Origins of Amapiano: Reflecting on Kwaito

source: Chris Saunders

Greetings and Salutations yet again. So this week, we are doing a bit of a musical history dive. If you listen to amapiano not only are you listening to the sound you are also listening to a musical history rooted in kwaito. Kwaito is a musical genre that also originated in South Africa in the late 1990s during the final years of apartheid. Amapiano as a sonic journey has heavy foundations in kwaito. As the godfather of kwaito, Oskido said , "Kwaito is the foundation of amapiano" (BBC). Thus, to truly understand Amapiano's rise, we must trace its evolution from Kwaito, and its expansion into an international phenomenon.

Kwaito emerged as a form of township expression, fusing slowed-down house beats with jazz, hip-hop, and traditional African sounds like Mbaqanga and Marabi. This genre gave Black South Africans a powerful creative outlet at a time when oppression and economic hardship were rampant. Kwaito artists like Mandoza, TKZee,Oskido and Boom Shaka created music that spoke to township life, celebrating resilience while subtly critiquing the socio-political landscape. Similarly to amapiano, Kwaito was an authentic expression of Africanness through its sound. The language used in the genre varied between English and local languages including Zulu, Sesotho and tsotsitaal. Additionally, a common experience found in southern African culture is call and response traditions that engage the audience and the performer. This too, was present in kwaito lyrics and trends. Now, we have the elements that composed kwaito, but how did it come to be? what were the music trends? how was music shared? what came before? These were some of the questions I encountered as I started doing research.

The common thread of kwaitos history documentation tends to stop around its elements. I read sources that highlighted hip-hop was an influencing genre in the sound with the rap like elements often found in kwaito compositions. Conjointly, I also read that entertainment was limited and music channels were highly censored under the apartheid regime to the point where records were smuggled passed police into townships. At this point, I had to ask myself, if international music was censored, how did jazz and hip-hop become active players in the creation of kwaito. My woes and inquiries were wonderfully placated when I found the funamabulist article that explores black music under apartheid (highly highly recommend btw).

source: artstation

Picture a stage, front and center is a white man holding a trumpet or some other form of a horn instrument with soft light shining down upon him. In front of him, sits a crowd filled with white faces waiting in anticipation of his first chord. As the room falls into silence, he angles himself to begin his performance. Behind him, curtains down, velvet as warm as the tunes to soon erupt from his trumpet and yet there is a cold not clearly distinguishable. For with the curtains drawn, a black man with a shortened name sits with the exact same instrument ready to play his first chord, except he plays for two. Told that he is not "sophisticated" enough to represent a genre so above the pigmentation of his skin, his erasure begins not only in geographical segregation but in the totality of his identity expression and its expansive nature.

In this funambulist article a critical link between apartheid and music was clarified for me. Kwaito rose during the apartheid regime which involved multiple layers of restriction including physical and economic mobility, accessibility to resources and limitations on entertainment. However, even before kwaito, jazz opened up the airwaves to cultural liberation. The divide and conquer policies of apartheid and colonialism tends to extend beyond political structures into social spheres to maintain supremacy through culture. This was no different in South Africa, as land was being conquered and ethnic groups were kept separate geographically through Group Areas act and multiple other policies, radio attempted to do the same. Radio Bantu was a station created under the apartheid regime falsely claiming to try maintain tribal pride and instead tried to ensure areas with Zulu people only heard Zulu songs and attempted to erase black jazz artists from public eye. During this time, the apartheid regime refused to embrace black jazz artists onto the stage arguing it was too sophisticated a genre to be played by black people. Now, in this same context where black jazz artists had to shorten/change their names, play for white artists who mimed the movements and artists like Miriam Makeba were exiled from the country for their art, "the reason for the South African jazz...[became an] act [of] defiance to apartheid".

Despite the high censorship and restriction to access, black South Africans created new paths. Enter stage left, Radio Freedom  which was a guerilla radio station made by African National Congress that played songs denounced by apartheid regime, shared news and acted as a unionizing force. Shebeens also became secret music venues to share and celebrate the music that was so highly monitored. Later on, the work of this resistance towards erasure became the pathways kwaito used to proliferate from radio to shebeen to radical self-proclamation. Similarly, this air of resilience continues throughout the generations. Even in the elements of the kwaito sound alone we see resilience in minute details like the use of tsotsitaal which reflects the cultural dexterity of South Africans who had Afrikaans imposed upon them. In this regard, the censorship of music and entertainment reveals that the segregationist and oppressive structures of apartheid policy translated to the engagement, experience and exportation of cultural goods. 

source: funambulist

So you might be wondering, where does that lead us Lwandle? The history is great  and all but how does this connect us to Amapiano and its implicit culturally decolonial force? And to that, I present you the following:

"The heroes of the previous generation of South African music... had been overtly political, and by making [kwaito] purposefully apolitical in a time of such major national change, the young musicians were making a distinct break from the past." (musicology)

When we take a step back and evaluate kwaito as the origin of Amapiano we see how intrinsically linked these genres are to a history of liberatory struggle. During the apartheid regime, the music produced during that time was of course more explicit in its emancipatory appeal, calling for change (Makeba) or critiquing power (Kaffir) making it feel more poignantly responsive to an oppressive regime. With time, this direct call out decreased, the regime ended, Mandela was appointed as President and black people wanted to explore their everyday realities without having to consistently discuss politics. Kwaito was a soundtrack of the youth that shared the everyday realities of the black experience and represents a liberation and celebration of cultural freedom. The new formed paths of cultural exportation, adaptation and cultural production occured in a context that was poignantly segregationist. Today however, amapiano posits both a liberatory appeal responsive to implicit oppressive measures  as well as a decolonial role.

Now that I've dropped my cliffhanger, I am curious what do you define as liberation and decolonization and do they overlap? Do you think the shift from overtly political music (e.g., Makeba) to everyday lived experiences (kwaito, amapiano) is a loss or an evolution of liberation struggles?

Disclaimer: This blog/vlog is part of my senior thesis on Amapiano for my undergraduate degree at Lake Forest College. Engagement with this post in the comments is an agreement to participate in an aspect of my research.