Genre and style

The fashion industry has boomed all over the country of SA with urban apparel designers as a result of this Kwaito craze. Designers such as Stoned Cherrie, Loxion Kulca, and Sun Goddess to name a few.

http://lesaniblog.files.wordpress.com/2007/10/stoned-cherrie2.jpg

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Bringing back Brenda

So, the iconic Afro-Pop singer Brenda Fassie will be performing again. Say what?

The deceased singer will make a come back with the use of a holographic projector at a concert. Flashback from the movie Simone. It's amazing what science and technology can do. 

http://www.channel24.co.za/Music/News/Brenda-Fassie-set-to-perform-again-20130313

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brenda_Fassie

Sound evolution

The unmistakable Kwaito sound originally came from using European instruments that Black African laborers had at their disposal after gold was found in the city of Johannesburg. A common characteristic of the Kwaito sound is the dialogue between a man and a woman with the woman mostly repeating the man's lines. It's usually distinguished as dance music with light subject matter and not really sung. It's more of a rhythmic speech. Kwaito usually engages with its audience by encouraging them to interact through a call-and-response manner. The artist really tries to engage its listeners.

So, what's the point? 

Well, ironically, not only does Kwaito resist a sense of Western-based oppression by remaining apolitical, but it also resists trends and constant presence of western influence in and of itself via its mode of production. Mhlambi  affirms it has remained the music of the SA youth after the struggle who wish to pursue rest and relaxation as opposed to dwelling in the past. The term "Kwaito" is also a very clear sign that oppression isn't something to be, or that will ever be forgotten. The danceability and poetry inherent to Kwaito, however, does show a reversion to better times-to cultural integrity.

Through Kwaito music, artists and youths collaborate to create, through music and dance, a realm where the struggle no longer exists.

A Kwaito artist escape

Kwaito can be seen as a means of recreation and also a sense of escapism being a genre that looks to the future instead of to the past. It represents the refusal of politics. Some Kwaito songs also reflect the artist's political view. An example is Zola. He rhymes, chants and sings explicitly about political and ideological issues.

This song "Mdlwembe" was featured in the Academy Award Winning film "Tsotsi".

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Tic-tac among all the bad breath

It was only until 2001 that SA artists and music found their way to Europe and the US. This electric, new found freedom gave SA musicians easier access to international works and a greater ability to freely express themselves too. As a result of this, Kwaito has been known as the express of this delicious new freedom and many anti-apartheid chants have been used as lyrics for Kwaito songs. Kwaito is called "the music that defines the generation who came of age after Apartheid."

Another thing Ndonsa told me, is that schools in townships were unable to fund programs like music classes to enhance the learning experiences of the students. Kwaito, didn't require a formal knowledge of music theory or large spaces to rehearse. Kwaito was engaging, exciting, and most imprtantly easily accessible to people in these downtrodden communities. It gave them a sense of community where there were none, too.

Boiled water

Kwaito's first single became a hit in South Africa. Let's abbreviate South Africa for SA, shall we now children? It's just easier.

"Kaffir" by Arthur Mafokate was the first hit. As all of you know, this was the most insulting and derogatory term an African person could be called during the Apartheid regime. This song illustrated freedom of expression resulting from the political liberation in South Africa.

The arrival of house music in Cape Town in the early 1990s spread to Johannesburg which made it really popular in clubs like 4th World. Local artists fused its sound with that of SA music.
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBB7C1E3F14C3FAD6

We all love being privy to a back story.

It's a Saturday night and we're all chilling together in Senzo's lounge. Smoking, drinking, and talking. They say I'm being anti-social because I'm on my laptop instead of hanging with them. They know what I'm doing, and that I'm supposed to be doing it to help the band, but they still try to pry me away and give me a double southern comfort and lime on the rocks. How could I say no to that?!

I'd like to tell you more about Kwaito's background. I didn't know much about it myself until I actually started engaging with it for Light Hour. Kwaito led a post-apartheid township subculture into the mainstream. Funny enough, Afrikaans, being "the language of the oppressor", was often drawn into Isicamtho vocab, reshaped and used in a related or new context. Isicamtho was and still is, the language spoken by the people of Soweto at the time. When House music started getting popular, people from the ghetto called it Kwaito after the Akrikaans word "Kwaai," to be angry. In this context they saw it as tracks that were hot, that "they were kicking." The most popular and well-known Kwaito artist Arthur Mafokate describes the relationship between Kwaito and gangsterism as music revolving around ghetto life.

In a time when South Africa was transforming, Kwaito took shape in townships in Soweto at the same time when Nelson Mandela took office as the first democratically elected president of South Africa.

The subsequent removal of political and economic sanctions greatly transformed the South African music industry forever.