpho’s and Thabang’s relationship, it would certainly be a mistake to undermine Kubuitsile’s (fictional) rendering of Mpho’s experience. Shisanyamas often create a space of unreality— or, as I have been arguing throughout this book, of doubled reality— that tends toward the raucous and the unruly. Partly because of the freedoms that they allow, weekend shisanyamas are sexually charged and eagerly anticipated. For township residents, these parties break the monotony of the workweek or, even more dramatically, the week-without-work. For upwardly mobile pleasure-seekers who drive from far and wide to attend, these events represent an opportunity to display wealth and possessions— most crucially, cars— and to interact with potential sexual partners. The music video for M’du’s song “Shisa Nyama” (2001) allegorizes these occasions from the perspective of a middle-class, black, heterosexual man. Shot in the style of a short film, the video begins by showing M’du driving with a male friend to a shisanyama in a fancy new BMW. In the next scene, M’du and his friend enter a butchery and purchase a plate of boerewors (a type of sausage). They then carry the meat outside, and M’du finds himself surrounded by a throng of scantily clad dancing women. Before long, he is singing while placing meat on a braai stand and dancing next to an attractive woman. Music, dancing, and meat together constitute the triangulation of masculine shisanyama desire. The narrative of the music video continues: when the party ends, M’du and his friend hit the road, but this time they are not alone— they now 203

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have two young women with them. M’du’s BMW glistens in the sun as he travels merrily along singing about the shisanyama he has just attended. When I first watched the video, I expected the narrative to end here. But to my surprise, M’du’s car breaks down on the highway. Disgusted by this failure, a woman in the back seat exits the car, exchanges a few angry words with M’du, and walks off the frame (and supposedly out of M’du’s life). Then, on closer inspection, one notices something very strange: this broken-down vehicle is not M’du’s fancy BMW. Instead, it is an old brown Mercedes-Benz. Then, just as this surprise is being registered, the frame suddenly switches back to the BMW and we see M’du driving away happily with his friend in the passenger seat and two women in the back. M’du, it appears, has split into two: in one dimension the “ideal” black man successfully transports his female companions in a new BMW, while in a parallel dimension that man fails. He fails to accrue enough wealth to purchase a new and reliable car and for this reason is unable to properly court a woman. The failure of his car is synonymous with his failed relationship with the woman. The narrative is still not over, however. Although the M’du driving the old Mercedes failed in some sense, as night falls he realizes that not all is lost. Rather mysteriously, an elderly black woman enters the frame and offers a new plate of meat to M’du and his friend. Chuckling, the two men approach another braai stand and begin to cook the meat. For the “failed” man, the video seems to suggest, there is still fraternity and a kind of allegorized motherly love. But despite this performative consolation, one should remember that as a wealthy black man— that is, as a famous musician— M’du does, “in fact,” in “real life,” drive a new and fancy car. He may romanticize the social bonds that emerge from breakdown and failure, but he nonetheless speeds away into the night. For most male viewers of the music video, on the other hand, the “real” M’du in the BMW represents less a reality than an aspiration. In keeping with the main argument of this book, it is important to understand this aspiration not as an illusion or as false consciousness but rather as the aesthetic “doubling of reality” and as the multiplication of desire. In the music video for “Shisa Nyama,” these two “realities” become blurred, illustrating again that the autonomous sensorium of aesthetic experience is never absolutely autonomous, that there is always an ambiguity between aesthetic and ordinary modalities of hearing, seeing, and knowing. Hence, the point is not so much that the “new BMW” is beautiful or aesthetically pleasing. Instead, both the old and the new car, the young women and the old lady, are framed in the same way, are placed under the same meaning. This is why, and how, the music video slips between dimensions. 204

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The physical space of the shisanyama is similarly ill-defined, and it is often unclear when a particular experience is ordinary or “aesthetic.” Consider, for example, the shisanyama outside The Rock, which ambiguously straddles immanent self-organization and top-down control. In 2009 a fence was constructed around the plot of land to designate the legitimate area of shisanyama, but partygoers treated this fence with complete indifference, or even disdain. People would drink alcohol both within the perimeter of the fence and outside it, thus calling into question the legitimacy of the fence-as-boundary. On one occasion during the course of my fieldwork, I attended the Rockville shisanyama with a few friends from Wits University. We braai’d meat and drank alcohol close to the liquor store, but then took our food and drinks to my car in order to avoid the crowd. Shortly thereafter, there was a major police raid and dozens of people were arrested for public drinking. Many protested because, as far as they were concerned, they were not doing anything wrong. These protests against the police led to scuffles and, ultimately, to violence. One of the people I was with began videoing (on his cell phone) a policeman forcing someone into a police van. The policeman noticed this and threw my friend, the amateur cinematographer, into the van, too. We spent the remainder of the night at the police station trying to bail our friends out (three of them, in all). After R600 (about US$60) and many hours, our friends were released at midnight. Shisanyamas reveal the tension between “freedom” and the continuation of state control in the post-apartheid period. They illustrate, too, that the role of state control is somewhat ambiguous, since people are often surprised to realize that the street is still not their domain. Perhaps most importantly for the purposes of this book, however, shisanyamas elucidate the blurry boundary between different modalities of experience. On one level, these parties are spaces of aesthetic experience wherein ordinary ways of hearing, seeing, and knowing are suspended. However, because the spatial borders of these events are ill-defined, it is often unclear where aesthetic experience ends and ordinary life begins. Thus, enjoying a beer freely may suddenly be registered as an illegal activity by a policeman. Or playfully grabbing one’s genitals may suddenly be registered as a threatening act of sexual aggression by a young woman walking home after work. There is a distinct tendency for people at shisanyamas to constantly push or extend the boundaries of aesthetic experience, to allow the vibrancy of aesthetic energy and desire to spill over into the space-time of ordinary life. But the relationship between aesthetic experience and ordinary life is ambiguous to begin with, because both modalities of perception attend to the same things, the same gestures, the same people. 205

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Aesthetics does not refer to a particular object or type of object— it is not the case that a particular form is beautiful while another is ugly. Instead, the same object (e.g., a beer bottle or a part of human anatomy) may be perceived either normatively or aesthetically. To perceive something aesthetically does not necessarily mean seeing or hearing it as “beautiful.” It refers instead to a modality of perception in which objects and forms are withdrawn from normal hierarchies and causality. Through aesthetic perception, lines of association are opened between otherwise disparate categories; different sounds (and different categories of sound) twist and blur, their relative values becoming indistinct.

Automobiles: Sound, Movement, and Habitation Let us briefly take stock of the listening spaces thus far described in this chapter. At informal taverns, young men sit and smoke for hours every day. Almost every street in Soweto has a tavern, and people seldom travel to drinking establishments on streets other than their own. The young men who congregate outside Ma Thembi’s tavern on Tsotetsi Street all live on that street. I lived across the road; Juice lives next door. For many young men in Soweto, life is lived within a very circumscribed area. Shisanyamas are less homogeneous. Although rooted to butcheries, their borders are porous. Nonetheless, while the space of the shisanyama is heterogeneous and often temporary, it is still conceptualized as a place to which one can go, if only for the duration of its existence. Both the space of the tavern and the space of the shisanyama are, in David Harvey’s terms, “absolute.”26 But what is the relationship between sound, township space, and movement? How might one conceptualize the sonic capacities of movable and moving people and objects? How do people in Soweto listen on the go? How do they listen to things that are on the go? And how do they listen to things that are on the go when they themselves are on the go? In this section, I offer some answers to these questions with a focus on automobile sound. Livermon observes that most theoretical conceptualizations of encountering urban environments focus on walking. Such conceptualizations, which were developed in Europe (and France in particular), are not appropriate for all contexts, however. According to Livermon (2008, 274), one of Johannesburg’s defining features “is its identity as a city of automobility for the upwardly mobile, while the train, on the other hand, has always been one of the main means of transportation for blacks.” He argues persuasively that the privately owned car has come to represent a 206

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sense of mobility for upwardly mobile blacks in the post-apartheid period. He also points out that in Johannesburg there is a strong relationship between cars and sound. For Livermon, this relationship differs sharply from most scholarly descriptions, which portray automobiles as privatized and antisocial bubbles.27 In Johannesburg, he tells us, the car soundscape is intensely social: the car itself “becomes a space of high sociality, with interactions between members of the vehicle and those who are outside the vehicle” (275). Indeed, car horns, human voices, and music blare within the car and spill outside it. I return to the problematic of cars in a moment. For now, I want only to point out that focusing exclusively on cars actually obscures an analysis of township space. Why? For one thing, it ignores the far more common form of urban transportation— minibus taxis.28 But perhaps more importantly, township space is in fact characterized primarily by ambulatory movement (i.e., movement related to walking), as I illustrated in chapter 4. Granted, township ambulation is not easily comprehensible in terms of European-derived theories of walking. The township walker is no flâneur, and township walking could scarcely be more different from the kinds of “walking in the city” described by European scholars such as Michel de Certeau (1988).29 For de Certeau, walking defies the organizational logic of institutional bodies that govern, literally, from the top down. Walkers, he says, explore spaces that no state could possibly see.30 As Carol Muller (2006, 81) comments, de Certeau’s walkers “are always moving, passing by, without ever seeming to arrive.” From this perspective, says Muller, walking in the city can be likened to the improvisatory, living presence of jazz. But it would be difficult to apply de Certeau’s insights to Soweto, since township walking lacks the fundamental hopefulness and sense of possibility that he valorizes.31 Walking is still— even in the post-apartheid period— constrained by the top-down construction of Soweto. Furthermore, the ubiquity of crime constrains who can walk at what time of the day (or night) and for how long and far. For these reason, walking in Soweto resembles less the activity of urban “drift” so prized by French theorists than the circular and purposeless movement articulated by the common expressions “Ngishaya e-round” (I am walking around) or “Ngishaya lapha no lapha” (I am walking here and here).32 In summary, rather than denying outright that people in the township walk, it would be more accurate to say that their walking is restricted and that this restriction has particular social causes and results. Although privately owned cars are not the primary mode of transport in townships, their presence is in fact crucial to the production of the Soweto soundscape. Particularly at shisanyamas or other types of street 207

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bashes, cars produce various kinds of sonorous emissions. In addition to the small percentage of Sowetans who own cars, members of the middle class residing in other parts of the greater metropolitan area often drive to shisanyamas. Having a car at these events provides the owner with immediate cultural capital, allows safe entrance and exit, and— for the male owner— is perhaps the primary means of attracting sexual partners. In South Africa, cars are social objects. And yet to say this does not preclude the fact that they are at other times or in other contexts private and even antisocial: motor vehicles, in fact, encapsulate the dialectic of private and public, of safety and danger. On the one hand, they are understood as safe, privately owned, mobile bubbles controlled by the will of the driver. On the other hand, these same parameters immediately reveal the car as a space of vulnerability and precariousness. Highly susceptible to hijacking, prone to accident, and difficult to control under the influence of alcohol, cars are perilous. Some of South Africa’s most famous performers have died in their cars: Lebo Mathosa was killed tragically in an accident; Lucky Dube was murdered by hijackers in front of his children. These two instances of motor vehicle death illustrate that cars are dangerous both when they are moving and when they are at rest. While South Africa has a high level of road fatalities because of crashes, stopping one’s car is equally risky. Particularly in “hijacking hot spots”— which are today marked with official road signs— breaking at traffic lights is unsafe. For this reason, drivers often treat traffic lights as stop signs, or even yield signs, especially at night. There is certainly a sense in which being on the move feels safe, as though humankind is at home in the world only when it is constantly in motion. In many ways, the privately owned “mobile bubble” of the car has come to replace the domus (the home) as a place of sanctuary against the violent forces of the outside world (Bull 2004, 251). This is why the most dangerous moment of the day for any driver in South Africa is arriving home. Having pulled up to the gate, the driver is a “sitting duck.” Nonetheless, it is clear that being always on the move is not without its perils. Drivers in South Africa are faced by a double bind: to avoid been hijacked, they are forced to remain constantly on the go (and even to ignore traffic lights); but this kind of reckless driving may then result in an accident, a smash. Hence, to protect oneself is to put oneself at risk.33 There are many other paradoxes of South African automobility besides. For example, advances in motor vehicle security have made it nearly impossible for petty thieves to steal parked cars. But this only means that petty criminals turn to more violent forms of crime such as carjacking. Every attempt at security is therefore met by the invention of a new danger. And indeed, even burying someone who has died in a car accident may 208

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result in further deaths. “The spectre of potential road accidents looms large over South African funerals,” writes Rebekah Lee (2012, 198). Particularly where large convoys of cars and taxis from rural areas are involved, accidents are quite common. According to one of Lee’s informants: “Some people die when they are going to bury a family member, then also die with that person again. Then that person dies for the second time.” In other words, on the road it is possible to die twice, a phenomenon known in South Africa as “double deaths” or “twice deaths” (ibid.). Cars, then, seem unable to get anything right. With a car, to fix something is to break it— these vehicles are constantly exceeding what is desired of them, are constantly tripping themselves up. Despite the importance attached to private automobile ownership in South Africa, a car’s private “interior” is always precariously open to the outside. Indeed, the division between inside and outside is both fragile and porous. At shisanyamas, this porosity is made explicit, when car doors and trunks are opened, people sit in, on, or around cars, and car sound systems are activated at maximum volume. At some shisanyamas I have attended, the party looked like a massive parking lot, with revelers darting between, inside, and even over vehicles. On some occasions, private automobiles present a radicalization of the acoustic assemblages described earlier in this chapter (see also chapter 5). At shisanyamas one often hears various stationary and moving sound sources at the same time. Shisanyamas take place on or beside streets, and cars drive by or through these gatherings with music blasting. These moving sonorizations— flowing, thrown, ejected from cars— interact with more stable sonorous emissions from butchery sound systems and parked cars. Dancing or simply drinking at a shisanyama, one hears waves of sound-cars rush by. This rush of sound is alarming, disconcerting, and thrilling. It interrupts the experience of stationary sound systems and simultaneously thrusts into the texture of that music another music, another pulse that the listener— or the listening body— cannot ignore. At outdoor events, cars are used performatively in other ways, too. One evening at a shisanyama in Alexandra township (see fig. 1.2), it began to pour. People ran in every direction— some into a tavern down the road, others toward friends’ cars, and the lucky ones to their nearby homes. I made a mad dash under the tavern’s veranda and stood there for a while, hoping the rain would subside. And then, in the dense darkness of the night rain a pair of headlights flicked on. The road was fairly empty at this point, and I stood peering out from under the veranda into the gaze of the monstrous-looking vehicle. In the midst of the darkness, I could see only the raindrops illuminated by the car’s penetrating stare. The car’s 209

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engine started to hum, and the stationary driver began thumping out a rhythm on the accelerator. Adding to this, he banged out a rhythm on the horn in counterpoint with the accelerator’s steady groove. Inspired by these machinic patterns, a lone dancer jumped in front of the headlights: a beautiful woman, tightly wrapped in a plastic raincoat, gyrating in the awesome glow. Saturated by the gleam, the dancer seemed to merge the humanity of the body, the chaos of nature, and the strangely bestial technology of the car. In that moment, everything I heard and saw was equally enchanting: an engine revving, a horn bleating, some rain pitterpattering, a raincoat flailing. The performance was, as I now understand, a perfect elucidation of aesthetic experience. There is another, more systematically developed, form of automobile performance in South Africa’s townships as well: spinning. Accompanied by kwaito blaring from a stationary sound system or from the car itself, spinning refers to the act of turning a car around in a closed circle. The history of spinning can be traced to the slightly different practice of “drifting,” which has its origins in 1970s Japan.34 There, drifting is used to navigate difficult turns at high speed by skidding the car sideways. Spinners use a similar driving technique, but in order to rotate a car in a stationary circle.35 The spinning craze began in South Africa in about 2000, when young Sowetans began closing off small stretches of road and calling their friends to watch.36 In 2010 popular rapper Molemo Maarohanye— known as Jub Jub— lost control of his vehicle during a street race in Soweto and plowed into a group of schoolchildren, killing four and injuring another two. South African townships, to be sure, are not conducive to racing or drifting cars: children play in the street, moving temporarily to the sidewalk only when cars approach; due to the narrowness of sidewalks, groups of pedestrians often saunter down the middle of roads. For these reasons, driving is strenuous and walking potentially hazardous. In fact, it is estimated that pedestrians make up 35–40 percent of all road fatalities in South Africa.37 Motorsports— like other aspects of life— are thereby constrained by the particularities of township space. One cannot easily race in the township, traverse it quickly, or shoot through its density. The township is not a place for drifting: on the contrary, one stays put, or moves circuitously, venturing beyond one’s ambit with caution and with care. In the township, you do not drift— you spin. Spinning is also an audiovisual spectacle. The sound of kwaito is supplemented by the screeching of tires; exhaust fumes mingle with burning rubber in a rising, thick black smoke. Most exciting, however, is the virtuosity of the performance, which, aside from being skillful, is also ex210

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tremely dangerous. The most remarkable thing about a spinning event is that, once the driver has made the car spin in a circle, he is able to jump out of the car through the window and dance in the “eye” of the circle.38 Women contribute to the spectacle by hanging out of a spinning car, their torsos flailing about in a smoky haze. The focus of spinning is therefore the relationship between a relatively autonomous machine and the agility of the human body. The intended function of the car, of course, is to move while requiring “the stillness of the body, the literal suspension of movement” (Green-Simms 2009, 6). With spinning, by contrast, it is the car that remains still while the body moves. Another fundamental feature of the car— its clear division of inside and outside— is also called into question. Female performers dance at the precarious juncture between inside and outside, their upper bodies extending far beyond the secure confines of the vehicle. Performance is gendered in other ways, too. Whereas women (who seldom operate cars) perform the delirium of the spectacle through yelling and exaggerated bodily movements, male performers tend to exude an air of sangfroid and nonchalance. On some occasions, drivers spur their vehicles into a perpetual loop and then step out of the car window with a foldable chair. The driver, who is now no longer a driver, then unfolds the chair and takes a seat to watch his Frankensteinian automobile whirl from afar. On one occasion, the ex-driver sat down, placed his elbow on his knee, and propped up his head— as in Rodin’s The Thinker— as the automobile spiraled on autopilot. Through spinning, the performer makes the car do precisely what it was made not to do: stay still. The car does move, but it moves on the spot. It moves without moving, without going anywhere. Is this not the perfect ritualized performance of township space? To move around, round and round, without fulfilling the primary function of movement: going somewhere. As people say in Soweto, “Ngishaya e-round” (“I am walking around”; see chapter 4). The word shaya means “walk” but it also means “drive” (and “strike”). Spinning is the spectacularization of what Sowetans do on a daily basis. Mobile and creative in their immobility, to move in Soweto is to circle, to turn back on oneself, to oscillate dizzyingly in one’s place— to spin. The ultimate aim of the performance is to let the car spin itself. The performer succeeds only when the car’s movement becomes independent from him, when its movement becomes autonomous. As such, the aim of the spinner is to give life to his vehicle. Ultimately, the agent of spinning must be the car itself, a car that nonetheless always retains the spirit of the person who spun life into its iron body. When the car is brought to 211

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life, however, it is not some tame creature at the will of its spinner. Literally out of the spinner’s control, the heaving chunk of metal sometimes spirals out of its loop. Spinning, then, is also a flirtation with death. In South Africa the car is associated not only with freedom and delirium but also with precarity and the fragility of life. It is not surprising, then, that spinning has become a popular form of township funeral entertainment. Most poignantly, people often spin cars at the funerals of those who die in car accidents. One of the most famous spinning events took place at the funeral of Tshepo Mokoena, a pioneer of spinning who was killed in an automobile accident. Spinning is a performance, yes, but it is also a kind of listening. Spinning is a way of listening to— and interacting with— sound. With this particular practice of listening, the spatiotemporality of Soweto is laid bare: a turning in circles, potentially ad infinitum.

Concluding Remarks This chapter has explored various ways that people in Soweto listen to music. Particular attention should be drawn to the immobility of most listeners, on the one hand, and the openness with which these subjects engage their acoustic environments, on the other. Furthermore, although I have emphasized that listening always happens in conjunction with other activities, I have also attempted to present a picture of the broad range of practices associated with listening in different contexts. Although listening to music always occurs within a particular place, this does not mean that the act of listening is itself “local.” Indeed, listeners open themselves to distant places and to distant perceptual realities. Sometimes, they even open themselves to multiple worlds simultaneously and then playfully toggle between those worlds. Nonetheless, to understand these various openings it is necessary to return to the ground, as it were— that is, to the physical spaces and places in which people listen to music. In this book I have chosen Soweto, a formally planned “location” to the southwest of Johannesburg. The location is a space of sounding and a sounding of space. The township streets are massive orchestral machines, sound assemblages on a grand scale. But the sounds in a location are seldom the sounds of that location. Kwaito circulates throughout South Africa and beyond, thereby disrupting any sense of authentic locality. It sounds in place, in a place, although never in its place— which means that its listeners are free in the location but not from it.

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Epilogue I began this book with the newspaper headline that greeted me as I returned home to South African in 2008. “Welcome to Hell,” it said. Here is what actually happened that day, as reported by journalists from the Star newspaper: “A bolt of lightning that hit a transmission line, which fell on a truck, which blew out a substation, brought central Joburg to a standstill” (Tau, Cox, and Smillie 2008). Already broken traffic lights compounded the gridlock. Two hours later, when only two police officers had arrived on the scene, taxi drivers began directing traffic. Seizing the opportunity, petty criminals masqueraded as traffic wardens and approached vehicles only to smash their windows and grab whatever valuables happened to be in sight. Johannesburg’s notoriously inadequate energy system didn’t help, and soon the one affected substation had tripped several others until onethird of the city was left without power. The “hell” that greeted me when I arrived home in 2008, then, was the result of a complex concatenation of infrastructure failure and the “deregulation of monopolies over the means of legitimate force, of moral orders, of the protection of persons and properties” ( John Comaroff and Jean Comaroff 2008, 2). As I have suggested at various points throughout this book, such failures and deregulations have definite generative effects: technological and infrastructural breakdowns lead to novel forms of creative practice; the deregulation of force and protection leads to new forms of circulation, storage, and community. Thus, hell was certainly not the only thing I found when I arrived home that October.

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Instead, I encountered a place, a time, and a people marked by a heady mix of hellishness and joy, despair and possibility. The contradictions proliferate. Recall Zola 7’s provocative suggestion that “the generation of the ’90s had to deal with freedom and that is hard. Whoever says the struggle continues didn’t tell us how. Kwaito came out of that” (Neate 2004, 142). As this statement implies, kwaito is at once an articulation of freedom, a struggle for freedom within freedom, and a challenge to the very meaning of freedom in the twenty-first century. Kwaito’s musicians and listeners reveal the clear limitations of democracy as a political system without, however, giving up on the basic principle of democracy: the power (kratos) of the people (demos).1 Kwaito attests to the fundamental equality of human intelligence and thus opens the horizon for a potential politics without, however, leading to any particular form of political action. My ethnographic evidence bears this out. In Soweto, musicians make music under conditions of extreme immobility. There, the legacy of apartheid is visible in the rows of matchbox houses, the dead ends, and the streets that end where they begin. That legacy is not only visible but is also heard, felt, and performed. The democratic dispensation has additionally led to staggeringly high levels of crime. Apartheid is gone, and so too are its invasive strategies of surveillance, which, to some extent, kept the levels of crime lower. Systematic, top-down violence has given way to a type of violence that is fluid, decentralized, and to some extent “invisible.” Today the democratic ideals of human rights and civil liberty are accompanied by the perniciousness of theft, sexual violence, and corruption. Nonprofessional kwaito musicians in Soweto stay at home most of the time, protecting their equipment and performing music for hours each day. But kwaito is not limited to the townships. Black South Africans have taken control of the means of musical production, launching kwaito into the public sphere. Black diamonds put the music into circulation: they share it transversally between township, city center, and suburb. The music hops, skips, and skims over ethnic, linguistic, and class divisions, upsetting the construction of groups and identities. When it comes to music, says Rancière (2004a, 186), there is no way to prevent “allodoxia” (false judgment). This allodoxia is both a false judgment that flies in the face of the “real” conditions of society and an other (aesthetic) perspective that chooses to ignore actual conditions— that deregulates, in other words, established relations between a listening subject, how that subject listens, and what that subject listens to. Kwaito is just one name for this other perspective, this perspective that promises and promises to promise. And pre214

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cisely because this perspective trades on dissimulation, the word “kwaito” can be employed only timidly, awkwardly, and at risk of error. This is not a conclusion, for there can be no conclusion to a promise. After all, a promise once concluded or fulfilled is no longer a promise.2 Instead, I offer only an epilogue, that is, speech following on after something, after the main text— more speech, a bit more speech, always more. In two short sections, I say slightly more.

Occupy Aesthetics After living for a year in Soweto, I moved to New York City just as the Occupy Wall Street movement blossomed. As I learned through participation in the movement, the “politics of aesthetics” I encountered in kwaito is not limited to the South African context. On December 1, 2011, I joined about two hundred other activists outside New York’s famous Metropolitan Opera House in order to “occupy Lincoln Center.” This occasion— in which activists “occupied” a symbolically important institution by collectively assembling there without invitation or permission— resembled many similar events around that time— for example, Occupy Trinity Church (New York), Occupy City Hall (Chicago and Los Angeles), and Occupy PNC Park (Pittsburgh).3 As one of the few occupations of a performance venue, the Lincoln Center event afforded particularly interesting opportunities for the interrelation of politics and aesthetics. Following a performance of his opera Satyagraha, which is about the life of Mahatma Gandhi, composer Philip Glass exited the concert hall and joined the protesters outside in the chilly winter air. He recited a passage from the Bhagavad Gita4 to the crowd via the “human microphone”5 technique: when righteousness withers away And evil rules the land we come into being Age after age And take visible shape And move A man among men for the protection Of good 215

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Thrusting back evil And setting virtue On her seat again

For me, the most significant aspect of the event was the way in which the boundaries between art and life were constantly blurred and crossed. People shouted: “Off the stage and into the street!” And, referring to the play’s historical referent (Gandhi): “It’s a real-life play! The play is your life! The opera is your life! Your life is the opera!” There was also a moment when someone shouted through the human microphone that all the voices of those outside in the cold were as beautiful as those in the opera. The blurring of the line separating “art” and “life” soon took on a more overtly material dimension. The cops had placed a barricade between the protesters and the opera house so that there was a clear division between those at the opera and the people on the street. As audience members from the opera exited the building, they walked toward the protesters (who were facing the opera house), all the while separated by the police barricade. Although the opera had ended, there was still a sense that space was divided in two: the reified space of classical music, on the one hand, and the public space of the street, on the other. The Occupy protesters shouted to the concertgoers, “Come join us!” and the concertgoers were forced to make a decision. Many avoided the throng and departed through side exit points that the police had prepared, while others walked directly toward the protesters and some even hugged us over the barricades. Eventually, the barricades were removed, thus dissolving the space between protesters and concertgoers. The protesters articulated a vision of society in which there is no longer a reified space of “music” and in which, on the contrary, the voice of each and every person is immediately beautiful. We projected, in other words, the sound of “a community whose lived experience is not divided into separate spheres, which has no experience of any separation between everyday life, art, politics and religion” (Rancière 2009a, 35). We acted as if there was no distance between “us” on the streets and “them” in the opera house. In short, we saw and heard ourselves as different from who we “really” are, different from how we are “interpellated” by and in society. This is similar to what kwaito does, as well— it presents the vision of a community where all sounds are equal and where all people are capable of engaging with those sounds. Kwaito musicians and listeners experiment with the threshold of knowledge; they reactivate multiple openings between categories rendered incommensurable within Western modernity. And 216

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they do this by establishing an autonomous division of sensory experience in which, for a moment, there is no separation between everyday life, music, and politics. As a first step toward any radical politics, then, kwaito invites a listening otherwise. It invites people, as Kabelo says, to shift their “focus off what seems to be real and isn’t” or to search, as Sizwe proposes, “for a new frontier, a new utopia.” Kwaito musicians, for their part, invite us to inhabit this placeless frontier; they invite us to occupy aesthetics.

Charting Freedom In 1955, shortly after apartheid was officially instituted, fifty thousand volunteers went into the townships and rural areas of South Africa to gather “freedom demands.” These demands were then collected and synthesized by the African National Congress (ANC) into a document known as the Freedom Charter. The first line of the charter reads: “South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black or white.” The charter speaks in the present tense to an audience in 1955. It alleges to describe that present, almost in the guise of a historical fact, but it is clear that this “fact” is an appeal to the future.6 Why? Because in 1955 South Africa did not belong to all who lived in it. The charter thereby pronounces the truth of the presupposition of equality and belonging, inscribing the hope for its realization in the empirical reality of the present (which, of course, is literally inaccurate). The Freedom Charter thus stakes out an assumed community of sense experience, or what Jacques Derrida (1987a, 23) calls the “phenomenal apparition” of democracy. This is the apparition of equality, which precedes and haunts all political action. Crucially, this apparition does not tell us what to do with it, and therein lies its sensorial and cognitive ambiguity. Instead, as Derrida states in typical poetic style, it “looks at you, already concerns you, understands you, and orders you to continue observing, responding, making you responsible for the look that looks at you and beckons you beyond the visible” (ibid.). Derrida says that the charter’s look is “neither perception nor hallucination” (ibid.).7 What, then, is it precisely? Today, this question is more relevant than ever. The post-apartheid Constitution of South Africa is based, in large part, on the Freedom Charter. But the authors of the Constitution used the Freedom Charter very selectively and effectively erased all aspects of the document dealing with the nationalization or redistribution of material resources. The new wave of South African populism— which began in earnest around 2007— often appeals precisely to this erasure. Thus, when Julius Malema (founder of the Economic Freedom 217

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Fighters) calls for the nationalization of the mines, he reasons that he is simply following the Freedom Charter to the letter. In doing so, he attempts to access universal equality by pointing out the contradictions inherent in any contingent conditionality. For Malema, admitting only certain parts of the charter into the Constitution is a blatant “contradiction” (see Wild 2011). As such, the Freedom Charter— which is “simply” a historical document— embodies the fundamental contradictions of contemporary South African society. But it is through music, and through kwaito in particular, that the “apparition” of democracy is experienced, that it becomes truly phenomenal. When large groups of people experience kwaito together— either at live events or “virtually” through mediated forms— a potent being-incommon is constituted. Indeed, Malema is one of kwaito’s main advocates and regularly organizes kwaito festivals and events. The full force of shared experience becomes even more apparent when we consider earlier political “uses” of kwaito. Initially, the neoliberal politicians of the ANC were very wary of kwaito. Former president Thabo Mbeki famously called kwaito a “distraction” from social issues but, soon after this dismissal, jumped onstage following kwaito celebrity Mzekezeke’s performance of the song “Sguqa Ngama Dolo” (We are kneeling down) at the Africa Day Celebrations and demanded that he sing the song again. Why this change of heart? On the one hand, Mbeki realized that his criticisms of kwaito had alienated him from much of the population. Supporting kwaito, from this perspective, was simply opportunism on his part. On the other hand, however, it seemed to many people that kwaito was the perfect embodiment of the neoliberal ethos of the Mbeki era: with its emphasis on the pleasure of the body and its lack of direct critical “commentary” on pressing political issues, kwaito seemed like a safe bet for neoliberal pundits. But how is it possible that both Mbeki and Malema support kwaito, when the two politicians represent opposite ends of the political spectrum? One may simply argue that neoliberals like Mbeki hear neoliberalism in kwaito, while populists like Malema hear populism in the same music. But if so, this seems to suggest that kwaito music is completely indifferent to political ideology. Against the cliché that “everything is ideological”— which, like most clichés, is true only in a completely banal sense— kwaito points toward a modality of perception that evades ideology’s snares. The attempt to evade ideology is not simply an illusion masking reality. It is a technique for doubling a reality that ideology critique would rather consider as one. In a discussion of African diasporic electronic musics, Wayne Marshall (2009, 63) points to the ambiguous relationship between music and so218

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cial groups. He suggests that despite constant claims about genre and cultural ownership, music “also holds the promise— or perhaps gives voice to the postcolonial dream— of a convivial, cosmopolitan multiculture.”8 To speak of promises and dreams, however, is never to imply their fulfillment: music holds out the promise of a postcolonial dream only so long as the fulfillment of that promise is deferred— held out. For as Adorno warned us, those who take music’s promise too literally, that is, those who attempt to turn music’s promise into life, quickly learn that its promise may in fact be its curse, and its dream, its nightmare. Aesthetic experience therefore “functions insofar as it is dysfunctional”: while it may provoke the longing for a lost community or a community to come, it can never reinstitute the unity that contradicts its basic premise.9 Music might never be able to fulfill its promise, but it “thrives on that ambiguity” (Rancière 2010, 133). Rancière (2012, 296) once stated that there is “no specific connection” between aesthetics and politics. But it should not surprise us that the country in which kwaito naggingly promises a future of radical equality has been referred to as the “Protest Capital of the World,” with estimates as high as five protests per day. Even at the height of the Arab Spring, there were probably more protests in South Africa than in Egypt. As a writer for Protest Watch notes, the reason that South Africa’s protests have not gained wider international media attention is that “unlike in Arab Spring countries, South African protesters do not gather in main squares but rather in the roads of forgotten and underdeveloped townships.”10 Referred to locally as “popcorn” protests because of their short duration, these political events seem like a direct response to de Sade’s suggestion “Insurrection should be the permanent state of the republic” (Balibar 1991, 51). The connection between this political situation and the construction of musical experience in South Africa— tenuous and underdetermined as it may be— seems impossible to deny. Kwaito’s ambiguous promise might therefore be understood as a necessary illusion. I take this idea from Louis Althusser, who suggested: without . . . mythical examples of the roman accomplishment of liberty, equality, and fraternity, without the ideology of roman political virtue, the leaders and protagonists of the [eighteenth-century] bourgeois revolution would not have been able to mobilize the masses, would not have been able to mobilize themselves, to carry out the revolution and bring it to completion. (1999, 50, emphasis in original)

In other words, although the bourgeois revolution could only deliver them from feudalism, the revolutionaries “needed to believe that they 219

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were embarking on a conquest of liberty, equality, and fraternity” (ibid.). Translated into musical terms, we can formulate necessary illusion as follows: the community-to-come that music promises but can never deliver is also a necessary condition for any transformation, or even significant reform. In this sense, Bourdieu was not wrong that aesthetic experience is an illusion. What he missed, however, is the potential politics that this illusion enables. The experience of kwaito music in South Africa, it seems to me, is a dedication to hope, to the promise of democracy. In Zulu, there is no exact translation for “promise,” although most dictionaries offer thembisa as a close match. Thembisa is the causative of themba, suggesting that to “promise” is to “cause to hope.” And this, perhaps, is what my interlocutors in Soweto are doing when they make music for hours each day: they are causing each other to hope, causing themselves to hope. Thembisa, additionally, carries the valence of trust. Disenfranchised South Africans hope and trust, they trust in their hope— even while they “know” that their hope may well betray them. Populists like Julius Malema are, of course, counting on music’s promise, are counting on music to cause people to hope. And the outcome of acting on this hope, it needs to be said, may be disastrous. Nonetheless, considering the fact that South Africa is probably the most unequal society on earth, it is not unreasonable that most of its citizens would heed kwaito’s promise of genuine freedom and equality. This promise is at once illusory and necessary— necessary, in fact, because it is illusory. The fulfillment of this promise is illusory, yes, but the promise of fulfillment is very real.

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Notes PrEfACE

1.

2.

The first syllable of the word “kwaito” is pronounced “kwy” as in “spy” or “pie.” The OED provides the following IPA pronunciation (in South African English) for “kwaito”: ʼkwaiɪtəυ. While the OED is basically correct, I have found that the final vowel sound is typically pronounced as a shorter “o” sound— less like “əυ” (as in “goat”) than “ɔə” (as in “boar”). This pronunciation is explainable by Satyo’s (2001, 139) conjecture that the suffix of “kwaito” is a recycled form of the Nguni root -to (in Nguni languages such as Zulu, -to is pronounced with a short “o”). Several scholars have argued that kwaito grew out of the earlier hip-hop scene in Cape Town, but there is little historical evidence for this connection. (I promulgated this speculative theory at some point as well.) It would be more accurate to say that while the contemporary hip-hop scenes in Cape Town and, to a lesser extent, in Johannesburg grew out of the earlier hip-hop scene in Cape Town, kwaito had other precedents. A wide range of texts address the similarities and differences between contemporary kwaito and hip-hop, including Sharlene Swartz’s 2008 article “Is Kwaito South African Hip-Hop?” in a special issue of World of Music on the topic of kwaito (which I edited) and an August 2006 piece called “Kwaito vs. Hip-Hop” in the South African edition of GQ magazine.

A NOTE ON L ANGUAGE

1.

Northern Sotho (also known as Pedi), Southern Sotho (sometimes referred to simply as Sotho), and Tswana are related languages, falling under the Sotho-Tswana language group;

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2.

3. 4.

5.

6.

7.

222

Ndebele, Swazi (also referred to as Swati), Xhosa, and Zulu fall under the Nguni language group. In many cases, the “construction” of these eleven languages has been political more than linguistic. Herbert and Bailey (2002) provide much evidence of significant overlap between languages, and they illustrate that in many cases language standardization (or even “invention”) has been the result of external political forces. They note, for instance, that there have been “active campaigns to solidify the differentiation of Zulu and Swati” (66). But “actual structural and lexical differences between the two are no greater than between two dialects of Zulu” (ibid.). They additionally observe: “The ‘ethnic group’ Northern Sotho was demonstrably invented by the Nationalist government to unify a diverse set of people” (70). Furthermore, it is difficult to draw “any real boundary between Tswana and the Northern Sotho cluster on linguistic grounds.” The basis for that distinction appears to be “entirely political and administrative” (ibid.). On the last point, Herbert and Bailey are following van Warmelo 1974. See Nixon 1994, 33. Bonner and Segal (1998, 59) suggest an additional etymology for the word tsotsi: that it may be derived from the Sotho term ho tsotsa, meaning “to rob.” The word taal is Afrikaans for “language.” Tsotsitaal can therefore be translated loosely as “thug talk.” Ntshangase (2002) suggests that the distribution of Zulu-based and Sothobased isicamtho is relatively equal, although the former is more prominent in the main areas of my own research. Ntshangase (2002) provides a useful comparison of tsotsitaal’s and isicamtho’s respective language bases. In tsotsitaal, the English sentence “I am going” would be translated as “Ek thler.” The syntax of this sentence is clearly rooted in Afrikaans, in which the same sentence would be translated as “Ek loop” (where ek means “I” and loop means “go”). In isicamtho, by contrast, the same sentence would be translated as “Ngiyavaya.” The syntax of this sentence is rooted not in Afrikaans but in Zulu, since in Zulu “I go” would be rendered “Ngiyahamba” (where ngi means “I,” ya designates tense, and hamba means “go”). Interestingly, although the etymology of thler is unknown, the word vaya is traceable “back to the Afrikaans word waai (‘blow,’ as in ‘the wind blows’).” Thus, although isicamtho speakers replace the syntactic base of Afrikaans with Zulu, they nonetheless maintain many words derived from Afrikaans. See Ntshangase 2002, 408. (Although Nthshangase does not mention this, note as an aside that in colloquial Afrikaans, waai can also mean “go.”) Partly to avoid these difficulties, the South African linguist Siziwe Satyo invented a new term to describe urban language-varieties generally: “kwaitospeak.” See Satyo 2001, 2008. Today, many young South Africans also use the term “vernac” when describing urban creoles. See Horowitz 2012, 48.

N O T E S TO PA G E S x I x – 4

A NOTE ON THE L ANGUAGE Of rACE

1. 2.

See Lehohla 2014, 27. Stated in far-too-simple terms, “Coloured” was an apartheid designation for people of mixed race. While contested, the term still carries great weight in the post-apartheid period, and many people self-identify and affirm their identity as “Coloured.” (On “Coloureds” in South Africa, see the contributions in Erasmus 2001.) The apartheid classification “Asian” was equally complex. It included people of South Asian descent but excluded immigrants from Taiwan and Korea, for example.

CHAPTEr ONE

1. 2. 3. 4.

5. 6. 7.

8. 9.

Hill 1999, 12. For an important discussion of accidents in post-apartheid South Africa, see Morris 2010. The omission of Johanna’s last name is deliberate. Not all these possibilities were comforting. Were the rumors I heard at school correct? (I was twelve years old at the time.) Was it true that everything would be inverted in the topsy-turvy world of the “new” South Africa and that my mother would soon work as Johanna’s maid? On the withering of post-apartheid thrill, see Barnard and Farred 2004. For useful discussions of the relationship between music and neoliberalism in other contexts, see Guilbault 2007; Stokes 2010; Perullo 2011. My description of the African National Congress is obviously reductive. The current South African president is famous for his populist rhetoric, and former president Mbeki also “talked Left” (see Bond 2005). This is redolent of what Piot (2010), in the admittedly very different context of West Africa after the Cold War, terms a “nostalgia for the future.” Note that into yami literally means “my thing.” Although several of my interlocutors interpret into to mean “sweetheart” or “girlfriend” in the context of Trompies’ song, the word’s referent is actually unstated and may be anything at all. For example, into may refer to something like “power,” in which case the lyric would be translated as “My power has arrived.” “Into Yam” is also the name of a very famous song by Dorothy Masuka. (The song was famously performed by Miriam Makeba in the 1959 film Come Back, Africa.) The first line of the song— “Into yam ndiyayithanda”— is typically translated “I love my thing.” One translator, Innocentia Mhlambi, comments that the female protagonist of the song “shifts the term’s meaning from reference to a ‘useless thing’ . . . to an ‘affectionate thing’” (Mhlambi, quoted in Allen 2002, 106). See Allen (2002) for an excellent social and historical analysis of Masuka’s “Into Yam.”

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10. I am indebted to Sandisiwe Vilakazi’s (2012) excellent study of representations of kwaito in the Sunday Times ( Johannesburg) newspaper between 1994 and 2001. For the quotations in this paragraph, see Phillip Kakaza (March 1996), as quoted in S. Vilakazi 2012, 42; Sandile Memela ( January 26, 1997; City Press), as quoted in Peterson 2003, 200; Sello Maake Ka Ncube (November 1997) and Phillip Morobi (March 1997), both quoted in S. Vilakazi 2012, 42–43. Morobi’s analogy between kwaito and bubblegum closely resembles a common criticism of South African popular music in the 1980s. In that decade, the music of singers such as Brenda Fassie, Yvonne Chaka Chaka, and Chicco Twala was often referred to as “bubblegum.” David Coplan (2005, 12) observes: “Perhaps it was this perceived shallowness in the midst of the gathering political storm that led some radio disk jockey to dismiss the new style of township pop as ‘bubblegum’: a childish tease in which the initial burst of sweetness quickly vanishes on the tongue.” 11. Mbeki, as quoted in Jubasi 2000. See also Joel Pollak, Hip Hop in South Africa: Getting Political? (2001), http://www.africana.com/DailyArticles/index _20010824.htm, as quoted in Peterson 2003, 200. 12. This was the basic message of the New Musicology movement of the 1990s. See, e.g., Leppert and McClary 1989; McClary 1991. Music scholars like to say that if musicology woke from its positivistic slumber in the 1990s and proceeded to connect music with its political context, it might be claimed that ethnomusicologists had been doing contextual work all along. On the one hand, this narrative vis-à-vis musicology’s previous deafness to contextualism obscures more than it reveals: Joseph Kerman advocated contextual analysis already in 1980, and it is not difficult to find even earlier precedents. (See, e.g., the work of Paul Henry Lang and Nino Pirrotta— not to mention the uneasy position of Theodor Adorno within New Musicological writings.) More importantly for this book, however, I argue that ethnomusicology has too often assumed an unproblematic relationship between music and society and has largely ignored debates in the subdisciplines of musicology and music theory— debates that have, by political and intellectual necessity, responded to the tremendous weight of nineteenth-century aesthetic theory and Romanticism. One of the themes that runs through this book is that musicology in the 1990s broached a number of important questions but then quickly answered those questions in a way that precluded other possibilities. If the reader senses a polemical tone in this book, then, it is only because I feel that these questions should remain questions and should not be foreclosed. 13. Bourdieu’s Distinction was originally published in French in 1979 as La distinction. Stated in far-too-simple terms, I would place Bourdieu’s argument in the context of a larger critical tradition that seeks to unveil or unmask the “truth” behind power relations. (Paul Ricoeur famously called this tradition the “hermeneutics of suspicion.”) 14. For a direct application of Bourdieu’s ideas on social distinction, see Born

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15. 16. 17.

18.

19. 20. 21. 22.

23.

1995; Miles 1997. For claims about indirect influence on the work of Marcia Citron and Bruno Nettl, see Miles 1997, 740, 744. For an excellent survey and critique of Bourdieu’s impact on many fields of thought, see the n+1 editorial “Too Much Sociology” (Spring 2013), http://nplusonemag.com/too-much -sociology (accessed April 5, 2015). McClary 2000, 5–6. McClary places all such formations under the rubric of “conventional wisdom.” See Hanslick (1854) 1891 on women (101) and savages (130, 134, 146–47). Graeber also illustrates how Bourdieu’s commitment to the idea that people are always self-interested caused Bourdieu to make some very dubious ethnographic claims about Kabyle society in Algeria. Finding that certain activities in Kabyle society are seemingly not economically “rational,” Bourdieu goes on to discover (or at least to think that he has discovered) an objective rationality beneath the seeming irrationality. Graeber comments that for Bourdieu “the motives of the [gift] giver are unimportant. You might be a kind and decent person motivated only by the desire to help a friend, but objectively that does not matter, because in the overall structure of the situation, gifts are always part of a game of dominance, an attempt to accumulate symbolic capital and gain an advantage over the other party” (2001, 29). Finally, Graeber suspects that Bourdieu’s outlook “emerges from a flaw in the very project of critical theory.” Observing that the primary aim of critical theory in the 1960s and 1970s was to unmask hidden structures of domination, he suggests that although hidden structures may in fact exist and be discoverable, “if this is all one is looking for, one soon ends up with a rather jaundiced picture of social reality” (30, emphasis in original). Note that in French there are two words for “knowledge” and that the word savoir (which means something like “know-how”) has different connotations from connaître (which implies a more theoretical type of knowledge). (See the first translator’s note in Rancière 2006.) Nonetheless, it is curious that Rancière insists on precisely two types of knowledge. After all, why could there not be three or four or one hundred? It seems to me that Rancière’s important lesson is less that knowledge is double than that it is multiple. House music was pioneered by gay African American DJs and producers in Chicago in the early 1980s. I discuss this genre at length in chapter 2. For an excellent account of kwaito and bodily/sexual pleasure, see Coplan 2005, 2008 (esp. chap. 9). DJ Sox (Mbusi Sokhela) in an interview on Jozi FM in 2009. Rancière 2009a, 23. Rancière actually speaks of “art” more generally, and not only of music. For him, art and aesthetics are both historically constituted distributions of the sensible. In general, he understands “music” as a specific case of “art.” For his views on music in particular, see Rancière 2002. See also Moreno and Steingo (2012) for a discussion of Rancière and music, and see Sykes (2013) for an ethnomusicological adaption of Rancière’s ideas. Rancière 2009a, 23, translation modified after Ferris 2009, 43.

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24. This “obsession” is evident in hip-hop discourse, in which hip-hop “headz” (i.e., devotees) sometimes view kwaito as a form of “watered-down” hip-hop that lacks a message. For example, an author writes about the prominent rapper Flabba before and after the success of his group Skwatta Kamp: “Those who heard Flabba before Skwatta got signed say they’re convinced that his lyrics are now watered down. Headz have often accused the rapper and his crew of selling out. Some have gone as far as to accuse the MCs of not being hip hop anymore. It’s clear that he’s not impressed by headz who say his album is kwaito” (Moiloa 2007, 36). 25. Nicholas Cook (2001, 172) attributes New Musicology’s interpretive procedure to an adoption of “Freudian psychoanalysis, with its latent sexual meaning.” 26. On this point, we find an unexpected parallel between the work of Rancière and of Bruno Latour, who writes: “We have to resist the idea that there exists somewhere a dictionary where all the variegated words of the actors can be translated into the few words of the social vocabulary.” I find the question that he then asks quite inspiring: “Will we have the courage not to substitute an unknown expression for a well-known one?” (Latour 2005, 48, emphasis in original). For an excellent musical application and critique of actornetwork theory, see Piekut 2011, 2014. 27. This is not to deny the continued existence of claims regarding music’s “utopian” capacities. For example, Ernst Bloch’s writings about music and utopianism remain influential in certain circles. See Bloch 1986; Gallope 2012. Also relevant is José Muñoz (2009), who draws on Bloch in his influential work on utopianism in queer performance. The work of these authors is not necessarily incommensurable with my own. Nonetheless, it seems to me that if the notion of “utopianism” is to have any meaning at all in music studies, one must necessarily “pass through” the various critiques of aesthetic autonomy. Without seriously engaging and, in a sense, “overcoming” these critiques, one lapses too easily into a reactionary position. 28. Kabelo Mabalane, interview with the author ( Johannesburg, 2009). Although I will usually refer to authors and musicians by their last names (as is customary in academic writing), I make exceptions in cases where a musician is known by his or her first name to fans. Thus, in what follows I refer to Kabelo Mabalane as “Kabelo” and not as “Mabalane.” 29. Notice, though, that Kabelo does not speak about seeing the “truth” underneath what “seems to be real but isn’t.” Instead, he only talks about shifting people’s “focus” to another scene. 30. The musicians I worked with in Soweto often expressed the sentiment that music generates hope. For example, a nonprofessional kwaito producer in Soweto told me plainly: “Music gives us hope and inspiration for a better future.” 31. On kwaito and South African democracy, see Impey 2001; Peterson 2003; Allen 2004. 32. In certain African contexts, this democratic principle is undermined by the

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figure of the autocrat, whose sovereign body assumes almost mystical proportions. As Mbembe (2001, 103) observes, “In the postcolony, the commandement seeks to institutionalize itself to achieve legitimation and hegemony, in the form of a fetish.” (A fetish, in his account, is “an object that aspires to be made sacred” [111].) There is a sense in which certain political figures in contemporary South Africa have become fetishized, thus eroding the anarchical principle of democracy and immobilizing insurrection. But I do not think that this situation has obliterated democracy in South Africa, at least not yet. There, power is too fragile, too contingent, contested. Neither Jacob Zuma nor Julius Malema— to mention two obvious examples— are autocrats in Mbembe’s sense of being “non-localized universal presence[s]” (153). Mbembe borrows the term “omniprésence illocalisée” from Deleuze and Guattari. While A. M. Berrett renders it “non-localized universal presence” in his English translation of chapter 4 of On the Postcolony, Brian Massumi translates the same term more literally as “unlocalized omnipresence” (see Deleuze and Guattari 1987, 115). Zuma and Malema are voted against and disputed. Tomorrow, things may be different, but at the time of writing, South Africa is democratic in the formal sense that I have described. I thank Lindelwa Dalamba for reminding me of this important point regarding autocrats. 33. On democracy as an “anarchical principle,” see Rancière 2009c, 277. 34. Mark Hunter notes that according to many young people in South Africa, rights are gained through democracy and are the “cornerstone of postapartheid personhood.” He observes, moreover, that people employ rights in “creative ways,” “blend[ing] discourses of liberal rights with wider moral claims about what is ‘right.’” See Hunter 2010, 199, 131. 35. Shireen Ally (2009, 187–90) observes a tension in the history of domestic labor in South Africa surrounding the politics of “rights.” She observes that although the politics of rights has at times “provide[d] protection that allowed workers to disrupt the sedimented forms of power in the relationships with their employers,” the “rights-based approach also arguably represented a conservative (i.e., status quo–maintaining) politics that constrained the politics of a more radical overturning of paid domestic workers as a reproducing class.” As Ally notes, scholars such as John Comaroff (1995, 234) have even showed the “ways in which the colonial project in South Africa was accomplished through the ‘discourse of rights’ and . . . that— despite its contradictions and paradoxes—[this discourse] is redeployed as a primary technology of the state post-apartheid.” Ally fairly assesses the work of both those who are critical of rights-based approaches (such as Comaroff ) and those who advocate such approaches and seems, ultimately, to side with the former, skeptical position. Indeed, skepticism toward rights-based politics is fairly standard in academic, left-leaning scholarship. Her position, crudely stated, is essentially that domestic workers have largely employed the notion of “rights” within their position as domestic workers and have not taken the steps toward a more “radical redistribution of care.” While I do not doubt the

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accuracy of this observation historically and empirically, I nevertheless do not agree that (as Ally seems to suggest) this implies a limitation of rightsbased politics de natura. In my view (which is based partly on Balibar’s [2008] redeployment of Arendt’s notion of the “right to have rights”), rights simply refer to one mechanism through which political subjects make themselves “count” as part of a political community. 36. The quotation from Sade is from La philosophie dans le boudoir (1975). In the English translation by Seaver and Wainhouse, we read: “The Greek lawgivers perfectly appreciated the capital necessity of corrupting the membercitizens in order that, their moral dissolution coming into conflict with the establishment and its values, there would result the insurrection that is always indispensible to a political system of perfect happiness which, like republican government, must necessarily excite the hatred and envy of all its foreign neighbors. Insurrection, thought these sage legislators, is not at all a moral condition; however, it has got to be a republic’s permanent condition” (Sade 1990, 315, emphases in original). 37. Balibar (1994, 46–47) proposes, “in a voluntarily baroque turn of phrase, the proposition of equaliberty: a portmanteau word that is ‘impossible’ in French (and English) but that alone expresses the central proposition” (emphasis in original). 38. See Rancière 2004b, 52. Elsewhere, Rancière (1999, 33) writes: “Equality is not a given that politics then presses into service, an essence embodied in the law or a goal politics sets itself the task of attaining.” 39. I take this notion of political experimentalism from Balibar. Elucidating the “proposition of equaliberty” (i.e., the proposition that there is no liberty without equality and no equality without liberty), he writes that “the reasoning underlying the proposition of equaliberty (E = F) is not essentialist. It is not based on the intuitive discovery or revelation of an identity of the ideas of equality and freedom. What it is based on is the historical discovery, which can legitimately be called experimental, that their extensions are necessarily identical. To put it plainly, the situations in which both are either present or absent are necessarily the same.” Balibar is aware of the possible criticisms one could level at his proposition. He writes: “You will say to me: where is the proof? Since it is an issue of a universal truth in this sense (an a posteriori universal, or better, a historical universal), the proof can only be negative, but it can be carried out at any moment, in situations as diverse as can be desired. If it is absolutely true that equality is practically identical with freedom, this means that it is materially impossible for it to be otherwise, in other words, it means that they are necessarily always contradicted together.” See Balibar 1994, 48, emphasis in original in all places other than the phrase “which can legitimately be called experimental,” which is my own emphasis. I do not mean to suggest, however, that Rancière’s, Badiou’s, and Balibar’s positions are the same. On the contrary, their differences are well known. In this book, I retain only the nonfoundational nature of their political theories and attempt to

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40.

41.

42.

43.

44.

45.

46.

47.

elucidate the ways in which South African musicians “determine” or “discern” equality (or equaliberty) experimentally through practice. To provide just one example from the history of anti-apartheid activism, the 1955 Freedom Charter mentions equality repeatedly (see the epilogue of this book for a further discussion). Kant ([1790] 2007, 297) already suggested that freedom is a “rational Idea”— that is to say, an Idea susceptible neither to presentation nor to intuition and whose existence cannot therefore be proved theoretically. Furthermore, Kant considered freedom the only rational Idea that is simply a fact. In what way is freedom a fact? It is so, says Kant, because we experience it. The fact of freedom, therefore, is “‘established’ without any establishing procedure being able to produce this fact as a theoretical object” (Nancy 2008, 31). This book reconfigures aesthetics from below. It argues that questions of aesthetics, equality, and even universality can indeed be meaningfully broached (and not simply dismissed as Eurocentric), but I argue that this move is most effective when approached from the perspective of the Global South. In saying this, I join a number of contemporary scholars, including Susan BuckMorss (2009) and Gayatri Spivak (especially in her recent work; see Spivak 2012). For a very different but equally stimulating recent take on Kantian aesthetics, see Shaviro 2009. Kant actually formulates the question in the following way: “If anyone asks me whether I consider that the palace I see before me is beautiful . . .” He then continues to suggest several possible answers (all of which are admittedly completely Eurocentric and quite problematic). See Kant (1790) 2007, 36–37. Rancière has quoted this passage countless times throughout his career. For a brief discussion of how the passage evolved in his work, see Moreno and Steingo 2012, 496–97. Elsewhere, Rancière (2011, 71–72) writes: “The divorce between the laboring arms and the distracted gaze introduces the body of a worker into a new configuration of the sensible; it overthrows the ‘right’ relationship between what a body ‘can’ do and what it cannot.” And as he makes clear, “the possibility of a ‘voice of the workers’ was conditional upon disqualification of a certain worker’s body.” Bernstein (1992, 54) is more precise: “The specificity of the aesthetic turns, then, on the fact that in this domain we are both intrinsically rational and sensible, in a manner that is not the case in categorical cognition through the understanding of reason.” And also: “[A]esthetic judgment . . . does disturb the logical and peaceful duality of knowledge and morality” (44). He states on the following page: “But such a common sense does not now exist, or exists only as a memory; but in so far as ‘we’ remember it (in virtue of serious participation in aesthetic discourse and practice), judge through it, it does exist” (Bernstein 1992, 61). Although I do not necessarily agree with his conclusions, Anthony Perman’s (2011) brief history of how ethnomusicologists have dealt with aesthetics

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48.

49. 50. 51.

52. 53. 54. 55. 56.

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is helpful. As Perman suggests, ethnomusicologists have— from the very beginning— been hostile to aesthetic theory even though they have often redeployed it quite differently from how it has been used in the West. Christopher Waterman (1991, 177–78) likewise appears to advocate a more “inclusive” concept of aesthetics that incorporates a range of values (for a text that reaches in a different direction, see C. Waterman 2002). I see this book as continuing the work of scholars like Perman and Waterman, although I make a stronger case for aesthetics. There is of course a sense in which arguing for a more inclusive notion of aesthetics tied to other values (such as moral values) roundly contradicts the basic premise of Kantian aesthetics as an autonomous domain of experience. For a discussion and critique of this idea, see Ebron 2002, 45–47. Scholars often attempt to bolster their claim that music does not exist in Africa by pointing out that in many African languages there is no word for “music.” For a more general discussion of “music” as a problematic cross-cultural category, see Merriam 1977, 1982; Stone 1998. For critiques of this notion, see Agawu 2003, 21; Burns 2009, 2. See Rancière 2009a, 35, after Kant. Here, I am roughly following Derrida’s important text on Mandela. See Derrida 1987a (esp. 25ff.). My position is essentially Rancièrian, even if I depart from him on certain points. Rancière famously broke with his mentor, the renowned Marxist theorist Louis Althusser, and developed an alternative theory of knowledge and power. For an excellent historical perspective on Althusser’s thought, see Montag 2013. For a recent and pithy theorization of music and African aesthetics, see Mbembe 2015. See Hirschkind 2006, 217n22, for the reference to Rancière. Other relevant texts (some of which I engage in later chapters) include Abbate 2004; Demers 2010; Moreno 2013; Piekut 2011, 2014; Shank 2014. Balibar was also a student of Althusser but, unlike Rancière, remains committed to Althusser’s project. As such, my work joins a growing body of literature on music, sound, and sensory perception. For an excellent account of this literature, see Porcello et al. 2010. It is also useful to note briefly how the “distribution of the sensible” relates to the more common concept of “context.” In recent years, there has been an increasing dissatisfaction with using “context” as an analytic. This dissatisfaction has been voiced primarily by actor-network theorists and certain materialists (such as Manuel DeLanda [2006]) who view the concept as a reified generality that lacks explanatory power. For the purposes of this book, “context” is taken to mean a particular distribution of the sensible. Any distribution or partitioning of the sensible is “aesthetic” in the broad Kantian sense (broader, that is, than the sense of aesthetics as it relates to music or art) of an organization of forms that determine what is

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57.

58.

59.

60.

61. 62.

63.

64.

able to appear to the senses. In contrast to Kant, however, the aesthetic divisions of sensibility are not a priori; instead, they are always contingent. This is a Kantian notion of aesthetics rerouted through Foucault (Rancière 2004b, 13). As such, aesthetics refers to the conditions of possibility at any given historical moment. But these conditions are not, as they are in Foucault, those of an entire society (Rancière 2004b, 50). Instead, they refer to what a given “party” can see, hear, say, or know, and they also refer to the interrelation between seeing, hearing, saying, and knowing. The French word partage has the double meaning of “sharing” and “partitioning.” This relates to the conflict I have described between equality and inequality inherent in democratic politics. As guitarist for the band Tripping Billy between 1996 and 1999, I performed frequently at clubs in the Johannesburg area, my music was played on national radio, and I was interviewed on both national radio and national television. I was a member of the Johannesburg Youth Jazz Orchestra and performed at the National Festival of the Arts in 2000. I have also performed with many Afro-pop and electronic musicians over the years. Neighborhoods are considered “deep,” first, because of their distance from Johannesburg and, second, because they are poorer than some parts of Soweto, such as Diepkloof Extension, which in recent years has become increasingly middle class. Kwaito scholars have largely neglected this essential aspect of research. For notable exceptions, see Allen 2004; Stanley-Niaah 2008, 2010. The extent to which many scholars of kwaito simply “interpret” songs, music videos, and other cultural products without any dialogue with the people creating (or interacting with) those products is troubling indeed. See Muller and Benjamin 2011; Kisliuk 1998. Waterman (2002, 19) actually frames this particular essay as a critique of identity, focusing on how the concept of identity serves as an “analytical lynchpin between music and culture.” This point is not lost on South African musicians. For example, when I asked the prominent rapper Tumi Molekane, “What do you see as your main role as a musician in society?” he responded (with full awareness of the implications and connotations of my question): “To make music. Painters paint. Writers write. I make music” (personal communication with the author, April 14, 2015). As such, this book takes up Agawu’s (2003) call for a future-oriented study of African music.

CHAPTEr TwO

1. 2.

Schiller (1794) 1901, 35, translation modified. Officially, this was Botha’s address to the National Party’s Natal Congress. The speech can be found at Politics Web, http://www.politicsweb.co.za

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3.

4. 5. 6. 7.

8. 9.

10.

11.

12. 13. 14.

15.

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/politicsweb/action/media/downloadFile?media_fileid=1065 (accessed April 7, 2015). See Hall 1997, 4. I have slightly altered the printed text (a transcription from Hall’s talk), which reads somewhat awkwardly: “None of us could come here for twenty— thirty years— . . .” Derrida was a Sephardic Jew born in Algiers. See Derrida 2002b, 103. See also the exchange that ensued, after Derrida’s initial provocation, in McClintock and Nixon 1986 and Derrida 1986. “Groot Krokodil” (or “Big Crocodile”) was a nickname for Botha. He was bequeathed this name because of his uncompromising political positions. The notion of “making die” resembles what Michel Foucault called sovereignty (in opposition to modern biopower). Morris (2008a, 110) comments that for Foucault the “biopolitical supplants a system in which sovereign power demonstrates itself as the capacity to distribute death. In South Africa, such an epistemology and its attendant procedures of corporeal rationalization were implemented only partially, and primarily for white populations.” Indeed, Foucault’s ideas about power and life do not always apply to the South African context, and it is worthwhile noting that when he spoke of the racial state in the late 1970s, Foucault “had not a word for South Africa, the era’s only example of ‘actually existing’ legal segregation” (Mbembe 2011b, 89). Glaser 1998, 316. I have modified Glaser’s translation of the Zulu slightly. The song was dedicated to Steve Biko (1946–77), pioneer of South Africa’s Black Consciousness movement. On the Peter Gabriel song, see Drewett 2007. Bophuthatswana was often referred to as an “independent state” in propagandistic literature of the time. For example, white Afrikaans author Andries Botha (1978, 3) wrote in the Mafikeng Mail: “They don’t know exactly where they come from, but the people of Bophuthatswana sure know where they are going— especially since December 6, 1977, when they became Africa’s fifty-third independent state.” While Bophuthatswana (the Tswana “homeland”), Venda (the Venda “homeland”), and Ciskei and Transkei (both “homelands” for speakers of Xhosa) were considered fully independent by the apartheid state, others (such as Lebowa and QwaQwa) were considered only partially autonomous. In reality, of course, none of the homelands were independent at all. For a more nuanced position, see J. Ferguson 2006, esp. chap. 2. Peter Gabriel, Ringo Starr, Miles Davis, Ray Baretto, Herbie Hancock, Keith Richards, and Bono are some of the musicians featured on the album. It is worth noting that Crocker always insisted that constructive engagement was meant to apply to the entire region of southern Africa, and not only South Africa. In a 1982 vote at the UN General Assembly on whether to grant South Africa a massive International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan, the three “rogues” were

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16.

17. 18.

19.

20.

21.

alone in their vote— “yes”— against 121 countries (Davies 2007, 36). Things came to a head in July 1986, when Reagan delivered a speech on the status of US–South African relations. (This 1986 “World Affairs Council Speech” was reissued in 2010 by the National Archives and Records Administration.) Although Reagan noted that “[t]ime is running out for the moderates of all races in South Africa,” he nonetheless concluded the speech by affirming the same patient transition that Botha had advocated in his Rubicon address the previous year. But in the American context Reagan found himself very much alone: shortly after delivering the speech, he was forced to veto a new sanctions measure passed by a Democrat-controlled House of Representatives, and this veto was promptly overridden by Congress. Davies (2007, 48) comments: “In October 1986 the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act (CAAA) was passed into law, representing one of the worst foreign policy defeats the Reagan administration would experience.” When the Nationalist government finally decided to negotiate a settlement, they communicated almost exclusively with exiles and “Robben Islanders,” completely sidelining the “inziles” (i.e., activists who never left the country). Broadcasters were often trained in the Eastern Bloc, for example, at the Lenin Party School in the USSR. See Moisa, Riddle, and Zaffiro 1994, 8. Although the station encouraged letters from listeners, it received only two or three per month, primarily because most of the correspondence was intercepted by the South African government. See ibid., 8–9. Meintjes (2003, 60) comments: “Mbaqanga [a type of music broadcast on Radio Bantu] of this era came to fit perfectly— or almost perfectly— with SABC regulations. It generally stuck to a single language for each song, its lyrics were mostly without direct reference to the political milieu, and it was widely popular among black South Africans.” As Tomaselli and Tomaselli (2001, 96) comment: “Most of the content of Radio Bantu is aimed at the maintenance and, in fact, the renaissance and redefinition of traditional tribal values and social institutions, especially in the homelands.” House music was pioneered by gay African American DJs and producers in Chicago in the early 1980s. The name “house” was derived from a Chicago dance club called The Warehouse (see Brewster and Broughton 1999, 314–15). Producers such as Frankie Knuckles (Francis Nicholls), Ron Hardy, and Mr. Fingers (Larry Heard) created entirely electronic pieces that resembled disco and funk. Using newly available commercial synthesizers, house musicians produced long, repetitive “tracks” that often consisted of a simple four-bar phrase repeated for ten minutes or more. These tracks were either purely electronic or layered vocals onto the electronic substrate. Although house music originated in Chicago, it quickly spread to Detroit, New York, Miami, London, and Paris, among other places. For a detailed history of house music, see ibid., esp. chap. 11. Like kwaito, although for very different reasons, house music was associated with freedom: “In Chicago, as the seventies became

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22.

23.

24.

25.

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eighties, if you were black and gay your church may well have been Frankie Knuckle’s Warehouse; a three-story factory building in the city’s desolate west side industrial zone. Offering hope and salvation to those who had few other places to go, here you could forget your earthly troubles and escape to a better place. Like church, it promised freedom, and not even in the next life. In this club Frankie Knuckles took his congregation on journeys of redemption and discovery” (ibid., 312). A writer for YMag says about Christos: “In a country where race identity is such an unvarying nail through the hand— unfounded generalizations acknowledged— there are few rationales that would make black people be so cool with a white person as to break bread with him. Unless of course they believe he has scrupulously contributed to the shove of the black community. This is not only true of DJ Christos but, further than that, we are so protective of him it almost seems we have built an asylum around him— like a billion-rand mantle. All things considered, he is that valued to us” (K. Vilakazi 2007, 43). Another important figure is Tim White, a white South African who cofounded the label House Afrika (specializing in DJ compilations), along with Vinny Da Vinci, Graeme Hector, and Dana White, in the mid-1990s. According to a journalist for YMag, White “started off his empire selling music from the boot [i.e., trunk] of his car, after an air hostess friend of his used to regularly bring him tunes from overseas.” And according to White, who is quoted in the YMag piece: “I’d been in the vinyl business since 1988 and selling music to a certain group of dedicated individuals, and then suddenly along came Yfm which played all this underground house music which nobody was playing on radio at the time. People started asking where they could get it.” See Mtsali 2002, 52. In the mid- and late 1990s, white DJs like Christos and Tim White moved between house/kwaito bashes in the black townships and raves in the north of Johannesburg (attended mostly by whites). The history of the relationship between kwaito and rave culture in South Africa remains to be written, but K. Sello Duiker offers one provocative clue in his novel, The Quiet Violence of Dreams (2001, 34): “The people I know never forget that in essence the difference between kwaito and rave is down to a difference in beats per minute and that the margin is becoming narrower.” On raves, whiteness, and Afrikanerdom in post-apartheid South Africa, see Marlin-Curiel 2001. Mark Butler (2006, 33) writes: “The tradition of DJing practiced in EDM [i.e., electronic dance music] involves more than simply playing other people’s records; rather, the DJ selects, combines, and manipulates different parts of the records into new compositions that differ substantially from their source materials. In general, the exact course of a DJ’s performance is not predetermined, instead developing according to the demands of a specific situation, through interaction with a dancing audience.” See Vinny interviewed on the short video produced by Red Bull, http://www .youtube.com/watch?v=oHbeZrZCYZA (accessed April 6, 2015).

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26. Ganyani did not actually import house tracks from overseas. As I will discuss below, he purchased house tracks from collectors in the Pretoria and Johannesburg areas. 27. The quotations from Ganyani in this section are from an interview with the author conducted in Soweto in 2009. I will refer to him as “Ganyani” and not by his last name, Tshabalala, because he is known by most as “DJ Ganyani.” 28. Brett Pyper describes a similar network of music stores in his account of jazz listening and sociality in South Africa. He describes “a small CD shop in a suburban mall in Silverton owned by an Afrikaans schoolteacher [that] for several years serviced the network of jazz clubs in [the nearby township of ] Mamelodi” (2014, 119). 29. To get to Silverton, he needed to first travel to Park Station in the city center, then on to Pretoria, and finally to Silverton. Because there was no direct taxi from Silverton back to Pretoria at that time, he was required to take four different taxis to get back home. 30. The term “vinyl” is often used by DJs of electronic dance music and is part of an insider discourse. 31. There is a small but important body of ethnomusicology literature on cassette tape distribution and manufacture. See Manuel’s Cassette Culture (1993) and Bosch’s (2008) discussion of cassette distribution in Cape Town in the 1980s. 32. Mabena was given a slot on Radio Bop when he was only nineteen years old. He had no formal training. Mabena says of the experience: “Radio Bop was a training ground. I don’t think you still get radio stations giving training like they did. You could never do your prime-time slot until they’d grilled you. I got lucky because some guy did something that lost him the job. I was there and I was given the afternoon drive slot. I trained on the job” (Majoro 2007). 33. Mafikeng was officially renamed Mahikeng in 2010 but most residents continue to call the town Mafikeng. The relationship between Mmabatho and Mafikeng/Mahikeng is also more complicated than I have indicated. In fact, Mmabatho was the capital of the former Bantustan Bophuthatswana, and following the democratic transition of the mid-1990s, the adjoining town of Mafikeng was named the capital of the newly formed Northwest Province. 34. Stoan Seate, interview with the author ( Johannesburg, 2009). All subsequent quotations from Stoan are from this interview. 35. See the film Vuma (Moloi and Maake 2009). 36. Stoan refers to Tseko Mogotsi, who performed at several international gymnastic events. 37. The speech was published in Mangope 1988 (the quoted passage is on p. 63). 38. Nonetheless, when Bop TV insisted on broadcasting material not vetted by the state, the “South African Government retaliated by refusing BOP-TV the facilities to transmit their programmes to the whole of the Witwatersrand. The SABC uses a directional aerial to beam BOP-TV to selected areas where Bophuthatswana ‘Nationals’ are known to reside” (Tomaselli and Tomaselli

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39.

40. 41. 42.

43.

44.

45.

46. 47.

48.

49. 50.

51.

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2001, 95–96). This resulted in the loss of many wealthy (white) viewers and thus of advertising revenue. Meintjes (2003, 79) reports that “Bophuthatswana had a superb R54 million (U.S. 17.8 million) studio complex.” Until 1991, “[i]t was the newest in the country and unrivaled in terms of acoustic design and electronic sophistication.” M-Net was launched in 1986 and has expanded steadily throughout Africa since. “From Hot Homeland Station” 2007. It seems likely that the reception of Bop Radio in Soweto also had to do with the apartheid government making particular allowances in much the same way as it did for Bop TV. Louie Vega (Luis Fernando Vager), interview with the author (New York, 2008). It is often said that house music is “mainstream” in South Africa (unlike in Europe and the United States, where it is marginal or “underground”). See, e.g., Thomas 2010. This is not to say that by mediating African American music Singana’s music erased race. Instead, the ability for her music to “cross over” to white audiences resembled a similar cultural dynamic in the United States: namely, the way that black music was positioned as “a powerful and urgent cultural force because it served to heighten both the specificity of racial difference and the interruption of that difference” (Radano 2003, 257). For a brief but acute summary of this kind of music, see Meintjes 2003, 154. For a longer discussion of “bubblegum,” both in South Africa and in the “West,” see Steingo 2008a. For an informative history of bubblegum in the Global North, see Cafarelli 2001. See the documentary African Wave (Bowey 1998), my emphasis. One common explanation is that the term is derived from the name of a gang, the amaKwaito. (Since ama- is a plural prefix in Zulu [for noun class six], “amaKwaito” would mean simply “Kwaitos.”) Although this explanation is plausible, I have seen very little actual historical evidence to support it. Arthur Mafokate, interview with the author ( Johannesburg, 2009). All subsequent quotations from Mafokate are from this interview. See Mafokate (2002–3) for a more general statement about his role in the history of kwaito music. Satyo 2001, 139. Satyo’s account is slightly skewed, however, since the word kwaai can have the same resonances of “cool” or “hot” in Afrikaans. Satyo (ibid.) suggests that the suffix of “kwaito” is a recycled form of the Nguni -to, the root indicating a “thing.” For a slightly different interpretation, see Satyo 2008. The Jamaican sound system phenomenon seems to have been well known to South Africans in the early 1980s, as several articles and reviews in the magazine Staffrider suggest. See, e.g., Chapman 1980–81; Owaziyo 1982. For useful

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52.

53.

54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59.

60.

61. 62.

63.

discussions of “versioning” in Jamaican music, see Manuel and Marshall 2006; Veal 2007. It seems that in most cases the production process involved two steps, in which a house-inspired “track” was created first and then lyrics were added later. A particularly interesting example of this is Chiskop’s first album. Chiskop was an early kwaito group managed by Arthur Mafokate and included the well-known Mandoza. The instrumental tracks for Chiskop were created by Gabi Le Roux, a well-known (white) composer and arranger based in Cape Town. For Chiskop’s first album, Le Roux made the backing tracks and sent them up to Johannesburg on physical tape format. In Johannesburg, the members of Chiskop composed lyrics for the tracks and turned them into “songs.” Mandoza (Mduduzi Tshabalala), interview with the author ( Johannesburg, 2009). Stephens (2001, 260) similarly argues: “The new availability of music technology and mobile formats opens up possibilities for the informal production of music, which threatens previous industrial methods. In using computers and digital technology, there is no need for highly skilled technicians and engineers.” In what follows, I show that both Magubane and Stephens are affirming common perceptions about contemporary music production that are not, however, appropriate in the case of kwaito. In his excellent book Making Beats (2004), Joseph Schloss debunks a similar set of assumptions regarding hip-hop in the United States. Zynne Sibika, telephone interview with the author (2009). During apartheid, Afrikaners were generally considered more conservative than English-speaking white South Africans. Zwai Bala, interview with the author ( Johannesburg, 2009). All subsequent quotations from Zwai are from this interview. Kaffir is a derogatory term for a black person. In his famous essay “The Rediscovery of the Ordinary,” Ndebele (1986, 145) refers at one point to writing that describes the “brutality of the Boer” and the “phenomenal hypocrisy of the English speaking liberal.” In South African English, the letter z is usually pronounced “zed.” The name TKZee, then, at once indicates the pronunciation of z as “zee” and gestures toward a form of US-oriented cosmopolitanism. Kabelo Mabalane, interview with the author ( Johannesburg, 2009). See also Kabelo’s informative interview with Baffoe (2009). Of course, my description of US-produced house music is reductive. I am referring mainly to the house music that black South African musicians listened to in the early 1990s. It is possible, nonetheless, to compare this type of kwaito vocal delivery with what Krims (2000, 49–50) identifies as the “‘sung’ rhythmic style” of “old-school” rap. According to Krims, there are two other main styles of flow in rap, which he calls “percussive-effusive” and “speech-effusive.” Unlike the “sung” style, in the latter two styles there is a tendency to “spill over the

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64.

65. 66. 67. 68.

69.

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rhythmic boundaries of the meter, the couplet, and, for that matter, of duple and quadruple groupings in general.” It is important to note, however, that by sung style Krims is referring to the rhythmic flow and not the pitch content of vocal delivery. It is important to note, however, that kwaito vocalists do not always emphasize the penultimate syllable, and it is a mistake to believe that speech prosody determines musical prosody. When a vocalist sings in accordance with speech patterns, he or she is making an aesthetic decision, and this decision could easily have been otherwise. Zola is a township of Soweto. “Mazola” means “the one from Zola” and refers to M’du himself. This statement was based on his personal experiences as a school student and aspiring musician in the 1980s in Soweto. Columbia Records developed the 33⅓ rpm record format for “long play” in 1948, and RCA Victor responded in 1949 with the 45 rpm format. Brewster and Broughton (1999, 307) write: “The word ‘garage’ is by far the most mangled term in the whole history of music. What we now call garage— most likely pronounced British-style as ‘garridge,’ and more helpfully called ‘UK garage’ (or previously ‘speed garage’), is a style that emerged when soulful house music was sped up a little and attached to skippy drum and bass-style rhythms and cavernous half-tempo basslines.” But to Larry Levan— childhood friend of Frankie Knuckles and longtime DJ at the New York dance club Paradise Garage— the word “garage” simply meant “New York house music” (307–8). When Levan used the term “garage,” he “was probably thinking about the kind of dubby electronic records he produced and championed at the Paradise Garage, just a small part of its broad playlist. In the UK the term was seized on as a way of marketing compilations of New York dance music, a way of separating the city’s output from Chicago house and Detroit techno” (308). In other words, “garage” was a term used in the United Kingdom for New York house music, and “speed garage” was a sped-up version. Brewster and Broughton observe that there are even further layers of complexity, since “the US garage sound doesn’t strictly come from New York. It was crystallised in the nearby city of Newark, New Jersey. So it is more accurately called ‘the Jersey sound’ and owes its emergence to the taste-making of DJ Tony Humphries” (308). In any event, it seems that South Africans like Ganyani were familiar only with UK speed garage and not with New York / New Jersey garage. For a further discussion of UK speed garage, see ibid., 467–72. DJ Pepsi (Nkululeko Mdlongwa), a well-known musician and younger brother of Oscar Mdlongwa, recalls: “There was a time that there was garage music and then they would slow it down. You know like when Glen Lewis [a South African house DJ] did his midtempo project. Was it garage? No, it was not garage. There was a UK sound for it— known for it. It was called . . . speed garage! Yes, speed garage. So then the guys would take it on 45 and

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70. 71.

72.

73. 74.

75. 76. 77.

they would drop it down to 33s. You know and that sound became big, too.” Interview with the author ( Johannesburg, 2009). A stokvel is a party or get-together associated with a rotating savings and credit association (ROSCA). For more on ROSCAs, see chapter 7. The expression “to dance without sweating” is quite common in Tanzania, for example. In the 1970s, the band Orchestra Maquis Original developed a style of music called kumanyola bila jasho, or “to dance kumanyola without sweating.” The phrase “to dance without sweating” has been used more recently by the musician King Kiki. Thanks to Alex Perullo for this helpful information (personal correspondence, June 5, 2014). See Steingo 2011. An entire social history deserves to be written about the relationship between music and sweat in Africa. For example, Steven Feld (2012a, 140) describes how the Ghanaian drummer Nii Otoo Annan considers sweat “a deep expression of the spiritual merger of a drummer and his drums, the workout libation that seals their bond. . . . Sweat, of course, indexes the energy and bodily engagement of work, the exhibition of its passion, its seriousness.” When Nii Otoo first saw images of the drummer Elvin Jones, he immediately noticed Jones’s sweat. Feld says that Nii Otoo interpreted Jones’s sweat as “a synaesthetic image of the bodily authenticity of the drummer’s spiritual transport.” Later, Feld remarks: “The sweat that captivated Nii Otoo in Jones’ playing indexed th[e] intersecting aesthetics of density and intensity” (142). As the example of Nii Otoo suggests, a history of music and sweat in Africa would extend to African diasporic contexts as well. Anthony Braxton (1985, 297) famously bemoaned the way that white critics exoticize black performers by focusing less on the “actual music” they play and more on “‘how’ the actual ‘doing’ of music looks.” Braxton referred to this emphasis on the spectacle of black bodies as the “reality of the sweating brow” (see also Steinbeck 2011). Another relevant example is presented by Soar (2001), who observes that in late twentieth-century US sports advertising black male bodies are circumscribed within either of the first two laws of thermodynamics: either they move effortlessly and endlessly, or else they violently halt after overexertion, sweating in entropic exhaustion. On dromology, see Virilio 2006. Pronouncements that kwaito is “dead” began already in 2005. It is very common, in the history of popular music, to pronounce genres dead: rock, jazz, hip-hop, and punk have all been pronounced dead many times by journalists over the years. See, e.g., the official script for Vuma (Moloi and Maake 2009). Zola 7 (Bonginkosi Dlamini), interview with the author ( Johannesburg, 2009). Zola 7 told me during an interview in 2009 that he is not a “kwaito artist” but simply an “artist.” And in a 2009 interview with Yvonne Chaka Chaka, she stated repeatedly that she makes only “music” and not a particular type of music. Of course, there are marketing reasons for such statements as well.

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78.

79. 80.

81.

82. 83.

84.

85.

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Rejecting the kwaito label, for example, avoids “pigeonholing” as well as some of kwaito’s negative connotations. Nonetheless, I maintain that the rejection of generic labels is not reducible to marketing or simple self-interest. This demystifying procedure was standardized by Pierre Bourdieu in his famous book Distinction (1984) and has been put to use countless times since by ethnomusicologists, although not always through direct reference to Bourdieu. Rancière 2011, 8. Note that this Rancièrian analysis has nothing whatsoever to do with some kind of “postmodern” breakdown of genres. I retain the gendered pronouns “she” for informant and “he” for ethnomusicologist, first, to avoid unnecessarily awkward sentences and, second, to bring out the implicit gendered power relations involved in a process where “he” teaches “her” the truth of what “she” believes. In a particularly useful and sensitive discussion of genre and music, Monson (1996, 101) notes: “The music that is labeled . . . is somehow the one that carries less prestige, the one that is considered less universal.” My aim in this book is not to deny the accuracy of this statement or the importance of Monson’s subsequent critique of universalism. Instead, my contention is that this is not the only way to think about music. My “polemical” argument in this book is that when musicians in Soweto reject labels, they are not (or, at least, not only) attempting to generate cultural capital. For more on this, see Moreno and Steingo 2012, 488. Kabelo’s comment also suggests the intimate link between listening to music and music production. As Novak (2008, 15–16) writes: “Listening is not the final link of a chain of musical transmission, but the very crucible of musical innovation.” When I asked one South African DJ friend if there is a correct way to hear music, he responded: “Music is connected with your soul or spirit. So your intellectual soul, mind, spirit automatically understands a soothing sound.” Another musician replied to the same question: “Dude! The first time I noticed a song! I was a young kid; I didn’t have any idea what were the instruments, how is the arrangement; most likely I sang the lyrics wrong too, so no! As long as you can find that thing that touches you within a song, whether it’s the instruments or lyrics, then you have a connection; that connection builds a memory; memories make the storyboard of your life.” Interestingly, this musician says that when he first started listening to music as a child, he probably got the lyrics “wrong.” But it is clear from his response that even mishearing lyrics is simply another way of hearing them— in other words, one only has to be “touched” by a song. Finally, Zwai Bala, a prominent kwaito musician and member of the group TKZee, told me, “Of course, there’s no correct way” to listen to music (personal correspondence with the author, July 24, 2013). For an astute critique of the “linguisticality of experience,” see DeLanda 2006.

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86. Rancière 2009a, 23, translation modified after Ferris 2009, 43. 87. Note that in the case that Novak analyzes it is a resolutely local form (or a least a form that is understood as such) that remains untranslated. 88. He actually says “art” and not “music.” I will not enter into those differences here. 89. Interestingly, the “outside” has not always been associated exclusively with black achievement and freedom. In the late nineteenth century, Zulus made a further distinction between forms of white power: on the one hand, there was “the power of the ‘outside,’ generalized as a source of goods and moral authority and personified by Queen Victoria,” and on the other hand, there was “the power of the ‘inside,’ generalized and experienced as a form of virulent racism” (Erlmann 1999, 228). CHAPTEr THrEE

1.

Vuma: A Music Revolution is a six-part documentary about Kalawa Jazmee that began airing on SABC 1 (a public-service channel of the South African Broadcasting Company) on December 1, 2009. The documentary was directed by Vincent Moloi and Norman Maake. The epigraph is taken from the opening of part 3 and is narrated by Tshepo “Stoan” Seate. 2. This term does have a longer history, however. See Meintjes’s (2003, 54, 55) discussion of Hamilton Nzimande’s “stable” and Mavuthela’s “stable.” 3. In a pamphlet-style survey of kwaito, Mohau Motloi (2007) defines kwaito (on the back-cover blurb) through the notion of the platform: “South Africa saw a cultural revolution in the early 90s when musicians started a genre called kwaito. Kwaito music was in a way a celebration of the political transformation taking place in South Africa. Kwaito music is a platform for young people to express themselves.” 4. As the narrator of Vuma (Moloi and Maake 2009). 5. As noted in the previous chapter, Serote (1990a, 22) suggested that the destruction of apartheid would mean “a re-entering of history by over twenty million people who are black.” 6. See Lenin 2004, 4. 7. On the “rediscovery of the ordinary,” see Ndebele 1986. 8. By “supernormal” I have in mind something along the lines of Fukasawa and Morrison’s (2007) design with everyday objects. My focus, however, is of course how the supernormal functions in post-apartheid South Africa. 9. In Vuma (Moloi and Maake 2009). 10. Rancière 2010, 156. Boloka (2003, 106) comments: “The evolution of kwaito marks the dawn of a democratic era bringing with it freedom of expression. When musicians blend and borrow tradition and lyrics, they do that on their own, without fear of incarceration. So various sounds of popular music consumed in South Africa have to be interpreted within the freedom of expression paradigm.”

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11.

Note that “Warona” (which means “ours” in Sotho) is actually a nickname for Oscar Mdlongwa. 12. Katsaitis remains a popular DJ and producer in South Africa. With Oscar Mdlongwa, Vinny Da Vinci (Vincent Motshegoa), DJ Fresh (Thato Sikwane), and Greg Maloka, he cofounded the organization DJU (Deejays Unite) and established the annual South African Music Conference (SAMC) in 2005. According to the DJU website, “The conference is more than a talk shop for deejays & producers, it is a critical platform for Southern African dance music industry practitioners to keep pace with, and eventually lead global developments. The SAMC is aimed at attracting delegates that are either involved or interested in the music industry as deejays, producers, performers, writers, promoters and so on. It is the only developmental platform for the music industry in Southern Africa influenced by dance music.” 13. Laka was born in Mamelodi township just outside Pretoria (see fig. 1.1). He recorded for the first time in 1972, in a band that featured Ray Phiri on guitar. He had intended to study music at the University of Pretoria after completing high school, but the institution rejected his application because he is black. After the university rejected his application, he was forced to take a job as a clerk at a grocery store between 1980 and 1981. As demeaning as the job was, he recalls vividly the awe he felt on seeing a computer in the store’s back room and his realization, at that moment, that he had an intense love of technology. (Years later a musicians’ union would attempt to ban him because he so strongly advocated music technologies, which, the unionists believed, would replace professional musicians.) In the early 1980s, he began playing in Sakhile and with that band shared the stage with many famous South African musicians and groups, including Brenda Fassie, Sipho “Hotstix” Mabuse, and Sankomota. In the same decade, he additionally performed in a number of other bands, including Oneness and Image (sometimes also spelled Ymage). Laka cofounded Kalawa Records in the early 1990s. During the same period he wrote orchestral arrangements for singer Sibongile Khumalo, and these arrangements were performed by the National Symphony Orchestra of South Africa. Since about 2008, he has focused primarily on “kwaai jazz.” He performs regularly and founded the kwaai jazz record label and promotional company Bokone Records. The term “kwaai jazz” refers less to the form of music called “kwaito” than to the slang meaning of “kwaai,” that is, “cool.” (See chapter 2 for an etymology of “kwaito.”) In other words, “kwaai jazz” means something like “cool jazz.” Information about Laka— and about South African popular music in the 1980s more generally— is scant. This biography is based on information gathered from an interview with Laka ( Johannesburg, 2008) and from a package that I received at a press conference for Bokone Music at Meropa Casino (Limpopo Province) in 2009. Additional references are scattered but include the following: Mojapelo (2008) mentions Laka several times in Beyond Memory; a brief profile of Laka’s Afro-fusion band Image appeared in the newspaper New Na-

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tion (“Image” 1987); and a brief history of kwaai jazz (with a short discussion of Laka) can be found in the short-lived South African magazine Bejazzed Journal (see Opland 2003). 14. Tusk was founded in 1986 to distribute Warner Brothers’ music in South Africa, after Warner itself was forced to leave South Africa due to boycott pressure. 15. Oscar (also known as Oskido, Warona, Big O, and Godzilla) was born in South Africa in 1967 but moved to Bulawayo, Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia), when he was two years old. He moved back to South Africa in 1988, first to the town of Brits, where he ran an informal grocery store, and then to Pretoria to work at a BMW dealership. According to the bio from his press package, Oscar “quit after six months to pursue his music dream. Scared to go back home, he ended up selling Boerewors rolls [i.e., a kind of hotdog] on the streets of Jozi [i.e., Johannesburg] outside Razzmatazz Night Club in Hillbrow.” After moving to Hillbrow, he quickly rose to prominence as a DJ on the Johannesburg nightclub circuit and garnered a loyal following. The information in this section was compiled from interviews with his colleagues at Kalawa Jazmee, from press releases and literature provided to me by former label manager Gao Mokone, and from Oscar’s Facebook page (accessed April 6, 2015). 16. Don Laka, interview with the author ( Johannesburg, 2008). Of course, Laka is not the only person to claim that his own group “started kwaito.” Several other musicians have made similar claims. Note that I will refer to Don Laka by his last name for two reasons: (1) unlike many other kwaito musicians, he is seldom referred to simply by his first name (this is attributable, in part, to his age and to the fact that he was never a solo kwaito artist), and (2) several kwaito musicians have called themselves “Don” (i.e., “Master” or “Person of Consequence”— for example, the title of Spikiri’s 2002 album is King Don Father). 17. The group Boom Shaka consists of two female vocalists, Thembi Seete and Lebo Mathosa (both of whom sang and rapped), and two male vocalists, Junior Sokhela and Theo Nhlengethwa. By most accounts Nhlengethwa is a female-to-male transgender individual— I return to a discussion of Nhlengethwa’s gender later in this chapter. 18. By most accounts, in those early days Oscar and Christos did not have the technical ability to produce their own music beyond remixing already existing tracks. Because of this, they “told” Laka what to play and he executed their ideas either on live instruments or synthesizers. As Laka explains in the documentary Vuma (Moloi and Maake 2009), Oscar and Christos came up with “concepts,” which he realized musically. He also told me in an interview that he was the only “real musician” at Kalawa Records. But there are also different accounts. For example, I once asked Christos about the production of Boom Shaka’s song “Nkosi Sikelela” (a kwaito version of “Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika”): “Did you just give them [i.e., Boom Shaka] the house track, or did

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19.

20. 21.

22.

23.

24. 25.

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they choose the house track?” He responded quite simply: “I gave them the track.” I then asked: “What was your thinking in terms of the melody and the chords on the ‘house’ track? Did you think about how the melody from the original tune would ‘work’ with the chords on the house track?” Christos responded: “I tried to fuse the two together” (personal correspondence with the author, April 11, 2006). See Steingo 2008b for a detailed analysis of this song. The information in this section is based, in part, on a report written by Kalawa Jazmee directors about the history of the label and provided to me by former label manager Gao Mokone. In South Africa, platinum is awarded to albums that sell in excess of forty thousand units. Trompies comprises Jairus “Jakarumba” Khuse (also known as Jairus Nkwe), Zynne “Mahoota” Sibika, Mandla “Spikiri” Mofokeng, Eugene Mthethwa, and Mojalefa Emmanuel “Mjokes” Matsane (considered an “unofficial” member). Ibiza emoyeni literally means “calling on the air” and refers to policemen radioing in reports of illegal behavior. In the early 1990s it was said that any black person driving a fancy car would be pulled over and the policeman conducting the search would “ibiza emoyeni” for backup. “Jazmee” is an acronym based on the first names of Trompies’ members and the second name of the band’s “unofficial member,” Mojalefa Emmanuel Matsane: Jairus, Zynne, Mandla, Eugene, Emmanuel. See figure 3.2. With Christos’s departure and with Laka focusing more on jazz, Kalawa Jazmee developed a new production team that included Oscar Mdlongwa, Bruce Sebitlo, Zynne “Mahoota” Sibika, and Mandla “Spikiri” Mofokeng. The production team was dubbed the Dangerous Combination Crew (DCC) and together they have created dozens of hits in the last twenty years. Oscar narrates this story in Vuma (Moloi and Maake 2009). Nearly ten years later, Niq Mhlongo wrote about this song in his quasiautobiographical novel Dog Eat Dog: “Everyone was trawling up and down the street searching for the best kwaito music from the parked cars. If Mdu’s Mashamplani song wasn’t humming enough they would go to the other end where B.O.P.’s Ngengoma was playing.” In this widely read book, which has been used in university courses in Africa, Europe, and the United States, Mhlongo confuses BOP’s “Traffic Cop” with Trompies’ “Sigiya Ngengoma.” I contend that in doing so Mhlongo does not canonize a piece of music (since he gets its makers wrong in any event) as much as he “canonizes” the instability of kwaito itself. See Mhlongo 2004, 99. A more comprehensive analysis would have to account for the fact that although BOP’s “Traffic Cop” and Trompies’ “Sigiya Ngengoma” share a similar vocal refrain, Trompies completely drops the riff from “It’s Over Now.” As such, although Trompies may have “copied” from BOP, they did not directly copy what BOP had copied from Ultra Naté.

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27.

28.

29. 30. 31. 32.

33. 34.

It is useful to recall Latour’s criticism of those who might associate a thing’s being manufactured with its being “artificial, contrived and invented, made up and false.” As he says, if something is manufactured (actually he uses the word “constructed”), this should rather be “associated with an appreciation of its robustness, quality, style, durability, worth, etc.” See Latour 2005, 89. Between ca. 1998 and 2010, Appleseed (also known as “Jah Seed” or “Jahseed”) was at the forefront of South Africa’s small dancehall scene, along with white “selector” Andy Kasrils (known as the “Admiral”). Stoan Seate, interview with the author ( Johannesburg, 2009). All subsequent quotations from Stoan are from this interview. I borrow this concept loosely from Feld (1987), who writes about “dialogic editing.” Novak 2013, 14–15, speaking about a similar phenomenon in a Japanese context. Yvonne Chaka Chaka (one of South Africa’s most popular musicians in the 1980s) explains the logic of platforms in similar terms: “For me [i.e., in her opinion], a man like Don Laka— who I have great respect for— takes these kids and does not force them to be what they don’t want to be, and does not force them to sing what he wants, and he lets them sing and be themselves.” She recalls that Laka’s approach to music production served as a useful model when she worked on an album with her son, Themba: “I said to him, ‘No I don’t like that, I don’t like that.’ And he says, ‘No, Mom, you need to capture everybody.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, okay.’ And when you sit down and listen critically, it sounds good. You know, I really like it. I work with anybody.” As Chaka Chaka suggests, it is important for a producer to include voices in her songs even if she does not like them. It is possible that in retrospect, and after listening critically, she will realize that she likes those voices after all. But most important is a willingness to “work with anybody.” Chaka Chaka (Yvonne Machaka), interview with the author ( Johannesburg 2009). Other prominent motswako rappers include Hip Hop Pantsula (HHP) and Cassper Nyovest. Kalawa Jazmee’s dominance in the popular-music industry is clearly illustrated by two articles in major newspapers (both by Theresa Owen) in 2013: “Kalawa Jazmee Rule” (Sunday Tribune [Durban], February 24) and “Kalawa Still King of SA Music Castle” (Star [ Johannesburg], February 27). Although billed as a documentary about the history of kwaito, Vincent Moloi’s and Norman Maake’s six-part documentary Vuma: A Music Revolution (2009) is actually a history of Kalawa Jazmee. As a consultant in the early stages of production (although uncredited in the final release), I was told explicitly that only Kalawa Jazmee directors and musicians would be featured. Conflating the history of kwaito with the history of Kalawa Jazmee, the publicity manager for SABC 1 stated: “Kwaito music represents one of the most popular [of ] Mzansi’s [i.e., South Africa’s] youth cultures. And, no other television channel can tell this authentic Mzansi story better than SABC 1. We invite all our

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35. 36.

37.

38.

39.

40.

41. 42. 43.

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kwaito fans and music lovers in general to join us for a remarkable six-week session of the best kwaito history and music to date.” As quoted in a Music Industry Online article, available at http://www.mio.co.za/article/vuma— -a -music-revolution-2009–11–25 (accessed April 6, 2015). Other important stables include Ghetto Ruff and M’du Productions (later rebranded as Wolla Music). This first name is more commonly spelled “Sibusiso” (which means “blessing” in Zulu) and abbreviated as “S’bu.” Leope’s first name usually appears as “Sbusiso” in written documents but also, occasionally, as “Sibusiso.” See the company’s website, http://www.tsrecords.co.za/. At the time of this book’s publication, TS Records is directed by Leope, Nhlanhla Nciza, rapper Pro, and kwaito sensation Sipho Ndlovu (“Brickz”). The company is largely responsible for launching the careers of several major kwaito artists, including Mzekezeke, Brown Dash, and Nthando. As Leope told Mpye: “I have noticed that people don’t care to see who this crazy boy behind the mask is, it’s just about what he does on radio and his music. People just want to dance. Meanwhile, it is the media that is making a big fuss about who Mzekezeke is” (Mpye 2003, 30). This statement clearly illustrates kwaito’s rejection of “critical” procedures aimed at unmasking and demystification. While the subtitle of this article appears as “The Real Unmasking” on page 28 of the magazine, on the magazine cover the word “Unmasking” is enclosed in scare quotes (“The Real ‘Unmasking’”)— as if to signal that unmasking Mzekezeke does not really unmask him at all. As quoted in Kaganof 2003. Transcriptions of interviews from the film Sharp! Sharp! The Kwaito Story are available online at http://kaganof.com /kagablog/category/films/sharp-sharp-the-kwaito-story/ (accessed April 6, 2015). I have made slight typographical alterations and corrections to the transcription. DJ Fresh (Thato Sikwane) is a prominent radio DJ in South Africa. According to Waterman (2002, 26), Lágbájá is “a Yoruba term meaning ‘somebody,’ ‘anybody,’ or ‘nobody.’” Dolar attributes this “formula,” which is widely employed by Lacanians (including Slavoj Žižek), to Octave Mannoni. See Dolar 2006, 66, 196n6. While this is not the right moment for an extended theoretical discussion of ideology, it seems necessary to comment briefly on this formula of “disavowal” that theorists like Dolar and Žižek understand as resolutely ideological. Despite my general discomfort with the notion of ideology, it seems to me that this particular conceptualization is actually quite helpful if given a slight rephrasing. Rancière actually speaks in quite similar terms. In order to explain why workers continue to be “exploited” even though they are fully aware of their exploitation, he turns to a reading of Plato’s Republic. Commenting on Plato, Rancière (2006, 3–4) writes: “Artisans cannot be occupied with the common matters of the city for two reasons: firstly because work

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44. 45.

46. 47. 48.

49. 50.

51. 52.

does not wait; secondly, because god has put iron in the souls of artisans as he has put gold in the souls of those who must run the city. In other words, their occupation defines aptitudes (and ineptitudes), and their aptitudes in return commit them to a certain occupation. It is not necessary for artisans to be convinced in the depths of their being that God has truly put iron in their souls, or gold in those of their rulers. It is enough for them to act on an everyday basis as though this was the case: it is enough that their arms, their gaze and their judgement make their know-how [savoir-faire] and the knowledge of their condition accord with each other, and vice versa. There is no illusion here, nor any misrecognition. It is, as Plato says, a matter of ‘belief.’ But belief is not illusion to be opposed to knowledge and which would hide reality. It is a determined rapport of the two ‘knowledges’ and the two ‘ignorances’ which correspond to them.” Aesthetics is precisely the name of the experience that disrupts this system of “belief.” Dolar 2006, 67. Dolar calls this kernel the “object voice.” By “regional,” I mean the province of Gauteng. Although the station now broadcasts live online, in the 1990s it broadcast on an FM frequency only within Gauteng Province. As quoted in McGregor 2005, 101. This section on Hartford is based on information from McGregor 2005. Although performed and made famous by Miriam Makeba, “Pata Pata” was in fact written by Dorothy Masuka. Don Laka, interview with the author ( Johannesburg, 2008). One member of Boom Shaka, Stoan, confirmed this point: “The cool thing about that ‘Makeba,’ you can hear a bit more of Don Laka in that one. With the harmonies— ’cos he changed the harmonies quite a lot, hey, you can hear the way a jazz man was thinking, too.” Stoan Seate, interview with the author ( Johannesburg, 2009). As explained by director Angus Gibson in an interview with René Smith (Smith 2000, 11). The first season focuses on younger high school students and their relationship to the “autocratic” school principal, Mr. Mthembu. The second season focuses on the school a year later: “Our main characters are now in matric [i.e., grade 12],” reads the official fact sheet. “The violence that engulfed the school the previous year has been contained. Basic security and order have been established but the problems aren’t over. This series celebrates the courage and determination of a school community overcoming obstacles in the way of good education.” A third season focuses on the characters after high school. For the quoted sections in this footnote, see the Yizo Yizo fact sheet, as quoted in F. B. Andersson 2004, 2. For an overview of the criticisms and celebrations of the show, see Peterson 2002. For an excellent discussion of soap opera in South Africa, see Flockemann 2001.

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53. The term “paratext” is from Genette 1997. 54. Barnett (2004, 264) observes that Yizo Yizo “uses a popular television format to build a large audience, but in ‘leaving’ the classroom and by deploying the aesthetics of popular culture it relinquishes a significant degree of control over the communication process in educational broadcasting.” Commenting on this observation, Haupt (2012, 162) writes: “In the end, there is no certain way of ensuring that the show’s key objectives have been met and that the work, as a whole, has been interpreted in ways that facilitate positive social change, especially with regard to gender politics.” As I will show, this ambiguity is precisely what is at stake. 55. I borrow the term “insurgent black life” from Fred Moten. See Moten in conversation with Robin D. G. Kelley at the panel “Do Black Lives Matter?” (December 13, 2014), http://criticalresistance.org/do-black-lives-matter -robin-dg-kelley-and-fred-moten-in-conversation/ (accessed May 8, 2015). 56. I employ this term in a basically Derridean fashion. To state things far too simply, for Derrida a figure is undecidable if it evades both sides of a binary opposition (e.g., presence/absence, poison/cure). Subotnik uses this idea in her well-known analysis of Chopin’s A Major Prelude. She writes: “Characteristically, deconstruction results in (at least) two coherent readings of a single text that coexist but cannot be reconciled with one another. In deconstructionist terminology, the relative weight of these two readings is ‘undecidable.’” And then later, referring to a particular moment in the piece: “Yet whether the pedal at these moments produces effects that are essential or secondary in relation to the overall structure of this prelude remains a question that is as ‘undecidable’ as it is interesting.” See Subotnik 1995, 66, 127. And see also Gallope (2011) for an excellent discussion of undecidability in music analysis. 57. Jean Comaroff and John Comaroff (2008, 292) suggest something similar when they write that “in postcolonial South Africa, dramatic enactments of crime and punishment— both those disseminated by the state and those consumed by various publics— are not merely fabrications after the event; nor are they reflections, inflections, or refractions of a simple sociological reality.” 58. Morris does not actually provide examples of this evidence. However, see, e.g., Carnagey, Anderson, and Bushman 2007. 59. This process closely resembles the film technique known as “Mickey Mousing.” 60. The song was performed by Bobo and Gunman. Note that in this case Bobo is the “stage name” of Innocent Masuku. 61. The soccer player is Thabo Mooki. Accounts differ as to whether Mooki received the nickname Tsiki Tsiki because of the song or whether he had this nickname before the song was written. The release date of “Tsiki Tsiki” is somewhat uncertain. A remix appeared on the album Y U 4 Me (1995), but according to Mojapelo (2008, 169), M’du had previously released an album

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62.

63.

64.

65. 66.

67. 68.

called Tsiki Tsiki. Hence, although the exact date is unclear, the song seems to have been released in some form before 1995. A few brief notes on “Siyabangena”: In Afrikaans, the name of the pastry is actually vetkoek, not vetkuk. About his nickname, Mahoota told me that he once owned an old BMW that he attempted, with much money and effort, to get running but that he only ever managed to get the horn to work. This is why people started calling him “Mahoota.” In South Africa, one does not “honk a horn” (as Americans would say) but “hoots a hooter.” The female vocalist in “Siyabangena” sounds very much like a North Indian Bollywood playback singer. (Thanks to Jonathan Singer for this insight.) This singer’s voice is absent from certain versions of the song, including from the music video available on YouTube (at least at the time of writing). In this controversial text, Baudrillard (1995) argued that although the Gulf War did of course actually take place, the reality of the casualties was severely obscured by Western media. Furthermore, he argued, because of the overwhelming military superiority of the United States, the Gulf War could hardly be called a “war” at all. On suture in film theory, see Silverman 1983. Without particular references to suture, Larkin (2008, 80) notes film theory’s preoccupation with the commodity form, spectacle, and the manner by which “cinema seeks to seduce and hold attention through the production of affect.” As he shows, these preoccupations are not useful or applicable for the study of early cinema in Nigeria. On automobile listening and “bubbles,” see Bull 2001. I return to this issue again in chapters 4 and 7. “Kwaito is generally under the sway of an urbanite, male point-of-view,” writes Peterson (2003, 199), “and one that is often accused of objectifying and demeaning women in its explicit lyrical content and in the scantlydressed female dance troupes, performing raunchy dance routines, that seem to be a pre-requisite for many groups and shows.” Others have argued the opposite: rather than demeaning women, they say, kwaito has offered new forms of agency in post-apartheid South Africa. Still others believe that they can have it both ways. For example, Zine Magubane (2006, 219) writes that “Boom Shaka is typical of many South African kwaito and rap groups in that it is impossible to classify them as either ‘progressive/feminist’ or ‘reactionary/commercial’— they are both and neither.” On Fassie’s relationship with kwaito, see Viljoen 2008. Ndebele interprets Fassie’s approach to performance as an embodiment of the 1980s political strategy of rendering the country ungovernable. “This obliteration of the divide between the private and the public is at the bottom of her [i.e., Fassie’s] verbal ungovernability,” he writes. “Indeed, if the state is to be rendered ungovernable, and if that ungovernability is a factor of not only the intention to be free, but also that the act of rendering the state ungovernable is itself an act of freedom, then Brenda’s voice enters the public

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69.

70. 71.

72.

73.

74. 75.

76. 77.

78.

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arena as ungovernable, the ultimate expression of personal freedom.” See Ndebele 2000, emphasis in original. Along with Brenda Fassie, Mathosa is perhaps the most famous and most daring South African female performer of the past thirty years. After her tenure with Boom Shaka, she went on to an extremely successful solo career, enrapturing audiences throughout the nation. Tragically, Mathosa passed away in a car accident in 2006, joining a host of gifted young South Africans whose end came far too soon. Livermon borrows the term “disidentification” from Muñoz (1999). On his adaptation of Muñoz’s theorization, see Livermon 2006, 175–76. For example, Livermon quotes Mathosa’s words from an interview by one C. Molele in the Sunday Times: “In real life I am a self-conscious person but once I get on stage, the Lebo you know disappears and I lose it— and then the crazy ‘drama queen’ character takes over.” And from the same published interview: “I can do all sorts of crazy things but I won’t go on stage drunk or high, . . . I respect my craft.” See Livermon 2006, 188, 191. Livermon (2006, 187–88) writes that Mathosa “enacts a praxis that frees black women’s bodies from conventional understandings of them. Therefore, her performances create possibilities for freedom if we understand conventional representations of black femininity as oppressive.” He notes that in South African history— particularly during the colonial and apartheid periods— black women were subject to one of three highly reductive representations: (1) deviance and abnormality; (2) contamination (as agents that disrupt colonial order and morality through imagined “abnormalities” such as disease, lack of discipline, and lack of hygiene); and (3) passivity (as an open invitation to the colonizer for exploration and penetration). To the last point, he adds that timidity has been a quality highly valued by men. Livermon’s reading is based in part on McClintock 1995. Erlmann (1995, 134) makes a similar argument. Drawing on the work of Suzanne Langer, he suggests that performers are able to create “protective spheres of ‘virtual power.’” In doing so, he says, they “renounce the law of the given and now by asserting their own spatiotemporal order.” Here, I am following Derrida’s reading of the Kantian parergon. See Derrida 1987b. The South African musicologist Martina Viljoen (2004, 21) argues that it is precisely at this precarious juncture that musical meaning is located. Barrett (2011) elucidates these connections astutely. Gevisser 1994, 75, as quoted in Donham 1998, 12. See http://lifestyletabloids.wordpress.com/2013/07/11/confirmed-theo-is-a -she-meaning-claire-mawisa-was-lesbian-all-along/ (accessed February 15, 2015). The term “homonormativity” usually refers to a depoliticized gay culture developed by and around middle-class whites. My point here is that in adopting the “European Leftist position,” some black South Africans are identify-

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79.

80. 81.

82. 83. 84. 85.

86.

ing precisely with this culture. On homonormativity, see Duggan 2002; and for a different perspective, see Stryker 2008b. For a South African perspective, see Oswin 2007; Livermon 2012. See http://www.sowetanlive.co.za/entertainment/2011/08/01/theo -nhlengetwa-s-birthday-party (accessed April 21, 2015). Before this appearance, Theo had been out of the limelight for years. He had slipped into relative obscurity after Boom Shaka’s breakup in ca. 2000. His attempt at fashion design was largely unsuccessful and his 2007 solo album, Ngiyabonga, flopped. I have slightly amended this and the following comment for readability. This description is from the website of Theo’s new record label. It therefore serves primarily as promotional material and should be treated as such. See http://www.foursoundsproductions.co.za/theo.htm (accessed April 6, 2015). I owe this succinct formulation to Joseph Napolitano. Ochoa Gautier 2006. See chapter 5 for further discussion. Danielsen 2006, 84. I emphasize that the choice of text is arbitrary. It was found by searching “it is almost as if” on a music scholarship database. I should add that this link is impossible only in what Rancière calls the “aesthetic regime of arts.” (See, e.g., Rancière 2004b). Such a link was possible to establish (and indeed was established in particular ways) in Renaissance Europe, for example, as Gary Tomlinson (1993) has brilliantly shown. Marquis de Sade, as quoted in Balibar 1991, 51.

CHAPTEr fOUr

1. 2. 3.

4.

Jabès 1987, 179. Although I focus on this one musician, I observed many similar cases during the course of my fieldwork. On migration and diaspora, see Slobin 1994; Bohlman 1998. On circulating instruments, see Turino 1993. On circulating recordings, see Manuel 1993. On streaming platforms, see Manabe 2014. The preoccupation with mobility is not new, of course, and can be traced all the way back to the comparative musicologists, who presented detailed accounts of musical diffusion (Schneider 1934) and the migration of musical instruments (Sachs 1940). Another important precedent is the acculturation theory of the 1950s (e.g., R. Waterman 1952). It is worthwhile pointing out that, generally speaking, ethnomusicologists became less interested in movement and circulation between the 1960s and 1980s. Adopting a functionalist “music and culture” paradigm, most texts produced during those decades focused on how people use music in individual cultures. On communities, see Turino 2008; on scenes, see Straw 1991; on transnational communities, see Erlmann 2004; on audio technologies and collective identities, see the contributions in Wittkower 2008. For a slightly lengthier intellectual history of mobility studies in ethnomusicology, see Steingo 2015.

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5.

6.

7. 8.

9.

10. 11. 12. 13.

14.

15.

16. 17.

18.

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The word “obduracy” adequately captures the dynamic that I am describing. Implying a kind of unyielding inflexibility, the word is derived from the Latin ob (against) and durare (harden). As a verb, then, “obdurate” means “to harden against.” On failures, see Larkin 2004, 2008; on frictions, see Tsing 2004; on echoes, see Muller and Benjamin 2011; on feedbacks and bottlenecks, see Novak 2008, 2013; on heterogeneous crises, see Skinner 2012. See chap. 1, n. 59, for explanation of “deep” in this context. In 1904 only about 22 percent of mine workers came from South Africa. The majority flooded in from surrounding countries as far away as Zambia. Initially, only black men went in search of work: in 1911 a mere 5 percent of the total black population working on the gold mines around Johannesburg were women. During apartheid, Soweto was a separate municipality, but today it is part of the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality. The inclusion of Soweto within the Johannesburg municipality was largely a response to anti-apartheid protesters in the 1980s who opposed unequal service in the white city and black townships. These protesters demanded “one city, one tax base.” See Wafer 2008, 100. The history of Soweto that follows is based in large part on the work of Bonner and Segal 1998. Maud 1938, as cited in Mbembe and Nuttall 2008, 20. In addition to these locations, migrant workers evicted from the city were housed in a hostel in Dube. The Sotho (or Sotho-Tswana) language group was divided into Northern Sotho (also known as Pedi), Southern Sotho, and Tswana (sometimes referred to as “Western Sotho”). The Nguni family group was divided into Xhosa, Zulu, Swazi, North Ndebele, and South Ndebele. See n. 1 in “A Note on Language.” Older townships like Orlando and Pimville remained ethnically mixed, although this was simply considered an imperfection that would ostensibly be sorted out at a later date. Briefly discussed in the previous chapter, Bantu education was an apartheid system in which every level of education was segregated and through which “nonwhites” were directed toward unskilled labor. As quoted in Bonner and Segal 1998, 43. Verwoerd is often considered apartheid’s primary ideologue and “architect.” Anti-apartheid activists concentrated much effort on refuting apartheid’s emphasis on ethnic fidelity. In the 1970s, for example, the left-leaning newspaper The World ( Johannesburg) published articles with headings such as “Blacks Don’t Believe in Ethnicity, Says Wits Lecturer” (September 14, 1977) and “Who Says Blacks Have Strong Ties with Homelands?” (September 9, 1977). Quoted in Bonner and Segal 1998, 44. Unfortunately, Bonner and Segal do

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19. 20. 21.

22.

23.

24.

25.

26.

27.

28. 29.

30.

not provide any information about Mkhabela (such as her age) that would help us contextual this quotation. The following quotations from Mapaya are from a press release that I received at a tourism event in Limpopo in late 2008. For an excellent study of kiba performance, see James 1999. This is not to say that mbaqanga was explicitly associated with Zulu language or culture at the time. While mbaqanga lyrics were usually in Zulu, a single LP could contain tracks in multiple languages. For a succinct and helpful account of mbaqanga’s shifting meanings and values from the 1950s to the 1980s, see Meintjes 2003, 34–37. The various forms of apartheid were implemented, with various degrees of intensity, on different temporal axes. Grand apartheid, in fact, was instituted only in the 1960s, following the Sharpeville Massacre. According to Christopher (1994, 122), the “area set aside for black townships until the 1980s was small. This reflected the government’s intention that the black population was, with few exceptions, temporary.” Each of the ten black ethnic groups was given its own homeland in the 1950s or early 1960s, with two exceptions. First, the Xhosas were provided with two homelands divided by the Kei River: the Ciskei and the Transkei. Second, the two smallest “nations” (the North and South Ndebele) were given a “national” territory only in the 1970s. See Christopher 1994, 69. At the same time, the Bantu Self-Government Act of 1959, like many apartheid-era laws, was actually an extension of much earlier policies. Of the 1913 Land Act, Sol Plaatjes (1916) had already famously written: “Awaking on Friday morning, June 20, 1913, the South African native found himself, not actually a slave, but a pariah in the land of his birth.” This is why, despite the decades-old rift between English and Afrikaans speakers, the apartheid government ensured that whites from all backgrounds officially fell under a single “ethnicity.” The deracialization of apartheid policies was a long process, beginning in the 1980s and extending beyond 1994. Ntsebeza (2003, 70) notes that the Local Government Transitional Act of 1993 omitted any reference to rural areas. In fact, “the gap was only addressed through an amendment when the gap became glaring in the run-up to the first democratic local elections in 1995 and 1996,” that is to say, after the formal end of apartheid. The Native Consolidation Act (called the Native Urban Areas Act until 1945) was repealed in 1986. By 1993, a year before South Africa’s first democratic elections, a staggering 85 percent of the central-city population was black, and by the beginning of the twenty-first century, one would have been hard-pressed to find a single white person living in the center of the city. Two types of matchbox houses were built. The first, and more common, model was a forty-square-meter house consisting of two bedrooms, a kitchen, and a living room. A tap and flushable lavatory were built in the

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31.

32.

33.

34.

35. 36.

37. 38. 39.

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backyard. The second and later model was slightly larger, at forty-four square meters, and included a small bathroom with sink, lavatory, and bath. See Beall, Crankshaw, and Parnell 2003, 200. In the 1980s the aim of township protests was to “render South Africa ungovernable” (in the words of anti-apartheid activist and politician Oliver Tambo). When I lived in Soweto, I was advised not to lock the front door if home during the day. In the mornings, I would often look up from a bowl of cereal or a book, only to find a middle-aged man named Jan peering down at me. Having let himself in, Jan would then ask, “Where’s the bread?” On one occasion, I came home to find that I had been burgled— my computer, hard drive, and some money had been stolen— and that the thief had broken out of the house from inside. My friends reasoned that the burglar had snuck inside while I was still home (with an unlocked door), and that when I went out and locked the door behind me, he or she was forced to break the lock to exit the house with my belongings. I use the term “topology” in a somewhat metaphorical sense. Nonetheless, my use of the term corresponds roughly to DeLanda’s (2002, 22) characterization: “[A] space is not just a set of points, but a set together with a way of binding these points together into a neighborhood through well-defined relations of proximity or contiguity” (emphasis in original). In other words, topological space is related, but not reducible, to Euclidian space. Topological space is oriented toward relations of proximity and contiguity— that is, to the ways in which various elements can interact and relate within a given environment, such as Soweto. In musical typing, pitches and instruments are assigned to keys— so that, for example, the letter p, on the top right of the QWERTY keyboard, is a middle C; or the letter q, on the top left of the keyboard, creates a tambourine sound. The musician plays melodies or rhythms by tapping on the keyboard. See Cavarero 2005. See also Dohoney 2011. By using MIDI, musicians in Soweto are not so much “recording” sound as they are storing digital signals. As a so-called “control format,” MIDI stores performance instructions for the computer and not a digital version of “recorded” sound. On the other hand, it is worthwhile pointing out that musicians in Soweto also use formats such as MP3, WAV, and AIFF. On the MP3 as a format, see Jonathan Sterne’s already classic study MP3: The Meaning of a Format (2012). The literature on crime in South Africa is vast. See, e.g., Steinberg 2001; John Comaroff and Jean Comaroff 2006. South Africa’s monetary currency, the rand, has fluctuated between R6 and almost R13 to the US dollar over the past decade. I am not the first to theorize technologies or media as “prostheses.” Marshall McLuhan, for example, famously theorized media as a prosthetic extension of human bodies. See, e.g., McLuhan 1964. McLuhan’s theorization

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40. 41.

42.

43. 44.

45.

is arguably problematic since it assumes a stable human body that then enters into relations with various extensional media technologies. Bernard Stiegler, by contrast, radically decenters the body as foundation or origin. For him, humans are always already constituted through their relationship with prostheses. To be human in this sense presupposes an entanglement with nonhuman actors, a general scenario that Stiegler terms “technicity.” See Stiegler 1998; and see also Gallope 2011 for an excellent musical application of Stiegler’s ideas. My use of the term “prosthesis” in this book is more specific. “Lesbian” sangomas have actually received a great deal of national attention in recent years. See, e.g., Nkabinde 2009. One gang member told researchers Segal, Pelo, and Rampa (2001, 104): “I do not steal or make funny things in the location. I do not steal from a black man. I only do those things in the towns or in the suburbs. At the suburbs, we know that the white man, the settlers, do have money. We were the real comrades because we weren’t stealing from a black man.” I borrow the formulation “pure mediality” loosely from Agamben, although his meaning is somewhat different from what I have in mind here. For Agamben (2000, 117), pure mediality is a politics that is “neither an end in itself nor of means subordinated to an end; rather, it is a sphere of pure mediality without end intended as the field of human action and thought.” Agamben reads the famous Kantian “purposiveness without purpose” as a type of pure mediality (58) and associates the notion of means without end with other “new categories of political thought,” some of which he has addressed in other texts (see, e.g., Agamben 1993). I use the term in a more overtly materialist sense to refer to a constant processing of music that never properly congeals or meets an “end point.” At the same time, I am of course sympathetic to Agamben’s invocation of Kantian aesthetics. This is perhaps Larkin’s most important insight. See Larkin 2004, 2008. In a sense, the spectrogram invites us to listen beyond structure (see the contributions to Dell’Antonio 2004). At the same time, I am less interested in the “postmodern” preoccupation with listening beyond structure than in developing an expanded approach to structuration that takes into account the generative effects of failure. Although I cannot develop this idea fully here, I point out as an aside that the musicians with whom I worked cannot be equated with musicians who intentionally produce failures. In general, musicians in Soweto aim for perfect duplication even if they know that this aim will seldom be achieved. In other words, their “horizon” of expectation is different from that of those in the Global North who deliberately generate the sound of a “failed” copy. The issue of “intentionality” is very complex, however, since in the cases of glitch and noise (for example) practitioners often deliberately develop technological setups that they cannot control. See Prior 2008; Novak 2013. In the African context, Christopher Waterman (1990) observes that in Nigeria amplifier

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46. 47.

48. 49.

50.

51. 52. 53.

54. 55.

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distortion was initially impossible to avoid but later became an aesthetic predilection. See Muller 1999, 61. Muller adapts these ideas from Weiner (1992) to the Zulu context. The literature on this topic is incredibly vast and cannot, of course, be adequately addressed here. In this chapter, I draw only on immediately relevant research in a selective fashion. For a discussion of ragga in Jamaica, see Veal 2007, 190. There is an extremely extensive body of literature devoted to deconstructing similar binary oppositions. See, e.g., Derrida 1976 and G. Tomlinson 2007b on the opposition speech/writing and Sterne 2003 on sound/vision. For a very relevant critique of memory and technics in music, see Gallope 2011. The current text recognizes the importance of that body of literature and seeks only to make a modest move within it. In saying this, I hope to avoid the old (or even ancient) idea that memory is more “immediate” than various forms of “technological” mnemonics (writing being the most common). While recognizing the important deconstructive move against the notion that memory is more immediate or “present” than writing, I nonetheless think that it is possible to observe a minimal difference between memory and storage devices, at least in how they are used in practice. Derrida himself seems to imply as much in his “Archive Fever in South Africa” (2002a). Derrida continues on the same page: “And perhaps, perhaps, this is the unconfessed desire of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.” The conversational nature of Derrida’s text is based on the fact that it is a transcription of a lecture. To Anthony Seeger’s observation that “[t]he public image of the archive is all too often of a dark place where one sends things that are no longer needed,” I would add that one sends such things to the archive (instead of destroying them, for example) so that one can retrieve them at a later date if necessary. But because of the knowledge that those things are retrievable, one is also able to forget them. See Seeger 2001, 41, as quoted in Muller 2002, 409. As mentioned, certain types of musical information are not stored simply because preservation is not highly valued. I am grateful to Susan Andrade for bringing this point to my attention. Muller (1999) actually emphasizes throughout her book that Isaiah Shembe founded the Nazarite Church largely to offer protection and security to young black women. Here I am alluding to the distinction between bodies supported by political communities and those bodies that are unprotected or “bare.” In the next chapter I will, however, register a certain impatience with Agamben’s (1998) notion of “bare life.” See Gopinath and Stanyek 2014. This motivation is stated on the Oxford Uni-

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versity Press website, http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780195375725 .do (accessed April 6, 2015). 58. Such an “economic” explanation is bolstered by Perullo’s (2011) important critique of applying Western music industry models to African contexts. 59. Faubion 2001, 100, as quoted in Piekut 2011, 19. CHAPTEr fIVE

1. 2.

Krog 2009, 125, 238. Ochoa Gautier (2014, 23) continues: “Such an assemblage circulates between different listening entities through different practices of inscription of sound: rituals, writing, acoustic events, and so forth that, in turn, are also heard.” 3. Ibid., 61. Ochoa Gautier borrows the notion of “the outside” from Seeger 1987. See also Hagedorn 2001; Levin 2006. 4. Because humans are also animals (at least by some definitions), animal studies scholars often refer to animals such as dogs and alligators as “nonhuman animals.” For the sake of efficiency, though, throughout this chapter I will simply use the word “animal” when referring to nonhuman animals. 5. Abbas (2000) develops this theorization in the very different context of a comparison between Shanghai and Hong Kong. 6. Ochoa Gautier likewise points out the congenital connections between acoustic assemblages and “the very definition of life.” See Ochoa Gautier 2014, 5 and also chap. 4 of the same book. 7. See Decoteau 2013, 137. In this chapter, I largely follow Decoteau’s brilliant analysis of South African biopolitics. On contestations over the definition of life, see Jewkes and Wood 1998. 8. See Agamben 1998. Much recent literature on biopolitics has engaged the notion of bare life. 9. On “acts of citizenship,” see the contributions in Isin and Nielson 2008. 10. This is Barchiesi’s (2009, 52) characterization of other scholars’ views. 11. I borrow the term “biomedical citizenship” loosely from Decoteau (2013, 137), who offers a more precise definition: “the ways in which a biomedical industry made up of public health institutions, pharmaceutical corporations, NGOs, and various Western governments has imposed epistemic hegemony and disciplinary techniques onto subjects throughout the global South through the mechanism of social citizenship at the national scale.” 12. Citing a conference paper by Me Biyase, Hunter (2010, 144) observes: “The prejudiced view [that women have children in order to access social grants] was quickly rebutted by researchers.” I agree with Hunter, however, that “the opposite view— that childbirth is completely separate from the reality of making a living— is equally unjustifiable.” As Hunter has it: “More accurate is the statement that children and childbirth are immersed in complex material and emotional worlds.”

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13. A CD4 count is a scientific measurement of particular kinds of immune “helper” cells in the blood. This count is used to determine the functioning of a person’s cellular immunity— one component of the immune system. Thanks to Dr. Joel Steingo for assistance with this definition. 14. Decoteau (2013) explains that ARVs are ground up and then smoked as narcotics. 15. This is a line from the Transvaal Local Government (Stallard) Commission of 1922, as quoted in Coplan 2008, 110–11. Note that this commission predated the official advent of apartheid. 16. A cornerstone of the apartheid system, pass laws segregated the population and severely limited the movement of nonwhites. Blacks were forced to carry “pass books” when traveling or working outside their assigned “homeland.” 17. A 2010 survey estimates that 15–20 percent of households in the Soweto townships of Zola, Chiawelo, and Orlando own one or more cars, while the provincial average is 61 percent. If we acknowledge that many “households” in these townships accommodate as many as six adults and, furthermore, that the survey considers only “formal households” (thereby excluding not only the informal settlements flanking the townships but also the thousands of backyard shacks), then the percentage of individual adults who own cars in Zola, Chiawelo, and Orlando is at least three or four times less than 15– 20 percent. See http://www.nab.co.za/press-releases/carownership/ (accessed February 20, 2014). 18. By “taxis” I am referring to a system of minibus transportation in South Africa. The emergence of the taxi industry in South Africa paralleled the reform of apartheid policies in the late 1980s. With the repeal of pass book laws and influx control, nonwhite entrepreneurs launched a major industry of transportation across South Africa. For more information on the industry, see Khosa 1991; Hansen 2006. 19. As quoted in Wafer 2008, 103. 20. “Mgavan” is my nickname in Soweto. 21. In the United States, many hip-hop musicians have given up sampling due to extremely high usage fees. Nonetheless, major artists such as Kanye West and P. Diddy have large production budgets that permit them to sample at will, “hence affirming the legal status quo.” See Marshall 2006, 868–69. For more on copyright in kwaito, see Steingo, in press. 22. “Love Will Conquer All” was written by Richie, Greg Phillinganes, and Cynthia Weil and appeared on Richie’s 1986 album Dancing on the Ceiling. 23. Here, I am contrasting the “body” concept in kwaito with common theoretical principles in Western music. The frameworks of organicism and hierarchical structures have been important in music theory for centuries. See Solie 1980. 24. This description of Bala’s musical processes and of the ikhopa more generally also supplements my discussion of musical archives in the previous chapter.

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25.

26. 27.

28. 29. 30. 31. 32.

33. 34. 35. 36.

There, I focused on material archives such as hard drives but I also expanded the discussion to human memory. Interestingly, even in contexts where both material and embodied archives are precarious, there is a sense that history accumulates and, indeed, is never completely erased, since to say “there is nothing new” implies the perdurance of the past. As we will see, in Soweto the past is registered in both material and cosmological terms— for example, through relations with ancestors (amadlozi). Hence, while MP3s are ubiquitous in the parts of Soweto where I worked, this ubiquity has very little to do with the Internet. Instead, MP3s largely circulate offline through physical exchanges between friends and neighbors. Christopher Kirkley makes a similar point about MP3 circulation in his study of the Sahel, which admittedly is a much harsher geopolitical environment. According to him, people in Northern Mali use their cell phones “as portable hard drives” and exchange music primarily through Bluetooth, which does not require Internet or phone service. As in South Africa, in Northern Mali songs often circulate without paratextual information such as song titles or artist names. Says Kirkley: “These MP3s that are on cellphones often don’t have any information on them besides a file name and an ID3 tag, so when it came to tracking down the musicians, it was a really laborious process of trying to decode this really minimal information and find out A, where the musician was coming from and B, who they were.” On Kirkley, including his words quoted here, see Rohr 2013. I am referring to Anderson’s (1983) famous text here. His last name appears variously as “Mthetwa” and “Mthethwa” in print. While the last name “Mthethwa” is more common in South Africa, the alternative spelling also exists and “Mthetwa” appears to be accurate in Nozinja’s case. When I asked Glasspiegel to check the spelling directly with Nozinja, Nozinja told him via a Facebook message that his last name is spelled “Hlungwani.” Like many South Africans, Nozinja thus uses different last names depending on the context. Unfortunately, however, the correct spelling of his other last name (Mthetwa/Mthethwa) remains a mystery. See also Sykes 2011 for a recent theorization of music as a form of exchange. Jedrej 1992, 111, as cited in Muller 1999, 85. The phrase in brackets is Muller’s. See also Berliner 1978, 85, on dreaming in Shona musical composition. See Ballantine 2001 for a fascinating discussion of Shabalala. The classic text on these interrelations is Erlmann 1999. Virilio writes in the same article that this vehicle “ought at last to bring about the victory of sedentariness, this time an ultimate sedentariness” (1989, 109). This machine was the “4X prototype.” On Pliny and rabies, see Baer 2007, 2. Meintjes 2004, 195, after Berglund 1989, 255. See Abbas 2000. Other musicians falling mostly in this category include

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40. 41. 42.

43.

44.

45. 46.

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Okmalumkoolkat and DJ Spoko (and his style known as “Bacardi House”). Director Neill Blomkamp and actor/producer/director Sharlto Copley might be considered the filmmaker counterparts of the same movement. Mathambo’s birth name is Nthato Mokgata. Amathambo means “bones” in Zulu, while spoek means “spook” (or, perhaps, “ghost”) in Afrikaans. The classic text is Dery 1994. Veal (2007) offers a brief discussion of Afrofuturism outside the United States. Spoek Mathambo, interview by Lynsey Chutel, 2013, afriPOP!, http:// afripopmag.com/2012/03/spoek-mathambo-on-afro-futurism-and-finally -taking-south-africa/ (accessed February 17, 2015). On cosmopolitics, see Stengers 2010. On the term “Coloured,” see n. 2 in A Note on the Language of Race. These debates are of course very important for the politics of music in South Africa. For an excellent analysis of Die Antwoord and appropriation, see Haupt 2012. Watkins Tudor Jones (Ninja) interview, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v =ncSZ1V_u_ik&feature=related (accessed April 6, 2015). In the interview, he is referring to a statement that he makes at the beginning of the music video for “Enter the Ninja.” I first began thinking about this notion of hybridity during conversations with a former (and particularly brilliant) student, Vir Patel. Thanks to Vir for sharing his thoughts with me. My interpretation of the video is based partly on Glasspiegel 2013. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Waddy and his associates (including guitarist Mark Buchanan and bass player Sean Ou Tim) performed and congregated at the club 206. As a friend of the owner, Alan Freeman, I spent most weekend nights at 206 between ca. 1997 and 2000. I also performed there several times as guitarist in the band Tripping Billy. I moved to the United States in 2000, and as a longtime fan of Waddy’s music, I performed a Max Normal song at a concert at the New England Conservatory of Music, where I studied composition between 2000 and 2004. Thanks to Daniel Linden and Vedran Mehinovic for joining me in the performance. Basson 2010, as quoted in Haupt 2012, 117–18. Haupt warns us against “laud[ing] their rise to fame as a success story, a tale about the power of social media to bypass the gatekeeping functions of mass media, such as TV and radio, in order to empower independent musicians and their fans alike” (118). As he explains, many “Web 2.0” companies are owned by corporations such as Google. Furthermore, music marketing today often works through relays between “indie” labels and major labels. At one point in the film, the protagonist (a high school student played by Lindsay Lohan) tells her mother that she has to attend a friend’s art show that night (which, in fact, is a lie). To this, her mother responds: “But we’ve had these tickets for months. You love Ladysmith Black Mambazo!”

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49. This friend was Tshepang Ramoba, drummer for the South African rock band BLK JKS. 50. The relationship between the “Shangaan” and “Tsonga” peoples is a complex one, although in contemporary South Africa the terms are often used interchangeably. Herbert and Bailey (2002, 70–71) offer a historical perspective: “The people who are called Tsonga had no real sense of shared or common identity until such identity was ‘discovered’ in their languages and customs by Swiss missionaries early in the twentieth century, who bestowed the name Thonga, a Zulu form, upon the group (Harries 1988). Most of the people are now content to call themselves vaTsonga and their language xiTsonga. However, there is an alternative name for part of this group, Shangaan, which is an eponym for one of the Zulu chiefs, Soshangane, who subjugated many clans in the nineteenth century.” By this account, Shangaan is a subcategory of Tsonga. Nonetheless, Herbert and Bailey’s assertion that the label “Shangaan” “is rejected by those clans that were never subjugated, but preferred by many who were” (71) is seldom applicable in contemporary Soweto, where the terms “Tsonga” and “Shangaan” are used in a looser fashion. 51. “Cosmopolitanism” is a highly contested term that has received innumerable treatments in academic literature, including academic literature on Africa. Important texts with relevance to Africa include Appiah 2006; Feld 2012a. In my view, Abbas’s work has been seriously overlooked by those working outside East Asia. 52. Morton (2007) calls this “ecology without nature.” 53. On the distinction between realism and materialism, see Harman 2011. 54. See Ochoa Gautier 2006. The term “epistemologies of purification” was first coined by Richard Bauman and Charles Briggs, following Bruno Latour. 55. As quoted in Morris 2011, 167. The proceeding discussion is based in large part on Morris’s spectacular text. 56. This observation resonates with Derrida’s famous attempt to rethink animals in terms of suffering rather than language or rationality. 57. Holbraad, Pedersen, and Viveiros de Castro 2013, 3, emphasis in original. CHAPTEr SIx

1. 2. 3.

4.

Meintjes 2003, 4. As mentioned in chapter 4, Soweto is quite diverse. The current text, like all ethnographies, is partial. There actually was a small black middle-class during apartheid, but at that time members of this class were largely restricted to the townships. Sociologists have referred to the close proximity of middle-class and poorer black South Africans in the townships during apartheid as “class compression.” A few websites hosted by non–South Africans claim that the term “black diamond” has acquired negative connotations over the past few years. While

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6. 7.

8.

9. 10.

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16.

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this may be true on some level, when I asked friends and family members in South Africa about these alleged “negative connotations,” I was told simply that there is “nothing wrong” with the term “black diamond” and that the term is not meant to be offensive in any way. As early as 1996, a journalist for the Sunday Times ( Johannesburg) commented that kwaito artists have “set up homes in the whitey northern suburbs. They drive BMW’s and carry obligatory cell phones” (as quoted in S. Vilakazi 2012, 36). This point is redolent of Novak’s (2013, 17) work on circulation. Livermon (2008, 274) makes a similar, if not identical, point: “The spatial circulation of the music [i.e., kwaito] defies the tendency to geographically and culturally divide the city into a white, predominantly wealthy city, and a black, predominantly poor, township space. The music in and of itself does not erase the differences in the economic and racial composite of the city. But the manner of its circulation strongly highlights the post-apartheid symbiotic (if unequal) interactions between town, township, and suburb.” Thanks to Michael Gardiner for suggesting the Deleuzian term “transversal,” which I find quite illustrative. Interestingly, Erlmann (1995, 468) uses the term in a similar fashion (without, however, referring to Deleuze). Much of the forest was planted at the end of the nineteenth century to supply timber to the nearby mines. Note that there have been numerous “regeneration” projects in the last few years— I mention some of these later in the chapter. For an excellent discussion of fortification in downtown establishments such as Absa Bank, see Bremner 2002. Peterson (2003, 210) in fact, compares kwaito musicians directly with the mission-educated black elite “who identified, for a period, with the imperatives of colonial society, desperately seeking to meet the criteria that would allow them entrée into the strongholds of civilization.” Brickz (whose birth name is Sipho Ndlovu) was born in Zola, Soweto. The name of this character clearly references Brickz. It should also be noted that in the third series of Yizo Yizo there was a character named Sticks. Brickz had won that category for the previous two years. Mandoza (Mduduzi Tshabalala), interview with the author ( Johannesburg, 2009). As he told me in the same interview, the stage name Mandoza is derived from “Mendoza,” a character in the Japanese animated television show The Mysterious Cities of Gold. Several scholars have written interesting pieces about the conception of “home” in South African music. See, e.g., chapters 1 and 2 in James 1999 and chapter 11 in Erlmann 1999. Zola 7 (Bonginkosi Dlamini), interview with the author ( Johannesburg, 2009). Gazza (Lazarus Shiimi), interview with the author (Windhoek, Namibia, 2009).

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19.

20.

21. 22.

23. 24. 25.

26.

27. 28.

Following Lefebvre, one might say that these conceptualizations inform practices that, in a sense, “produce” different types of space. See Lefebvre 1991. Harvey also discusses a third category, which he calls relational space. “In the relational view,” he writes, “matter and processes do not exist in space-time or even affect it (as in the case of relative space-time). Space and time are internalized within matter and process” (2009, 137). I borrow the term from Simone (2004), who uses it to describe informal networks in Johannesburg. A fourth category is musicians who play instruments such as guitars, basses, and saxophones. Such instrumentalists have been used in kwaito sporadically but do not have a fixed “role.” This example is documented in Vuma (Moloi and Maake 2009). Sponsored by the Shell Oil Company, the Shell Road to Fame is a South African talent contest. The notion that organizers “curate” is quite useful, despite the fact that this term is not used by kwaito musicians themselves (at least to my knowledge). As Rancière (2012) points out, one of the best (and earliest) examples of the “aesthetic regime of arts” was the art museum, where totally different objects with totally different histories were offered equally to the aesthetic gaze of visitors. See Vuma (Moloi and Maake 2009). Tony Montana is the protagonist in the famous mob movie Scarface (1983). “Mr. Soprano” refers to Tony Soprano, the protagonist of the television show The Sopranos (1999–2007). This process has been greatly facilitated by digital technologies. The word kaffir is the most hateful and racist word for a black person in South Africa. Today, South Africans often refer to “the ‘K’ word” just as Americans refer to “the ‘N’ word.” Interestingly, though, and with a couple of exceptions notwithstanding, the word has not been appropriated by black South Africans for in-group use. The lyrics of the song “Kaffir” are in a fairly complex tsotsitaal, switching between at least four languages (English, Afrikaans, Zulu, and Sotho). The main chorus of the song is as follows: Baas, say nee!

[Boss, no! (Or: Boss, keep on whining!)

Baas, don’t call me a kaffir! Awuboni ukuthi ngiyaphanta mani!

Can’t you see that I’m just hustling, man?

Awuboni ukuthi ngiyaspina

Can’t you see that I’m spinning a car, man?

Hayi Baas, angiveli kwaSathane mani!

Hey boss, I am not a devil from hell, man!

Hayi Baas, nee!

Hey boss, no!

Ek sê, Baas, angiveli kwaSathane mani!

I say, boss, I am not a devil from hell, man!]

29. The ride cymbal part could also be considered part of the body but I have chosen to analyze it rather as an additional component part because it seems to serve a secondary role.

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30. The harmony and rhythm of the synthesized string choir are actually realized slightly differently in the introduction and during the course of the song. I omit those differences in this analysis. 31. I have also omitted a “layer” of synthesized snare drum that plays various fills and short repeating phrases. Finally, I decided not to transcribe an additional synthesized line that moves a perfect twelfth above and directly parallel to the bass guitar line. It seems likely that this parallel, or “shadow,” line was programmed into the bass MIDI and is not really a separate musical voice. 32. In this layer, the lyric “Ang’bizi Kaffir” is an abbreviated form of “Ungangibizi ngeKaffir,” which means “Don’t call me Kaffir.” 33. For a discussion of ragga in its “original” Jamaican context, see Veal 2007, 190. 34. The question of vocality in Arendt is taken up at length in Cavarero 2005, sec. 3.3. 35. For Arendt, this platform, or “space of appearance,” is always made possible through the establishment of a political community. 36. As Cavarero (2005, 189) notes, for Arendt “the political essence of speech consists in revealing to others the uniqueness of each speaker.” In the case of kwaito, of course, vocal uniqueness would not be limited to speech but would additionally include the singing voice. 37. Erlmann (1995, 40) alludes to a similar form of intersubjectivity when, in the epigraph to chapter 3 of his seminal text Nightsong, he quotes from Arendt’s Human Condition: “In any series of events that together form a story with a unique meaning, we can at best isolate the agent who set the whole process into motion; and although this agent frequently remains the subject, the hero of the story, we can never point unequivocally to the agent as the author of the outcome.” 38. This quotation is from one of Henri Bergson’s earlier works, Time and Free Will (first published in 1889). His later works arguably propose a conceptualization closer to the one advocated in this chapter. 39. Harman 2009, 77. This is not Harman’s perspective; rather, he is clarifying Latour’s position. 40. Khumalo is a kwaito/Afro-pop singer who attained celebrity status in 2005. For a comprehensive biography of the singer, see M. Ferguson 2012. 41. Both songs are on Khumalo’s album Let Me Be (2008). 42. See http://www.tsrecords.co.za/zahara/ (accessed February 15, 2010). 43. Where sale of physical formats is concerned, “major” labels play an important role. Although I do not examine the relationship between major and “independent” labels in this book, Lance McCormack (Sony African Label manager) told me that “these relationships are crucial to the industry— in fact the biggest success story of last year [2011] was Xhosa folk singer/guitarist Zahara, signed to an indie label, distributed by EMI in South Africa” (personal communication with the author, January 20, 2012). 44. Bogatsu is writing about Y culture more generally. 45. Farber 2002, 72, as cited in Nuttall 2004, 434.

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46. See the official website, http://www.mabonengprecinct.com/ (accessed April 7, 2015). 47. See http://www.sowearto.co.za/c26/About-Us.aspx (accessed January 10, 2013). CHAPTEr SEVEN

1. 2.

Mbembe 2006, 92, emphasis in original. See Denning 2010, 82. Contemporary German scholars do, of course, have a word for the unemployed: die Arbeitslosen. 3. See also Erlmann 1995, 134. For my own purposes, it would be more precise to say that music is the name for a particular relationship between listener and world. 4. Bonner and Segal (1998, 45) remark about Soweto in the 1950s and 1960s: “The confined space of Soweto’s houses contributed considerably to th[e] sense of camaraderie, as much of the social life and social interaction took place when friends, couples, families abandoned their cramped matchboxes and took to the streets.” In contemporary Soweto, another popular practice is “4/20,” the slang term for consuming cannabis every day at 4:20 p.m. The practice and idea of 4/20 allegedly began in California in the 1970s. 5. In Afrikaans, the word skyf means slice, disk, quoit, or section (of an orange, for instance). It can also, although more rarely, refer to a puff of smoke. There are numerous terms for “cigarette” in tsotsitaal, including inkawuza (which can also mean “penis”) and iposh (allegedly based on the perception that elegant or “posh” women smoke cigarettes). According to Satyo (2001, 142), the word inkawuza is imitative and is a “clear reference to the puffs of smoke while smoking.” 6. Such, at least, were the prices during the time of my fieldwork. See also chap. 4, n. 38. 7. ROSCAs have been the topic of considerable scholarly attention. See Geertz 1962; Van den Brink and Chavas 1997; Biggart 2001. 8. See Derrida 1992, 103. Derrida’s comments appear in relation to Baudelaire’s prose poem “Counterfeit Money” (“La fausse monnaie”), published after Baudelaire’s death in the collection called Le spleen de Paris (1869). 9. Recall Hunter’s remarks about township residents for whom “life seems to have stood still.” 10. These words are from a promotional package and summary of the documentary, posted on the documentary’s Facebook page (accessed January 15, 2015). 11. Morris writes that “the miner himself is consumed in time.” And later: “One is tempted to say that, for black miners, the mines were like death camps, the spaces in which these men lived in anticipation of their own deaths.” Morris 2008a, 99, 111. 12. Sartre 1943, 19, as cited in Klein 1993, 30.

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13. As noted in other parts of this book, I do not wish to overemphasize such “generic” markers. 14. On kwaito as dance music, see, e.g., Stephens 2001; Peterson 2003. 15. I borrow this idea from Lyotard 1984, 92. 16. Friedson 1996, 139; after Ihde 1983, 82. 17. Ihde 1983, 82, as cited in Friedson 1996, 139. 18. The song is called “Africa” and was released in 1982. 19. See Fabian 1990, 25. A variation on this constellation— meat, blood, illness, power, desire— was noticed by Jean Comaroff (1985, 175), who observed that for the Tswana people of southern Africa the term for “blood” (madi) carries associations of heat, danger, sexuality, and pollution. Another fold was added to this already quite textured ensemble of terms when Tswana people came into contact with Europeans and began to call money madi (on the basis of a “vernacular principle of transposition”). Thus, the indigenous term for blood in Tswana is the same as the term for money— “By chance.” For more on the notion of chance in this encounter, see Morris 2010. 20. Braai is an Afrikaans word but is commonly used by black South Africans and English-speaking white South Africans. Although the word can be translated as “barbeque,” it also connotes a particular style of barbequing meat. 21. Notice that Mhlongo confuses Trompies’ “Sigiya Ngengoma” with BOP’s “Traffic Cop.” See chapter 3. 22. Rockville is not labeled on most maps of Soweto and seems to be a colloquial name for one section of Moroka. In 2009, just as I was completing my fieldwork, this major shisanyama moved to White City, an area notorious for its gambling and gangs. I assume, then, that the profile of Soweto’s major shisanyama has changed, although I have no ethnographic evidence to support this assumption. Here, I will discuss only the main shisanyama as it was when I lived in Soweto. 23. In the last few years, tourism in Soweto has increased dramatically (see Rogerson 2008). Soweto, in fact, is one of Johannesburg’s primary tourist destinations. 24. See also Mbembe, Dlamini, and Khunou 2008, 245. Circular dance patterns have a long history in South Africa and are associated, at least by certain Zulu performers, with “isibaya, the cattle enclosure in a traditional homestead” (Erlmann 1995, 190). Similar circular dances are widespread in sub-Saharan Africa. See Nketia 1974, 33. 25. For a sophisticated reading of the Spinozist/Deleuzian notion of “not knowing what a body can do,” see Cimini 2011. 26. I mean this in Harvey’s (2009, 134) sense, where absolute space is “understood as a preexisting, immovable, continuous, and unchanging framework (most easily visualized as a grid) within which distinctive objects can be clearly identified.” See also chapter 6 of the present book. 27. See Bull 2001, as cited in Livermon 2008, 275. Bull borrows the notion of “bubble” loosely from a line in Jean Baudrillard’s Symbolic Exchange and

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28.

29.

30.

31. 32.

33. 34.

35. 36.

37.

Death (1993): “To each his own bubble, that is the law today.” In a discussion of vision in the same article, Bull acknowledges that cars are simultaneously private and public: “The space of a car is both one to look out from and to be looked into. It is simultaneously private and public” (195–96). Space restrictions prevent me from presenting a more comprehensive discussion of taxis here. For an excellent account of taxis and kwaito, see Hansen 2006, 188; 2012, esp. chap. 5. For a general history of the taxi industry, see Khosa 1991. As Livermon (2008, 274) writes: “Traditionally, much has been made about de Certeau’s thoughts about walking in the city. The city has been conceptualized as a place of encounters that are structured through walking.” De Certeau (1988, 93) writes: “The paths that correspond in this intertwining, poems in which each body is an element signed by many others, elude legibility.” Erlmann (1995, 192) offers the apartheid city, along with its extreme regulation of bodily movement, as a counterexample to de Certeau’s walking city. The practice of urban drift (dérive) was celebrated by Guy Debord and other theorists of the Situationist International in the 1950s. De Certeau’s notion of “walking in the city” resembles that of drifting, a concept he would certainly have been familiar with. For a useful discussion (albeit deliberately focused on the visual) of various types of political walking practices, including Debordian dérive, de Certeau’s “walking in the city,” and the figure of the flâneur that Walter Benjamin famously adopted from Baudelaire, see Jenks 1995. For more on these contradictions, see Morris 2010. Drifting is popular in many other places around the world. The activity was publicized internationally by the major motion picture The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006). In North America spinning a car around in a stationary circle is referred to as “doing donuts.” The car of preference for most spinners is a BMW 3 Series, known locally as a gusheshe. While BMW ceased manufacturing the 3 Series in 1993, the gusheshe remains the vehicle of choice. A comprehensive history of spinning in South Africa remains to be written. Although most sources state that it is a fairly recent practice, some claim that it has been around for decades. In any event, police soon caught wind of the dangerous activity in the early 2000s, and for a time, spinning all but stopped. Today, spinning events are often regulated and licensed through Motorsport South Africa, the governing body of all motorsports in the country. In 2012 the official website for the organization reported on a successful spinning event in Soweto in which all the spinners were issued with “Official Motorsport Licenses for Spinning.” Despite attempts at regulation, informal (and illegal) spinning events continue. See the statistic on the Arrive Alive website, https://www.arrivealive.co.za /Pedestrian-Safety-Advice (accessed April 7, 2015).

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38. I am not aware of this practice in other parts of the world. Perhaps the closest is the North American practice of walking or dancing alongside a slowly moving vehicle. This is known as “ghostin’” or “ghost riding the whip.” EPILOGUE

1. 2.

The very meaning of the word “demo-cracy” contains this principle. In his gloss on Derrida’s work on democracy, Beardsworth (1996, 64) observes: “Ethical horizontality in politics must, accordingly, be suspended to remain ethical; or, more clearly put, the promise of democracy must be suspended to remain a promise” (emphasis in original). 3. All these “occupations” were connected with the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement, sometimes simply referred to as the “Occupy” movement. Note that Wall Street itself was never actually occupied. The main OWS “encampment” was down the road from Wall Street, at Zuccotti Park. 4. The Bhagavad Gita is a Sanskrit text that is part of the Hindu epic Mahabharata. Glass uses passages from the Bhagavad Gita in his opera Satyagraha. 5. The human microphone is a mechanism of speech delivery in which people gather around an individual speaker and repeat what he or she says, thus relaying the message to those not within hearing distance of the speaker. 6. Here, I am following Derrida’s (1987a) reading of the Freedom Charter. 7. Rancière takes issues with Derrida’s notion of the democracy “to come” (developed in later writings, e.g., Derrida 2005). For Rancière, the problem with Derrida’s position is that it intentionally disqualifies the possibility of there ever being a political subject, whereas for Rancière the subject of politics is always the demos (i.e., the people). For Rancière (2009c, 276), there are only two options: “either you make sense of the literal meaning of the word ‘democracy,’ the power of a subject named the people, which is the political way [this is Rancière’s ‘way’], or you make no sense of it, which is the ethical way [this is what Rancière takes to be Derrida’s ‘way’].” 8. In saying this, Marshall is pursuing a particular reading of Paul Gilroy. 9. Moreno and Steingo 2012, 500. This sentence is actually almost an exact quotation (with “unity” substituted for “unified humanity”), but for ease of reading I have presented it without quotation marks and internal brackets. 10. See Bianco 2013. There have, of course, been more sustained and internationally commented-upon protests, such as the Marikana protest and miners’ strike of August 2012, in which dozens of miners were brutally murdered by police and security forces. This event turned violent largely because it was a strike as well as a protest.

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292

Index

Abbas, Ackbar, 125 Abrahams, Randall, 60 Acker, Kathy, 147 acculturation theory, 251n3 acoustic assemblages (Ochoa Gautier), 23, 124, 149, 157–58, 160, 180; cosmopolitanism, forms of, 125; organizational apparatuses, 181; outsides, engagements with, 125; and private automobiles, 209; radical openness, 125–26; of townships, 197 actor-network theory, 182, 230– 31n56 Adorno, Theodor, 18–20, 219, 224n12 aesthetic autonomy: critique of, xi, 4–5, 8, 26, 226n27 aesthetic experience, 20, 79, 82, 87, 162, 187, 217, 219, 246–47n43; as autonomous and heteronomous, 185; economic inequality, 21; everyday conditions, 42; as illusion, 220; and kwaito, 51; ordinary life, 205–6; urban sociality, 185 aesthetic forms: and analog reduplication, 113 aesthetic objects, 56 aesthetic practices, viii, 134 aesthetic relations, 83 aesthetics, 6, 14, 17, 160, 229n41, 230–31n56; and art, 225n22; of digital failure, 114; and politics, 10, 219; and reality, 15; sensory experience, 55 aesthetic theory, 14, 229–30n47 aesthetic undecidability, 23, 59, 88 “Africa” (Toto), 199, 266n18

Africa Day Celebrations, 218 African American music: openness of, 41 African diaspora, 44 African National Congress (ANC), 33, 84; Freedom Charter, 217–18, 229n40; TINA! (There Is No Alternative), slogan of, 3 Afro-futurism, 149 Agamben, Giorgio, 133, 255n42 Agawu, Kofi, 231n64 Alexander, Benny, 85 Alexandra township, 209 Algeria, 225n17 Allen, Lara, 47 Ally, Shireen, 227–28n35 Althusser, Louis, 219, 230n51 “Amadlozi” (Bongo Maffin), 177–79 ancestors, 143–44, 158, 160, 178, 199 Andersson, Muff, 184 Andrade, Susan, 256n55 Annan, Nii Otoo, 239n72 Anonymous (activist group), 70 Ansell, Gwen, 33 apartheid, 29, 39, 55, 60, 168, 217, 237n56, 253n22, 253n26; Bantu education, 48–49, 95, 252n15; black bodies, as indispensable and expendable, 126; black homelands, 31; black middle class during, 261n3; blacks, forced removal of, 94, 96; citizenship during, 31; class compression, 261n3; cultural amnesia, enforcement of, 30; and dancing, 42; demise of, vii, 1–3, 28; doctrine of, 129–30; effects of, 106–7; ethnic zoning of, 94–95, 97, 170; homeland under,

293

INDEx

apartheid (continued) 37, 64, 96, 232n11; international music and culture, preventing access to, 33–34; international status hotels, 97; national difference, 97; national units, 94; pass laws, 97, 130, 258n16, 258n18; perspiration, connotations of during, 50–51; race and nationality, blurring of, 97; race, and nation-states, replacement by, 97; Radio Freedom, 33; sensory distributions during, 95–96; separate development, notion of, 28, 31, 37, 42, 66, 96, 170; Soweto Uprising, 30; Stallard doctrine, 129; and townships, 98; ungovernability, strategy of, 30; walking city, as counterexample of, 267n31 Appadurai, Arjun, 135 Appleseed (Anesu Adrian Mupemhi), 64, 66, 178, 181, 245n28 Arab Spring, 219 Archive Fever (Derrida), 117 “Archive Fever in South Africa” (Derrida), 118, 256n50 Arendt, Hannah, 127, 155, 181, 227–28n35, 264n35, 264n36, 264n37 Artists United Against Apartheid, 31 Ashforth, Adam, 100, 108, 192 Asmal, Kader, 85 Atlas of Apartheid (Christopher), 98 Attali, Jacques, 180 auditory culture: music technology, innovations in, 91 Babbitt, Milton, 5 Badiou, Alain, 228–29n39 Bala, Zwai. See Zwai Balibar, Étienne, 11–13, 20–21, 89, 127, 227–28n35; equaliberty, proposition of, 228–29n39 Ballantine, Christopher, 18–20, 259n30 Ballen, Roger, 151 Bananarama, 41 Bantu Self-Government Act, 96, 253n25 Bantustan, 31, 38, 96. See also homelands Baretto, Ray, 232n13 Barnett, Clive, 74, 248n54 Barrett, Douglas, 250n75 Bassey, Shirley, 40 Basson, Mari, 153 Baudelaire, Charles, 265n8, 267n32 Baudrillard, Jean, 79, 249n63, 266–67n27 294

Beardsworth, Richard, 268n2 Begging to Be Black (Krog), 124 Benjamin, Walter: flâneur, figure of, 267n32 Bergson, Henri, 264n38 Berlin Wall, 32 Bernstein, J. M., 14, 16–17, 229n45, 229n46 Berrett, A. M., 226–27n32 Bhagavad Gita, 215, 268n4 “Biko” (Gabriel), 30 Biko, Steve, 232n9 bin Laden, Osama, 69, 71 biopolitics: and inclusive exclusion, 133 black diamonds (black middle class), 171, 187, 214; Afro-chic style, 186; and connectionism, 170; as defined, 170; double consciousness of, 165; as highly mobile, 161; and kwaito, 184; as term, 261–62n4; township culture, 165; Y culture, 165–66 Blacking, John, 158, 189 black internationalism: aesthetic community of, 41 black middle class. See black diamonds BLK JKS, 261n49 Bloch, Ernest, 226n27 Blomkamp, Neill, 259–60n36 body: as archival repository, 118 Boers, 155 Bokone Records, 242n13 Boom Shaka, 2, 45, 60, 63, 77, 81–84, 86–87, 243n17, 243–44n18, 249n66, 250n69, 251n79 Bond, Patrick: and THEMBA (There Must Be an Alternative), 3 Bongo Maffin, 66, 72–73, 172, 177; African sound of, and double bind, 65; house music influence on, 64; Jamaican influence on, 64; as manufactured group, 63–64 Bono, 232n13 Bophuthatswana, 31, 39, 232n10, 235n38, 236n39; as cosmopolitan, 37–38 Bop TV, 235n38, 236n42; as foreign broadcaster, 39 Born, Georgina, 145–46 Botha, Andries, 232n10 Botha, Leon, 151 Botha, P. W., 29, 232n6; “Rubicon speech” of, 28, 232–33n15 Bourdieu, Pierre, 220, 224n13, 225n17, 240n78; aesthetic distinction, and social difference, 5

INDEx

Braxton, Anthony, 239n72 Bremner, Lindsay, 130–31 Breytenbach, Breyten, 151 Brickz (Sipho Ndlovu), 166–70, 246n37, 262n12, 262n13, 262n14 Brother Moves On, The (TBMO), x Brothers of Peace (BOP), 60, 62, 244n26 Brown, James, 88–89 Brown Dash, 183, 246n37 Browne, Donald R., 39 bubblegum music, 41, 224n10 Buchanan, Mark, 260n46 Buck-Morss, Susan, 229n41 Bull, Michael, 266–67n27 Bush, George W., 69, 71 Butler, Judith, 133 Butler, Mark, 35, 42, 234n24 Byrne, David, 156 Calburn, Sarah, 93 Cape Town (South Africa), 132, 221n2 Cavarero, Adriana, 264n36 “Celebrate” (Trompies), 2–4, 6, 15; tsotsitaal, use of in, 7 Chaka Chaka, Yvonne, 81, 224n10, 239n77, 245n32 Chernoff, John, 104 Chiawelo township, 22, 93–95, 155, 157, 258n17 Chicago (Illinois), 34, 215, 225n19, 233– 34n21, 238n68 Chipkin, Ivor, 30 Chiskop, 237n52 Christopher, A. J., 98 Christos (Christos Katsaitis), 34–36, 49, 59– 60, 62, 171–72, 234n22, 234n23, 242n12, 243–44n18, 244n23 cigarettes: and ailing body, 194; collective identity of, 195; coughing, “language” of, 194–95; as kind of clock, 195; as pure expenditure, 194; and time, 195. See also tobacco Cimini, Amy, 121 Clegg, Johnny, 50 Clinton, George, 149 Club Gemini, 35 Cold War, 32 Columbia Records, 238n67 Comaroff, Jean, 107, 266n19 Comaroff, John, 107, 227–28n35 Come Back, Africa (film), 223n9

commercial kwaito, 161; articulation and linkage, process of, 162; and copyright, 135, 171–75, 183; and organizers, 171–74, 184, 188; outside sounds, 142; and platforms, 23; and programmers, 171, 174, 180. See also kwaito Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act (CAAA), 232–33n15 Concerto, The (Bongo Maffin), 177 Congolese music, 19–20, 105 Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), 71 Cook, Nicholas, 226n25 Cooper, Bradley, 148 Coplan, David, 52, 80, 127, 190, 224n10 Copley, Sharlto, 259–60n36 cosmopolitanism of dependency, 148, 157–58 “Counterfeit Money” (Baudelaire), 265n8 Crazy Toilet (film), 144–45 Critique of Judgment (Kant), 15 Crocker, Chester, 32, 232n14 Cuba, 199–200 Cuban Counterpoint: Tobacco and Sugar (Ortiz), 199 cultural imperialism, 27 Currie, James, 18–20 Dalamba, Lindelwa, 226–27n32 dancehall, 44, 64, 138, 245n28 dancing: dromology, as form of, 51; and sweat, 50–51, 239n71, 239n72 Dancing on the Ceiling (Richie), 258n22 Dangerous Combination Crew (DCC), 244n23 Da Vinci, Vinny (Vincent Motshegoa), 34– 35, 49, 234n23, 242n12 Davis, Mike, 127 Davis, Miles, 232n14 Davis, Sammy Jr., 40 Debord, Guy: urban drift, 267n32 de Certeau, Michel, 207, 267n30; walking in the city, notion of, 267n29, 267n31, 267n32 Decoteau, Claire Laurier, 129, 133, 257n11, 258n14 de Gouges, Olympe, 11–12 de Klerk, F. W., 32 DeLanda, Manuel, 99, 180, 230–31n56, 254n33; relations of exteriority, 135 Deleuze, Gilles, 227n32, 262n8 295

INDEx

democracy, 13; anarchical principle, 11; democratization of, 11 demystification, xi, 5–6, 8, 13, 18–20, 26, 53, 240n78, 246n38 Derrida, Jacques, 28, 117–18, 193, 217, 232n4, 248n56, 256n50, 256n51, 265n8; democracy, notion of, 268n2, 268n7 de Sade, Marquis, 89, 219 Detroit (Michigan), 34, 233–34n21, 238n68 Dlamini, Bonginkosi. See Zola 7 Diana Ross and the Supremes, 40 Die Antwoord, x, 23, 148, 152–53, 155; cosmopolitanism of dependency of, 157–58; pathological assemblages, invested in, 150; work of, as ethnographic, 154; zef, concept of, 151 Diganje, 173. See also Juice Matute digital failure: aesthetics of, 114 digital technology, 115 disidentification, 81 Distinction (Bourdieu), 224n13, 240n78 DJ Fresh (Thato Sikwane), 69, 242n12 DJing: electronic dance music (EDM), 234n24 DJ Mahoota (Zynne “Mahoota” Sibika), 78, 173–74, 244n21, 244n23, 249n62 DJ Pepsi (Nkululeko Mdlongwa), 238n69 DJ Sbu. See Leope, Sbusiso DJ Sox, 7, 173 DJ Spoko, 259–60n36 DJ Tira, 173 DJU (Deejays Unite), 242n12 DJ Vetkuk, 78 DJ Vetkuk vs. Mahoota, 142 Dog Eat Dog (Mhlongo), 244n25 Dohoney, Ryan, 87 Dolar, Mladen, 70, 246–47n43 Donham, Donald L., 84, 109 Dontsa, Luvuyo, 143 double bind, 65; and driving, 208 Drakensberg Boys’ Choir, 45 drifting (cars), 210, 267n34 Dr. Mageu, 78 Drum (magazine), 163 Dube, Lucky, 45, 208 Duiker, K. Sello, 234n23 Durst, Fred, 154 Economic Freedom Fighters, 217–18 Egypt, 20, 219

296

electronic dance music (EDM), ix–x, 234n24 EMI, 171 Enlightenment, 122 equality: differences, preserving of, 13–14; forms of, 21; freedom, as related to, 14; politics, as presupposition of, 14 Erlmann, Veit, 49, 250n73, 262n8, 264n37, 267n31 escapism: as form of freedom, 9 ethnography, 14 ethnomusicology, 4, 25, 92 Eurocentrism, 6 “Evil Boy” (Die Antwoord), 154 experimentalism: cosmopolitanism of dependency, 153; and equality, 228–29n39; as ethical practice, 122–23; and riskiness, 122, 158 extraterritoriality: cosmopolitanism of, 125 Fabian, Johannes, 22 FADER magazine, 156 Farber, Tanya, 185 Fassie, Brenda, 41, 81, 83, 224n10, 242n13, 249–50n68 Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, The (film), 267n34 Feld, Steven, 124, 152, 158, 198, 239n72; schizophonic mimesis, 59 “Fella Kae” (Dr. Mageu), 78 Ferguson, James, 96–97, 138–39, 152 film studies: suture theory in, 80 film theory: and spectacle, 249n64 Finding Shangaan Electro (Glasspiegel), 155 Flabba (rapper), 226n24. See also Skwatta Kamp Flood (group), 59 Foucault, Michel, 87, 122–23, 230–31n56; and sovereignty, 232n7 France, 157, 206 Frankfurt School, 19, 80 freedom: during apartheid, 29; and cars, 212; degrees of, 14; equality, as related to, 11–14; Freedom Charter, 217–18; as heard, 33; illusion, in relation to, 9; as individual, 181; kwaito, as expression of, 2; neoliberalism, in relation to, 3; as ordinary, 58; and shisanyamas, 203, 205; and Soweto, 93; as spatial outside, 34; struggle of, 2, 214 Freeman, Alan, 260n46

INDEx

French Revolution, 12 Friedson, Steven, 197–98 future, 26, 34, 40, 105, 133, 217; and hope, 10, 220; neoliberalism, foreclosure in, viii, 3; and past, 19 Future Sounds of Mzansi, The (documentary), 153 Gabriel, Peter, 30, 232n13 Gandhi, Mahatma, 215–16 Gallo Music, 171 Gallope, Michael, 248n56, 254–55n39 Ganyani (Ganyani Tshabalala), 36, 43, 45, 49–50, 137, 238n68; house compilations, making of, 37; as mythical figure, 37; as overlooked figure, 35 garage music, 238n69. See also speed garage; UK garage Gardiner, Michael, 262n8 Gauteng Province, 163, 247n45 gay identity, 84; and homonormativity, 250–51n78 gay rights movement, 85 Gazza (Lazarus Shiimi), 169 Geertz, Clifford, 191 gender, 84; gender performance, 85 general liminology, 133 “Germs (HIVIP)” (Mathambo), 149 Gevisser, Mark, 85 Ghetto Ruff, 246n35 Gibson, Angus, 73 Gilroy, Paul, 268n8 Glass, Philip, 215, 268n4 Glasspiegel, Wills, 141, 152, 155–57 global capitalism, 170 global finance, 138–39 Global North, 7, 216, 152–55, 160, 186–87, 255–56n45 Global South, 114, 126, 229n41 Gnucci Banana (Ana Rab), 153 “Good Feelings” (Singana), 41 Gqola, Pumla, 7 Graceland (Simon), 155 Graeber, David, 5, 225n17 Great Britain, 32, 42, 60, 244n26 Groove Lounge, 173 Gulf War, 249n63 Gulf War Did Not Take Place, The (Baudrillard), 79 Gunderson, Frank, 140

hacking, 137–39 Hagedorn, Katherine, 124 Hall, Stuart, 28 Hancock, Herbie, 232n13 Hansen, Thomas Blom, 11 Hanslick, Eduard, 5, 42 Hardy, Ron, 233–34n21 Harrier, Patrick, 152 Hartford, Dirk, 71–72 Harvey, David, 206, 266n26; relational space, 263n20; relative space, 170; spatial conceptualization, 170 Haupt, Adam, 248n54, 260n47 Heard, Larry. See Mr. Fingers Hector, Graeme, 234n23 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 11 Hendrix, Jimi, 8 Hill, George, 1 Hillbrow (South Africa), 60, 97, 243n15 hip-hop, 138, 221n2, 226n24, 237n54; asymmetrical break beats in, viii; as didactic, viii; as mainstream, ix; as political, viii; and sampling, 258n21 Hip Hop Pantsula (HHP), 245n33 Hirschkind, Charles, 20 HIV/AIDS, 1, 51, 128–29, 149–50, 157, 200 Hofmeyr, Ziggy, 166–68 home (khaya): conception of, 168; and indlu, 168 homelands, 31, 37, 64, 96, 232n11. See also Bantustan Honest Jon (record label), 156 Hornberger, Julia, 98 “Hotel California” (Eagles), 65 house music, 7, 35–37, 53, 72, 137–38, 236n43; abstractness of, 42; aesthetics, in relation to, 55; dance, association with, 42; as forbidden, 40; freedom, association with, 233–34n21; as international, appeal of, 41–42, 55; kwaito, association with, viii, 22–23, 34, 42–43, 45, 49–52, 56; kwaito, differences from, 47–50; origins of, viii–ix, 225n19, 233–34n21; South African version of, 52; as underground, ix Houston, Whitney, 40 Huesmann, L. Rowell, 76 Human Condition (Arendt), 264n37 human infrastructures, 171 Humphries, Tony, 238n68

297

INDEx

Hunter, Mark, 127, 227n34, 257n12 Hussein, Saddam, 79 ideology, xi, 8, 19, 218–19; and disavowal, 246–47n43; and Marxism 20–21 Ihde, Don, 197–98 Image (band), 242n13 Impey, Angela, 2 Independent Broadcasting Association, 72 indie rock, ix inequality, 13, 21 “I Never Loved a Man the Way I Loved You” (Singana), 41 information storage: and memory, 117 International Monetary Fund (IMF), 232– 33n15 international music, 40, 51, 53 “Into Yam” (Masuka), 223n9 isicamtho, xvii–xviii Islamic traditions, 20 “It’s About Time” (Boom Shaka), 2, 60, 86–87 “It’s Over Now” (Ultra Naté), 63, 244n26 “I’ve Got Love for You” ( Jomanda), 41 Jabès, Edmond, 90 Jackson, Michael, 40 Jacqueline’s (club), 34 Jakarumba ( Jairus Khuse), 62, 244n21 Jamaica, 201; Jamaican dancehall, 44 James, Deborah, 134 Japan, 210 Jardin, Xeni, 154 jazz, 38, 45, 50; improvisatory, 207; modal, 73. See also kwaai jazz Jedrej, M. C., 143 Jim Comes to Joburg (film), 168 Johannesburg (South Africa), 23, 37, 93–94, 124, 138, 140, 156, 168, 174, 193, 200, 212, 231n59; automobility, as city of, 206–7; black middle class in, 165–66, 171; car soundscape in, as social, 207; as critical node, 130; as hell, 1–2, 213; Maboneng Precinct, 186; Melrose Arch, 185–86; and Midrand, 163; mine workers in, 252n8; public space, crisis of in, 185–87; race and class in, 163; and Sandton, 163–67; as space of exclusion, 130; suburbs of, 163– 65; transport problems in, 131–32; Zone in Rosebank, 185–87 Jomanda, 41 298

Jones, Elvin, 239n72 Jones, Watkins “Waddy” Tudor. See Ninja Journal of the Royal Musical Association (journal), 18 Jub Jub (Molemo Maarohanye), 210 Juice Matute, 173–74. See also Diganje Juluka, 50 Kabelo (Kabelo Mabalane), 9, 46, 54–55, 77, 166, 217, 240n83, 245n34 Kabyle society, 225n17 “Kaffir” (Mafokate), 176–77, 179–80, 263n28 Kalawa Jazmee, 62–64, 66–67, 166, 171–74, 183, 241n1, 244n23 Kalawa Records, 59–60, 62, 242n13, 243– 44n18 Kaluli, 198 Kant, Immanuel, 15, 17, 122–23, 229n40, 229n42; aesthetics of, 16, 230–31n56, 255n42 Kasrils, Andy, 245n28 Katsaitis, Christos. See Christos Kerman, Joseph, 224n12 Khumalo, Kelly, 183, 264n40 Khumalo, Sibongile, 242n13 Khuse, Jairus. See Jakarumba kiba performance, 95–96, 134 Kimberley (South Africa), 189, 190 King Don Father (Spiriki), 243n16 King Kiki, 239n71 Kinshasa (Democratic Republic of the Congo), 20 Kirkley, Christopher, 259n25 Kisliuk, Michelle, 22 Klipspruit township, 94. See also Western Native township Knuckles, Frankie (Francis Nicholls), ix, 42, 49, 233–34n21, 238n68 Krims, Adam, 237–38n63 Krog, Antjie, 124 Kubayi, Abel. See Kwaito Kubayi, Trudah, 44 Kubuitsile, Lauri, 203 kumanyola bila jasho, 239n71 kwaai jazz, 242n13. See also jazz kwaito, xxii, 2, 13, 18, 26, 60, 66–68, 73, 78, 91, 143, 167–68, 187, 195, 198, 212, 243n16, 246n38, 262n7; as aesthetic experience, viii, 51, 217; and agency, 249n66; as alternative sensory reality, 3, 7; as apolitical, 4; “apparition” of

INDEx

democracy, 218; and authenticity, 173; autonomous outside, as experience of, 56; Bantu education, influence on, 48–49; black body, and libidinal performance, 80–82; and black elite, 262n11; and black middle class, 184; circulation of, 160–61; circulation of, as nonlinear, 173; and community, 216; as community of sense, 66; criticism of, 4, 58; as defined, 241n3; democracy, as response to, 11; as doubling reality, 6, 15; Durban sound, 173; emergent properties, 180; evolution of, 241n10; exceptionalism of, 10, 14; experimentation, as form of, 10; female organizers, lack of in, 182–83; female performers, hypervisibility of, 81; foreign sources of, 7; freedom, as articulation of, 214; free-styling, use of, 44–45, 51; gender identity, 84; genre, problem of, 51–54; and highly trained musicians, 45–47; and hip-hop, viii–ix; house music, connection to, viii, 22–23, 34, 42–43, 45, 51, 56; house music, differences from, 47–50; “housification” of, 52; and independent labels, 57; as international genre, 27, 51–52; local and nonlocal, blurring of boundaries in, 51, 59, 63; male point of view, 249n66; as manufactured, characterization of, 63; on national scene, 57; neoliberalism in, 218; as new utopia, 10; organizational apparatuses, and human sonorization, 181; origins of, 35, 221n2; as party music, viii; perception, and mediators, proliferation of, 182; performance and life, blurring of, 83; as political, 7–8; political issues, as distraction from, 7, 218; populism in, 218; promise of, as necessary illusion, 219–20; as pronounced dead, 52; reconfiguration of, 43–44; redistribution of, 188; and sampling, 135–36; sensory disconnection, 15; as sensory distribution, 184; as sensory experience, 10, 21, 51–52; as slowed-down house music, 49–52; social conditions, ignoring of, 4, 6–7, 10; social and economic inequality, traversing of, 162; as socio-economically hybrid culture, 184; song’s body (umzimba), 134, 137; South African house music, difference between, 52; speeding up of, 52; and spinning, 210; stimuli, overabun-

dance of, 195–96; as struggle of freedom, 2; in suburbs, 165; and sweat, 50; symmetrical four-on-the-floor rhythms of, viii; and tempo, 47, 49–50, 52; as term, 43, 55; vocal style of, 47–49, 58, 180–81, 237–38n63, 238n64, 264n36; as word, etymology of, 43, 236n47; Zulu-based version of, 47; and Zulu praise-poet (imbongi), 49. See also commercial kwaito; kwaito production; kwaito songs Kwaito (Abel Kubayi), 44 Kwaito Love (Kubuitsile), 203 kwaito production: commercial form of, 23; nonprofessional and commercial form, 23–24; Sowetan subaltern context, 23 “Kwaito Revolution, The” (Hill), 1 kwaito songs (structure): dualist nature of, 175; emergent property, 180; major third, interval of, 180; and parts (layers), 175– 78, 180–81; and tracks, 175, 179 Kwaito: South African Hip-Hop (CD), viii KwaZulu-Natal Province (South Africa), 118 Ladysmith Black Mambazo, 144, 155, 260n48 Laduma Film Factory, 73 Lágbájá, 70 Laka, Don, 45–46, 58–60, 171–72, 243n16, 243–44n18, 245n32, 247n48; background of, 242n13, 244n23 Lang, Paul Henry, 224n12 Langehoven, C. J., 28 Langer, Suzanne, 250n73 Larkin, Brian, 80, 92, 111, 113, 249n64 Latour, Bruno, 226n26, 245n27; and mediators, 182 Le Corbusier, 99 Lee, Rebekah, 209 Lefebvre, Henri, 263n19 Le Grange, Louis, 29–30 Lenin, Vladimir, 58 Lenin Party School, 233n17 Leope, Sbusiso, 67, 70–71, 246n37. See also Mzekezeke Le Roux, Gabi, 237n52 “Let Me Be” (music video), 183 “Letters on the Aesthetical Education of Man” (Schiller), 27 Levan, Larry, 238n68 Levin, Theodore, 124 Lewis, Glen, 238n69 299

INDEx

Limelight (club), 34 Limitless (film), 148 Linden, Daniel, 260n46 listening, 188, 198, 206, 212; as creative practice, 189; as leisure activity, 189; practices of, 24; soundscape, channeling of, 196–97 Livermon, Xavier, 82, 130, 131, 165, 206–7, 250n72, 262n7, 267n29; disidentification, strategy of, 81 Local Government Transitional Act (1993), 253n27 Lohan, Lindsay, 260n48 “Loliwe” (Zahara), 184 London (England), 233–34n21 Los Angeles (California), 215 “Love Will Conquer All” (Richie, Phillinganes, and Weil), 136–37, 258n22 Loxion Kulcha (fashion label), 186 Luaka Bop label, 156 Maake, Norman, 241n1 Maarohanye, Molemo. See Jub Jub Mabalane, Kabelo. See Kabelo Mabena, Bob, 37, 39–40, 235n32 Mabuse, Sipho “Hotstix,” 242n13 Madonna, 78 Mafikeng. See Mmabatho Mafikeng crew, 173, 235n33 Mafokate, Arthur, 43–44, 56, 67, 73, 171–72, 175–76, 180–82, 237n52 Magubane, Zine, 249n66 Mahala (magazine), 132 Mahlaku, Harold Rangakane. See Speedy Mahlatsi, Teboho, 73 Mahoota. See DJ Mahoota “Makeba” (Bongo Maffin), 73 Makeba, Miriam, 73, 223n9, 247n47 Making Beats (Schloss), 237n54 Malawi, 197 Malema, Julius, 217, 218, 220, 226–27n32 Maloka, Greg, 242n12 Maluleke, George, 155 Mandela, Nelson, vii, 17–18, 57–58, 69, 71, 168; Rainbow Nation, vision of in, 3 Mandoza, 166, 169–70, 237n52 Mangope, Lucas, 38 Mannoni, Octave, 246–47n43 Mapaya, Geoff, 95–96 marabi, 190 Marikana protests, 268n10 300

Marley, Bob, 64 Marshall, Wayne, 218, 219, 268n8 Marx, Karl, 19–21, 189 Marxism, 20–21 Massumi, Brian, 226–27n32 Masuka, Dorothy, 223n9, 247n47 Masuku, Innocent (Bobo), 78, 248n60 material archives: forgetting, as mechanisms of, 118 Mathambo, Spoek (Nthato Mokgata), 23, 148–50, 152, 154; cosmopolitanism of dependency of, 157–58; and township tech, 153 Mathiane, Nomavenda, 79 Mathosa, Lebo, 81, 87, 208, 243n17, 250n72; death of, 250n69; performance and life, challenging of by, 82–83 Matima, Caswell, 128 Matsane, Mojalefa Emmanuel. See Mjokes Matshikiza, John, 93, 164 “Mazola” (M’du), 47–48 Mazwai, Thandiswa. See Thandiswa mbaqanga, 96, 233n19, 253n21 Mbeki, Thabo, 3–4, 218 Mbembe, Achille, 3, 19–20, 29, 105, 126, 164, 185–86, 188–89, 226–27n32 McClary, Susan, 5, 225n15 McCormack, Lance, 264n43 McGregor, Liz, 1, 111 Mchunu, Sipho, 50 McLuhan, Marshall, 254–55n39 Mdlongwa, Nkululeko. See DJ Pepsi Mdlongwa, Oscar Warona, 59–60, 62–63, 148, 171–73, 238n69, 242n12, 243–44n18, 244n23; background of, 243n15 M’du, 203–4, 248–49n61 M’du Productions, 246n35. See also Wolla Music Mean Girls (film), 155, 260n48 meat consumption, 201; sexual acts, as metaphor for, 200; and time, 200; tobacco, as counterpoint of, 200 media studies, 80 Megatrax record store, 36, 59 Mehinovic, Vedran, 260n46 Meintjes, Louise, 65, 140–41, 145, 147, 161, 236n39 memory, 119, 256n50; as archival mechanism, 118; and loss, 120; material archives, 117–18; music storage, 117 Mexico, 201

INDEx

Mhlongo, Niq, 194, 201, 202, 244n25 Miami (Florida), 233–34n21 Miles, Steven, 88 Minogue, Kylie, 41 Mjokes (Mojalefa Emmanuel Matsane), 62, 244n23, 244n21 Mkhabela, Sibongile, 95 Mmabatho, 38–39 M-Net, 39, 236n40 modern African aesthetic theory, 16–17 modern city: velocity and smooth circulation, as hallmarks of, 130 Mofokeng, Mandla. See Spikiri Mokgata, Nthato. See Mathambo, Spoek Mokoena, Tshepo, 212 Mokone, Gao, 243n15, 244n19 Mol, Annemarie, 144 Molekane, Tumi, 231n63 Molete, Mokone, 48–49, 191 Moloi, Vincent, 241n1 Monson, Ingrid, 240n81 Mooki, Thabo (Tsiki Tsiki), 248–49n61 Moreno, Jairo, 121, 133 Morobi, Phillip, 224n10 Morris, Rosalind, 58, 127, 159–60, 194, 232n7, 265n11 Motaung, Sonia, 84 Moten, Fred, 248n55 Motloi, Mohau, 241n3 Motorsport South Africa, 267n36 Mozambique, 155 Mpye, Siphiwe, 67–69 Mqombothi, Dudumalingani, 132 Mr. Fingers (Larry Heard), 42, 49, 233– 34n21 Mshini Wami (Mathambo), 153 Mthethwa, Eugene, 45–46, 62, 244n21 Mthetwa, Richard. See Nozinja Muffinz, The, x Mugabe, Robert, 69, 71 Muller, Carol, 22, 117–19, 143, 207, 256n55 Muñoz, José, 226n27, 250n70 Mupemhi, Anesu Adrian. See Appleseed music: as displaced and mystified social relation, 8; as doubling reality, 9; as escapism, 9; as gendered performance, 8; and mobility, 92; musical circulation, viii, 214; music exchange, 23; music mobility, 23; music storage, 23; nonnormative sensory relations, 19; and obduracy, 92; and politics, 56; social groups, ambiguous

relationship between, 218–19; society, relationship with, 7–8; and sound, 92; and time, 189, 195; and utopianism, 8, 10, 122, 226n27 Music and the Politics of Negation (Currie), 19 musical practice, 23; power, struggle over, 5 musical production, 57, 214; open-endedness of, 170–71 music studies, 4–6, 8 Mzekezeke, 71, 218, 246n37; anonymity of, and humility, 69; celebrity, meaning of, 67, 69; identity of, 68–70; individual authority, undermining of, 70; as masked marvel, 68–69; ordinariness of, 67. See also Leope, Sbusiso Namibia, 169 n’angas (traditional healers), 152 Natal, 193 National Party, 28–29 National Symphony Orchestra of South Africa, 242n13 Native Consolidation Act, 253n28. See also Native Urban Areas Act Native Urban Areas Act, 129, 253n28. See also Native Consolidation Act Nazarite Church, 119, 256n55 Nciza, Nhlanhla, 183–84, 246n37 Nciza, TK, 67–68, 183–84 Ndebele, Njabulo, 69, 81, 237n59, 249n68 Ndlovu, Sipho. See Brickz neoliberalism, viii, 3, 128, 218, 222n6 Newark (New Jersey), 238n68 New Musicology, 4–5, 19, 88, 224n12, 226n25 News Café, 186–87 New York (New York), 34, 215, 238n68 Ngiyabonga (Theo), 251n79 “Ngiyakusaba” (Fassie), 41 “Ngiyamfela” (Khumalo), 183 Nguni language group, 47–48 Nhlengethwa, Theo. See Theo Nigeria, 113, 249n64, 255–56n45 Nightsong (Erlmann), 264n37 Ninja (Watkins “Waddy” Tudor Jones), 150– 51, 153–54, 260n46; cosmopolitanism of dependency of, 157–58 Nirvana, 153 Nkabinde, Simon “Mahlatini,” 152 “Nkosi Sikelela” (Boom Shaka), 243–44n18 Nkwe, Jairus. See Jakarumba 301

INDEx

North America, 114, 121, 164; spinning in, 267n35 Northern Mali, 259n25 Novak, David, 56, 65, 189, 240n83, 241n87, 262n6 Nozinja (Richard Mthetwa), 23, 141, 148, 151–52, 155–56; cosmopolitanism of dependency of, 157–58 Nthando, 246n37 Ntshangase, Dumisani Krushchev, xviii Nuttall, Sarah, 1, 111, 165–66, 185; politics of aspiration, 169, 184 Nyovest, Cassper, 245n33 Obama, Barack, ix Occupy City Hall, 215 Occupy PNC Park, 215 Occupy Trinity Church, 215 Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement, 215– 16, 268n3 Ochoa Gautier, Ana María, 143, 158, 257n2, 257n3, 257n6; acoustic assemblages, 23, 124 Okmalumkoolkat, 259–60n36 Omojola, Olabode, 70 Oneness (band), 242n13 ontology, 160 open: as revolutionary political gesture, 158–59 Orchestra Maquis Original, 239n71 Original Evergreens, 153 Origins of Totalitarianism (Arendt), 155 Orlando township, 94, 252n14, 258n17 Ortiz, Fernando, 199 Oscar. See Mdlongwa, Oscar Warona Oskido. See Mdlongwa, Oscar Warona outsides: as cosmological, 133; as spatial, 133; as temporal, 133 Owen, Theresa, 245n34 Oxford Handbook of Mobile Music Studies (Gopinath and Stanyek), 121 Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC), 85 Panyaza (butcher shop), 202 “Papa Don’t Preach” (Madonna), 78 Paradise Garage, 238n68 Paris (France), 233–34n21 “Pata Pata” (Makeba/Masuka), 73, 247n47 P. Diddy, 258n21 performance: and gender, 80; as platform, 80–87 302

Perman, Anthony, 229–28n47 Perry, Katy, 154 Perullo, Alex, 239n71 Peterson, Bhekizizwe, 77, 165, 249n66 Piekut, Benjamin, 122–23, 226n26 Pimville township, 94, 252n14 Pirrotta, Nino, 224n12 Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania), 215 platforms, 162, 175, 188; aesthetic undecidability, 88–89; logic of, 245n32; and music, 56; musical meaning, 88–89; and performance, 80–87; politics, and aesthetics, 18; and radio, 71–73; as stable, 59–71; and television, 73–80; and vocals, 181 Plato, 246–47n43 Platteland: Images from South Africa (Ballen), 151 Pliny, 147 politics, 160; of aesthetics, 215 Pollak, Joel, 4 “Porte, La” (DJ Sox), 7 post-apartheid, 28, 56, 101, 123, 126, 155, 163, 205, 207, 249n66; and black middle class, 161, 165; boundaries, as porous, 130; human, and human rights, 159; “loss of loss” in, 11; mobile fluidity in, 130; radical stasis of, 3; responsibility and obligation, as crippling, 169; superfluous labor power, 127; theological tenor of, 57–58. See also apartheid; South Africa; Soweto Postcards from Soweto (Molete), 48 “Potoko” (DJ Vetkuk vs. Mahoota), 173–74 Prabhala, Achal, 131 Preciado, Paul B., 147 Pretoria (South Africa), 29, 34–35, 163, 165 Pro (rapper), 246n37 Promotions Company, 67 Protest Watch, 219 public space, 186–87; as outside in, 185 Pussy Riot, 70 Pyper, Brett, 235n28 queer performance, 226n27 queer politics, 87 Quiet Violence of Dreams, The (Duiker), 234n23 Rab, Ana. See Gnucci Banana racism, 6

INDEx

Radio Bantu, 33, 40, 233n19, 233n20 Radio Bop, 37, 39–40, 235n32, 236n42 Radio Freedom, 33 ragga, 118, 178 Ramoba, Tshepang, 261n49 Ramphele, Mamphela, 3 Rancière, Jacques, xi, 6, 10, 14, 16, 19–20, 51, 55–56, 66, 75, 83, 184–85, 214, 219, 225n18, 225n22, 226n26, 228n38, 228– 29n39, 229n44, 230n51, 246–47n43, 263n25; distribution of the sensible, 21, 162; politics, and demos, 268n7 rap, 47, 237–38n63 Rathebe, Dolly, 163–64 rave culture, 234n23 RCA Victor, 238n67 Reagan, Ronald, 31–32; World Affairs Council Speech, 232–33n15 Reconstruction and Development Program, 138 recording studios, 136, 140–42, 145–46, 174 “Rediscovery of the Ordinary, The” (Ndebele), 237n59 Republic (Plato), 246–47n43 Richards, Keith, 232n13 Richie, Lionel, 136–37 Ricoeur, Paul, 224n13 Robben Island, 33 Rock, The (restaurant), 202, 205 Rosebank, 24, 166, 185, 187 Sachs, Albie, 85 Sakhile, 59 Samba, 115 sangoma, 109, 154 Sankomota, 242n13 Sarte, Jean-Paul, 195 Satyagraha (Glass), 215–16, 268n4 Satyo, Sizwe, 222n6, 236n49, 236n50 Schloss, Joseph, 237n54 Schoenberg, Arnold, 5 Scott, Rebecca, 13 Seate, Tshepo. See Stoan Sebitlo, Bruce, 38, 62, 171–72, 244n23 Second Anglo-Boer War, 93–94 Seeger, Anthony, 125, 256n53, 257n2 Seete, Thembi, 73, 77, 243n17 Senaoane township, 94 Serote, Mongane Wally, 28–29 Sessions, Roger, 5 sexism, 6

“Sex Machine” (Brown), 88 “Sguqa Ngama Dolo” (Mzekezeke), 218 Shabalala, Joseph, 144 Shabba Ranks, 64 Shangaan Electro, 156 Shangaan Electro: New Wave Sounds from South Africa, 156 shantytowns, 93, 127 Sharpeville Massacre, 253n22 Shaviro, Steven, 14, 56 shebeen queens: marabi, development of, 190 Shell Road to Fame, 172, 263n24 Shembe, Isaiah, 256n55 Shiimi, Lazarus. See Gazza shisanyama, 200; aesthetic experience, and ordinary life, 205–6; cars, importance of to, 207–9; cars, porosity of at, 209; circles in, as protective symbolic barrier, 202–3; community and space, 201; dancing at, 202–3; DJs, as sound providers, 201–2; freedom and state control, tension between, 205; music, central role in, 201; physical space, as ill-defined, 205; sonic space of, as heterogeneous, 201; and sound systems, 201; unreality, space of, 203–5 “Shisa Nyama” (M’du), 203–4 Sibika, Zynne “Mahoota,” 43, 45–46. See also DJ Mahoota “Sigiya Ngengoma” (Trompies), 62, 244n25, 244n26 Sikwane, Thato. See DJ Fresh Simone, AbdouMaliq, 263n21 Singana, Margaret, 40–41, 236n44 Singer, Jonathan, 249n62 Situationist International, 267n32 “Siyabangena” (DJ Vetkuk vs. Mahoota), 78, 142, 249n62 Sizwe, 8–9, 53–54, 102, 103, 105, 106–7, 109, 113, 115, 118–19, 121–23, 134, 142, 144–45, 157, 195–97, 217; musical typing, technique of, 104; Ramputer of, 146 Skunk Anansie, 65 Skwatta Kamp, 226n24. See also Flabba Soar, Matthew, 239n72 socialism, 3 Sokhela, Junior, 243n17 Sokola Sonke (Thebe), 201 Sophisticated Funk (blog), 154 303

INDEx

Sound of Africa! (Meintjes), 161 Soundgarden, 153 South Africa, 1, 3, 10, 14, 21–23, 26–27, 34, 38–39, 42, 45, 57–58, 71, 76, 79, 83, 92, 97, 111, 126, 134, 148, 153–55, 157–58, 160, 169, 173, 183, 193, 200, 213, 220, 226–27n32, 232n7, 232n14, 232–33n15, 235n28, 236n43, 243n14, 248n57, 249n62; as anachronism, 28; animal sacrifice in, 159; assemblages in, 125; automobiles, and fragility of life, 212; biomedical citizenship, 128; blackouts and power failures in, 114; Black Power movement in, 30; black women, representations of in, 250n72; cars, as social objects in, 208; cars, as vulnerable in, 208; central business district, prosperity of, 164; circular dance patterns in, 266n24; citizenship, notion of in, 127– 28; Constitution of, 217–18; constructive engagement toward, 31–32; contradictions of, 218; copying foreign music in, 63; cosmological outsides, 143–44; crime in, 129; crime, structuring element of, 106; cultural boycott against, 30–31; dancehall scene, 245n28; democratic dispensation of, 11; double deaths in, 209; and dreaming, 143–44; drivers in, and double bind, 208; electronic music, domination of in, ix–x; formal equality in, 12–13; gay identity in, 84–85; gender in, 84; genre, refuting of in, 53–55; gold, discovery of in, 93; hijacking hot spots in, 208; hip-hop scene in, viii; history, archival of, 118; house music, popularity of in, 52; inequality in, 12, 133; informal taverns in, 189–90; isolation of, 32–33; Jamaican culture, influence of, 64; kaffir, as word, 263n28; material inequality in, 12–13; mine workers, 252n8; MP3s, ubiquity of in, 259n25; music circulation in, obduracy of, 121; occult practices, and theft, 110; official languages of, xvii; pedestrians, and road fatalities in, 210; platforms and popular music in, 67; platinum records in, 244n20; as “Protest Capital of the World,” 219; Rainbow Nation, vision of, 2; rights, politics of, 227–28n35; rock music in, 115; sensory experience, 56; shebeen queen, figure of, 190; social grants, 128; speed garage 304

in, 49–50; spinning craze in, 210; State of Emergency in, 29; taxi industry in, 258n18; townships in, 94; transport in, 131; unemployment in, 128–29; unimagined community in, 140; whistling practices, 143 South African Broadcasting Company (SABC), 33, 40, 71–73, 233n19, 235n38, 241n1 South African Music Conference (SAMC), 242n12 South Korea, 13 Soviet Union, 32 Sowearto (shop), 186 Soweto (South Africa), 2, 21, 30, 35, 37, 40, 44, 72, 92, 124, 146, 152, 154, 157, 160, 166–68, 175, 187, 226n30, 231n59, 252n9; absolute space, 170; acoustic assemblages, creation of in, 125, 133, 137, 158; aesthetics of propinquity, as marked by, 103, 121; animal flesh, consumption of, 199–200; apartheid layout of, 98–100; apartheid, legacy of in, 214; automobiles in, 24, 189; Chiawelo township, 22, 93, 157; cigarette (skyf ) smoking, significance of, 191–93, 196; communal creativity, as site of, 90–91, 102; confined space in, 265n4; cosmological outsides, 144–45; cosmopolitanism of dependency, 125; cosmopolitanism of extraterritoriality, 125; crime, ubiquity of, 207, 254n32; digital malfunctioning, 114–17, 121; digital storage, 113–14, 121; as diverse, 93; eating and sexual acts, as metaphor for, 200; economic marginalization in, 126–29; Foucauldian injunction in, 123; as ghetto, 126; hacking in, 137–39; history, approach to, 134–37; HIV/AIDS in, 128–29; home (khaya), conception of, 168–69; ikhopa (copy), practice of, 104, 134–37; immobility in, 102–3, 120, 161; immobility in, and theft, as contributor to, 107; information storage and transfer, interruption of, 93; infrastructures in, and music sounds, 114; inside and outside sounds, as porous in, 141–42; as invented sub-city, 130; lighting infrastructure in, 98; listening in, 188–89, 206; matchboxes houses in, 90, 98; mediated experience, uncertainties of in, 79; memory, as archival

INDEx

mechanism in, 118; memory, and loss, 120; methamphetamines, experimentation in, 147–48; mobility, obstacles to, 138; Moroka North township, 22, 93, 190, 192; multiple soundscape in, 195– 98; music, circulation of in, 23, 120–21; music, as ephemeral in, 117; music, and experimentation, as site of in, 122; music, as sound in, 140; musical equipment, breakdown of, 93; musical practices in, 23; music production, as mediality, form of, 111; musical storage, in digital formats, 117; musical storage, and memory, 119; musical technologies in, as fragile, 90–91; musicians’ computers, as extension of bodies, 107–8; musicking in, 103; musicking in, and gift exchange, 122; nonhuman animals, experimentation with, 147; nonprofessional kwaito performance in, 23; obduracy in, 120; origin of, 94; outdoor parties in, 24; outside, openness to in, 133, 143; paradigm of exchange, 134–35; power loss in, 114; practices of listening in, 24; private property, as bodily prosthetic, 107–8, 121; private property, concept of, 109–10; recording in, as ephemeral, 111; residential segregation in, 94; Senoane township, 22; shebeen queens, important figures in, 190; slumming in, 202; sound producing techniques, 143; soundscape of, and cars, 207–8; spatial logic of in, 98; spatial marginalization in, 126, 129, 130–33; spatiotemporality of, 212; spinning in, 211–12; squatter camps in, 93; stokvels (rotating savings and credit associations) in, 192–93; storage of information, 111; storage technologies, 111; taverns in, 24, 189–98; technology, dependence on, 106; theft, problem of in, 91–93, 102, 107; time in, 189; tourism in, 266n23; townships in, 95, 170; transient performance, and archival performance, 111; transport problems in, 131–32; travel, as dangerous, 131; uncertainty in, 80; urban spaces, physical layout of, 93; wealth, and witchcraft, 108–9; White City township, 22, 93, 128, 199 Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee, 132 Soweto Uprising, 30 spatial conceptualization, 170

speed garage, 49–50. See also garage music; UK garage Speedy (Harold Rangakane Mahlaku), 64, 66 Spikiri (Mandla Mofokeng), 62, 243n16, 244n21, 244n23 spinning, 267n35, 267n36; as audiovisual spectacle, 210–11; automobile performance, as form of, 210; death, flirtation with, 212; as gendered, 211; listening, as kind of, 212; township space, as ritualized performance of, 211 Spivak, Gayatri, 14, 229n41 Stallard doctrine, 129. See also Transvaal Local Government (Stallard) Commission Stanley-Niaah, Sonjah, 64 Starr, Ringo, 232n13 Stephens, Simon, 60, 63, 82, 182 Sterne, Jonathan, 114 Stiegler, Bernard, 254–55n39 Sting, 40 Stoan (Tshepo Seate), 38, 57–58, 166, 172, 178, 241n1, 247n48; double bind of, 65; Jamaican influence on, 64–66 stokvels, 192–93, 239n70 Street with No Name, The (film), xvii subjectivity, 165 Sublime Frequencies, 156 Sub Pop, 153 Sun City, 31, 37–38 Sun Ra, 149 sweat: and dancing, 50–51 Tambo, Oliver, 254n31 Tanzania, 239n71 TasteLikePizza.com (blog), 154 Thandiswa (Thandiswa Mazwai), 50, 64, 66, 181; Afro-chic aesthetic of, 182 Thatcher, Margaret, 32 Thebe, 142, 172 Theo (Theo Nhlengethwa), 83–87, 243n17, 251n79 Thompson, Emily, 141 Thompson, E. P., 193 Thornton, Robert: and unimagined community, 140, 150 Tim, Sean Ou, 260n46 time: cigarettes, relationship to, 193, 195; as expanse of nothingness, 195; meat consumption, 200; music, role of in, 189, 195; purposeless, as synonymous with, 194; and unemployment, 193–94 305

INDEx

Time and Free Will (Bergson), 264n38 TKZee, 45–46, 73, 135–37, 237n60 tobacco: cigarette (skyf ) smoking, significance of, 191–93; economy of, 193–94; and meat, 200; time, relationship to, 193. See also cigarettes tokoloshe (demon-like creature), 154 Tomlinson, Gary, 88, 251n85 Tosh, Peter, 64 Toto (band), 199 townships, 95, 98, 127, 157, 170; as acoustic assemblages, 197; Alexandra, 209; Chiawelo, 22, 93–94, 157, 258n17; home (khaya), conception of, 168–69; Klipspruit, 94; listening in, 188–89; Meadowlands, xvii; Moroko North, 22, 93, 190, 192; Orlando, xvii, 94, 252n14, 258n17; outdoor gatherings in, 198; Pimville, 94, 252n14; “popcorn” protests in, 219; precarity of human bodies in, 202–3; protests in, 254n31; Senaoane, 22, 94; sibamba ama targets (we are catching targets), and township youth, 30; as spaces of marginalization and exclusion, 132–33; spinning in, 210–11; temporality of, 195; township space, ambulatory movement in, 207; transport in, difficulty of, 132; walking in, 207; Western Native, 94; White City, 22, 93, 128, 199; Zola, 258n17; Zondi, 94 “Township Will Mug You, The” (Mqombothi), 132 “Traffic Cop” (BOP), 62–63, 244n25, 244n26 transgender movement, 84–85 Transvaal Local Government (Stallard) Commission, 258n15; and Stallard doctrine, 129 Trompies, 2–3, 6, 15, 45, 62–63, 244n23; members of, 244n21 Tripping Billy, 231n58, 260n46 Truth and Reconciliation Committee, 256n51 Tshabalala, Ganyani. See Ganyani Tshabalala, Tokollo, 46 Tshetsha Boys, 156 “Tsiki Tsiki” (M’du), 248–49n61 Tsonga music, 157 Tsonga people, 152, 261n50 tsotsitaal, xvii–xviii, 58, 181 TS Records, 67, 183–84, 246n37 Tswana people, 266n19 306

Tusk Records, 60, 243n14 Tutu, Desmond, 57 Twala, Chicco, 224n10 Tzozo, 173, 174 “Ubani uMzekezeke?” (Mzekezeke), 69, 71 UK garage, 238n68. See also garage music; speed garage Ultra Naté, 63, 244n26 United Kingdom. See Great Britain United Nations, 31, 232–33n15 United States, viii, x; 13, 22, 42, 47, 51, 148, 152, 155–56, 164, 236n43, 236n44, 237n54, 244n25, 249n63, 258n21; black Utopia, idea of, 56; constructive engagement, 31–32; electronic dance music in, ix Unlocking the Groove (Butler), 35 van Blerk, Patric, 40 “Vanghoma” (Vomaseve), 151–52 Van Zandt, Steven, 31 “Variations on the Beautiful” (Mbembe), 188 Vega, Louie (Luis Fernando Vager), 40, 49, 236n43 Verwoerd, Hendrik, 95 Victoria, Queen, 241n89 video games: and violence, 76–77 Vilakazi, Sandisiwe, 224n10 Viljoen, Martina, 250n75 vimbuza drumming: as multistable, 197–98 Virilio, Paul, 92, 114, 145 Visser, Yolandi, 150–51, 153–54; cosmopolitanism of dependency of, 157–58 Viveiros de Castro, Eduardo, 134–35 Vladislavić, Ivan, 163 Vodafone, 153 Vomaseve, Tiyiselani, 151 Vuma: A Music Revolution (documentary), 57, 172, 194, 241n1, 243–44n18, 245n34 Wanga (musician), 154 Warehouse, The (dance club), 233–34n21 Warner Brothers, 243n14 Waterman, Christopher, 25, 229–30n47, 231n62, 255–56n45 “Weekend Special” (Fassie), 201 “We Love This Place” (TKZee), 136–37 West, Kanye, 258n21 Western Native township, 94. See also Klipspruit township

INDEx

West Germany, 32 “What a Mess” (Bobo), 78 White, Dana, 234n23 White, Tim, 234n23 Winwood, Steve, 40 “With Nelson Mandela” ( Jabès), 90 Wolla Music, 246n35. See also M’du Productions world music, viii; double bind in, 65 Xhosa: circumcision rituals of, 154; performers, and hlabelela (singing), 49 Yates-Doerr, Emily, 144 Yfm (radio station), 59, 67, 68, 71–73, 186 Yizo Yizo (television program), 59, 248n54, 262n13; as aesthetic experience, 79; copycat crime, blame for, 75; doubling reality on, 73; and kwaito, 78; kwaito, as national platform for, 73; life and televised representation, interplay between, 75; mediated deliberation, view toward, 74; realism, commitment to,

74; representation and reality, blurring of, 75–78, 80; role of music in, 77–78; sensory distribution of, 73; as social and political apparatus, 75 YMag (magazine), 35 Y U 4 Me (M’du), 248–49n61 Zahara, 183–84, 264n43 Zambia, 252n8 Zapatista, 70 zef culture, 150–51 Zimbabwe, 64 Žižek, Slavoj, 70, 246–47n43 Zola 7 (Bonginkosi Dlamini), 2, 11, 53, 73, 77, 169, 214, 239–40n77 Zola township, 95, 169, 238n65, 258n17 Zondi township, 94 Zulu, 47, 120, 152, 193, 220, 241n89; home (khaya), conception of, 168 Zulu cosmology, 116–17, 144, 147 Zuma, Jacob, 3, 226–27n32 Zwai (Zwai Bala), 45–46, 135–37, 166, 240n84

307