There is a proverb among the Venda people of South Africa that runs: “Luimbo ulu lu tou vha mushonga” (literally, “this song is the remedy”), and refers to “music that brings people together” like the South African national anthem Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika, which is sung in Afrikaans, English, Sotho and Nguni languages. It reconciles Africans, Asians, Whites, Coloureds and others in the sense that it incorporates former Apartheid national anthem with African Liberation movement songs. In a metaphorical sense, Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika acts as a kind of mushonga or remedy. (Netshisaulu Nthambeleni Charles, 2012, p 405)
The material under review for this final blog post in our seminar on South African History in a digital age involves the effort to preserve the history of the liberation struggle hidden in unused footage from Amandla, the award-winning documentary film. We’ll offer particular attention to a grant proposal—prepared by a team of researchers—and submitted to the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to fund the preservation of the Amandla footage.
To be successful, an NEH grant application must articulate the broader utility of the proposed project beyond its own geographic and disciplinary boundaries. This project benefits South Africa in obvious ways. The MSU grant proposal goes further though, by emphasizing cross cultural value in the unused Amandla footage, especially for the general public in the U.S. “given Americans’ long history of engagement with South Africa” during the global anti-apartheid movement and continued investment in South Africa’s contemporary transformation.
If the MSU grant is successful, it might also highlight the long history of cultural intercourse between the U.S. and South Africa that extends through the era of liberation struggle into the present. Citing Veit Erlmann, the proposal highlights the particular influence of “African-American music” on the shape and texture of “of black South African styles” of resistance songs. More specifically, the call-and-response structure of liberation songs composed after the 1970s is an appropriation from “spirituals, ragtime, jazz, soul, rap, and hip-hop”, according to the proposal.
The integration of black American musical components—which helped to shape the anti-apartheid struggle songs of the 70s and 80s—continues into the present. In a 2008 article in the World of Music, Sharlene Swartz writes the “call-and-response style” which were a staple of 1970s era freedom songs, re-emerged in “kwaito” the feisty youth sound that emerged from the townships of Johannesburg in mid-1990s, during the transition to democracy. Swarts also looks beyond the broad musical category of “hip-hop” to trace the black American inheritance of South African music. Indeed, aggressive call-and-response style found in Kwaito and American hip-hop were almost certain borrowed from “go-go”, an subcategory of Funk music that developed in Washington D.C., Prince Georges County Maryland, and Northern Virginia during the 1970s.
Brother Hugh: “Make My Funk the P-Funk”
In a tribute article for Chuck Brown (1936-2012) the “Godfather” of Go-Go, J. Plunky Branch of Plunky & Oneness of Juju describes the strong artistic ties between South African musical luminaries like Hugh Masekela and early the founders of the 1970s era DC music scene.
“I was around performing with my group, Oneness of Juju in the DC area in the early 1970’s when go-go was being born…In those days Hugh Masekela’s band was from Ghana, West Africa; they were called Hedzoleh Soundz and their master percussionist was named Asante. After touring with Parliament-Funkadelic and the Jazz Crusaders, Hugh Masekela and the members of Hedzoleh Soundz went back to Africa. Asante stayed in the DC area and he joined Oneness of Juju because he said we were the most authentic and creative Afro-funk group he had heard here. Asante’s unique Ghanaian talking drum rhythms would inspire some of the young percussionists who would later go on to provide the percussion for several of the prominent go-go bands.”
Luimbo ulu lu tou vha khwara (This song is a Pangolin)
The MSU proposal to preserve Amanlda documentary material is about much more than South African history. These interviews and reflections—from people whose most visceral memories of the apartheid struggle are preserved in liberation songs—also contain value insight for political discourse in post-apartheid South Africa.
In a 2008 journal article, Liz Gunner examines Umshini Wami’ (Bring My Machine Gun), a liberation era songs popular in Umkonto we Sizwe camps in Angola during the 1970s, but has since reemerged as a kind of song-as-proverb with new and flexible meanings. While current South African president Jacob Zuma made ‘Umshini Wami’ popular in 2005, Gunner illustrates how songs can become “signifier[s] with a power of [their] own and not entirely beholden to its new owner”. (Gunner 27)
The strong call-and-response component, redolent of anti-apartheid era music, is still clear in this short clip. The video also illustrates how Zuma instrumentalized his performance of the song to harness the deep sense of disillusionment in the South African body politic in 2005. The song helped Zuma, then a candidate for the presidency of the ruling African National Congress, to position himself as a politician with a common touch; a sharp contrast with then President Thabo Mbeki who was widely viewed as staid and aloof.
But the song soon became “part of a scurrilous subversive lingo, which mocked and criticized the song’s ‘owner’ (Gunner p.34). One reinterpretation of song began to circulate in 2005, while Zuma was on trial for the rape. (Cherrie wami, cherrie wami/Awuleth’ ucherrie wami’/‘My sweety pie, my sweety pie/ O bring me my sweety pie’).
The song also conjures the violent iconography associated with armed resistances—particularly the machine gun. Gunner closes her article by posing question for further examination about these most unruly parts of liberation era songs and their reinterpretations in post-apartheid political discourse. “Is it [the gun] still the same potent symbol of violence now – not in the bush but at the heart of the discourse on power in the post-struggle state?”
For MK veteran Barry Gilder, it is absurd to suggest that liberation era song express even a latent “injunction to” resume armed struggle. (2013, p318). “Freerdom songs” he argues, “are sung today as an affirmation of our history”. This is precisely the kinds of history that the MSU proposal for the Amandla materials will illuminate. Nevertheless, there are some in South Africa who interpret the latest incorporation of liberation songs as little more than thinly veiled calls to arms.
In rural Venda, it is taboo to spill the blood of the pangolin “since it is believed that no rain will fall” until a traditional doctor is summoned to perform special decontaminating rituals. The Tshivenda metaphor “Luimbo ulu lu tou vha khwara” literally means this song is a Pangolin, but is applied to describe “a song that creates problems for the country, especially those who do not like it….whilst others do enjoy it” (Netshisaulu p405). This proverb aptly captures the tensions within South Africa related to the legacy of apartheid era music. But it also speaks to the flexible character of resistance songs in Africa both as history and as political speech. Leroy Vail argued that songs and poetry are widely recognized in Southern Africa as a major channel for communication between the “powerful and powerless…through which” free expression of criticism is “not only tolerated but openly welcomed” (Vail 1986). Ultimately, Vail’s contention “that the form [resistance songs] legitimize the content” help illuminate the value of the Amandla preservation project.
Cited Work
Liz Gunner. Jacob Zuma, The Social Body And The Unruly Power Of Song, African Affairs, 108/430, 27–48
Barry Gilder. 2013 Songs and Secrets: South Africa from Liberation to Governance. Columbia University, New York
N.C. Netshisaulu. 2012. Venda Metaphors, Stellenbosch
Sharlene Swartz. 2008. Is Kwaito South African Hip-Hop? The World of Music, Vol. 50, No. 2
Leroy Vail and Landeg White. Forms of Resistance: Songs and Perceptions of Power in Colonial Mozambique, in Banditry, Rebellion and Social Protest in Africa, ed. Donald Crummey. James Curry 1986
FIFTH CITY 