Let's talk a little bit about my Christmas present, the DVD of the 2012
documentary titled Punk In Africa (yes I think people around me
have finally figured out my main areas of interest).
With this kind of title one could be expecting a review of the whole
continent (which sounds both extremely weird and arrogant) but as the
subheading clearly specifies the movie's not about punk in all Africa (54
countries... most of them where punk probably never existed at all anyway)
but specifically about punk bands in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Mozambique
(so the eastern part of southern Africa) but, as I will explain below,
mostly focus on the SA (South Africa) scene.
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National Wake |
The movie opens with a review of the different punk scenes in SA in the late 70s / early 80s, scenes which could recall by their sizes the very small early Australian scenes of the not-so-big cities, but in a completely different and completely specific context. It's essential to understand what was the kind of atmosphere at the time, an atmosphere deeply linked to the political regime in the country which was very far (and that's an understatement) from conservative, but liberal, Australia. So, and that's the real point of interest of this movie, how was the punk movement able to develop under the racist authoritarian regime of the Apartheid?
Following the
Soweto uprising
of June 1976, the start of the punk movement was inline with a contest
movement against the racist SA regime. Punk started as a white western
youth movement in Europe and North America and therefore spread mostly
(only?) among the working and middle white classes of SA. Regarding how
conservative and oppressive the SA society was at the time (for example it
was obviously forbidden for white and black people to live together but it
was also forbidden for blacks and whites to dance together) it was quite
"easy" to be "subversive" and seen as a "threat", even as a band made of
young white people, and consequences for any kind of activities seen as
political activism could be really severe (arrests, police harassment and
even unexplained "disappearance"). It was also a time of
war in Angola, the situation there was a bit complicated but to make it short the SA
government was not too happy about the independence of their neighbour
from Portugal domination in 1975 and the creation of a communist regime at
their border. Troops were sent and Angola soon became another theatre of
conflict in the global cold war where American-backed SA troops fought
local communists and Cuban soldiers (a lot of Cuban soldiers) sent in by
Castro to support the young free country (and he did so against the will
of the soviet union). And it lasted more than ten years...
So you can guess that a lot of young SA men were not too keen to to go
get killed fighting communists in another country, opposition to the war
and conscription soon became another important "subject" to rebel against.
And rebellion is exactly what Punk is.
But let's come back to music.
The very beginning and the Durban scene:
The documentary takes us first to the city of Durban (which, according to
some, was the epicentre of punk in SA) where
Wild Youth
(which is considered the first punk band in SA), was trying to fight
boredom and the establishment with noise and rock'n roll. They were soon
joined in this noble quest by Safari Suits from Cape Town and they
both featured on the 1979 compilation Six Of The Best with two
tracks each (it's not on YT but you can download it
here) along with other bands from that time.
After Wild Youth came
Power Age
(in 1981) whose raw sound fits easily into the UK82 or anarcho-punk genre.
They're actually a great band with very strong anti-Apartheid lyrics, I
discovered them with this movie and tried to go through their discography,
it's really worth it and you should really give it a go. Despite many
difficulties and some line-up changes they played for seven years and are
probably one of the most important SA bands from that era.
The scene was small, and sometimes extremely small, but there were other
bands too. You can fin some of them (Rotors, Leopard,
War Spike, Gay Marines etc...) on the 1983
Afrika Corps tape compilation released in France which features ten
bands from the early SA scene, mostly from Durban I think (it's on YT but
you can download it here
also).
Johannesburg:
The movie takes us next to the big city of Johannesburg and the main band
there seemed to be National Wake (formed in 1981). Contrary to the
bands in Durban which seemed to be composed of white people only (the
regime was "strongly" against blacks and whites mixing),
National Wake started as a multi-racial band, not really on purpose
but because it was coming from a "house", a "community" where people of
different skin colours were living together.
Clearly calling for unity and a big change in SA society,
National Wake started as a punk band with a rock'n roll sound but
quickly drifted toward reggae. Of course their "mixed racial activities"
didn't go unnoticed and they had to face many problems with the police but
it looks like they managed nevertheless and were even able to play in some
townships.
Unfortunately, after the release of their album in 1981, the police
harassment kept getting worse and worse, the band members lost their
shared house and had to cease their activity.
Another Jo'burg band is mentioned, the completely different and more arty
Koos. They're part of a scene which decided to express themselves
in Afrikaans and not in English (it's a subject I don't know well enough
to try to develop here but languages are linked to important political
issues in SA). Yes we start drifting away from punk shores but if you're
curious about arty and experimental new-wave from SA you should give it a
go.
Cape Town:
So apart from the already mentioned Safari Suits, Cape Town gave
birth to the Kalahari Surfers in 1982,
a band which "was essentially
a string of studio projects realised by Warrick Sony
at Shifty Studios during the 80's" according to discogs. Anyway it
was more or less a real band (a duo?) at the time of the release of
Gross National Product, the first Kalahari Surfers' album.
As you'll quickly notice the music is based on beats and percussions and
doesn't sound punk at all, the political involvement of
Warrick against the Apartheid as a musician and as a person (he was
strongly opposed to the army) is, more than his contribution to punk
music, the main reason for his presence in the film.
And from there the movie starts to drift further and further from shores
of punk to bands (like
The Genuines) which obviously, by their very existence or by their lyrics were
challenging the regime yes... but were not playing punk music. So I
started to slowly lose interest in the rest...
After the Fall:
The Apartheid finally ceased (after more than 40 years since it was
officially formalized) in the early 90s, bringing the youth of SA into a
new era which will not be exempt of challenges and disillusions but which
also gives opportunity, at last, to people to play and sing the music they
want.
So that's all very good news but unfortunately the movie seizes the
occasion to take us into the 90s ska-punk / pop-skate-punk scene (Hog Hoggidy Hog,
Fuzigish) and... that's not really my cup of tea. I mean that's not SA's fault,
the 90s were a tough time for punk in most countries after all...
An interesting point though is the importance put by these white young
men into their South African identity but also into their African
identity, yes it can't be denied that these guys are Africans and it's
good to recall the obvious sometimes, being from Africa doesn't mean being
black and vice versa.
Outside South Africa:
Unfortunately I was also quite disappointed by the parts about Mozambique
and Zimbabwe.
In Mozambique the only band mentioned is
340ml
from Maputo which plays some kind of rock-reggae very far from punk. Their
story is quite interesting though and I don't have the occasion to hear
everyday musicians from Mozambique talking about their experience in a
"socialist" country which went through a 16-year-long civil war until the
early 90s. So yes ok that's kinda cool but that's not punk!
Same with the part about Zimbabwe which mostly focus on two bands:
The Rudimentals, a ska band fronted by a Zimbabwean but that is based in Cape Town, and
yes these guys also got interesting things to say (especially about the
problems experienced by Zimbabwean immigrants in South Africa) but what
they're playing is not related to punk music... Same thing for
The Evicted
from Harare whose music is even less bearable...
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| Powerage |
Conclusion:
In the end I've got really mixed feelings about this movie, on one hand I
was really fascinated by the first part about the development of a punk culture
in such a difficult political context and how the involvement in that
culture was always deeply linked to a strong (and dangerous) rebellion against Apartheid.
I also discovered some cool bands along the way.
On the other hand I find the second part (the post-Apartheid part) less
relevant, Ok the context is still quite interesting and I don't hear very
often about more or less related punk scenes in countries like Zimbabwe
and Mozambique but all that is very far from punk.
Anyway if you're interested I've uploaded the first part (about South
Africa only, until the end of Apartheid) and you can watch it below,
unfortunately there may be a few minutes in Afrikaans without subtitles
but it's mostly in English.
N,J'Oi!
ps: the last documentary I wrote about was about the life of the first singer of Camera Silens, Gilles Bertin, and it's right HERE. It's in French but with English subtitles made by myself.
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