South Africa’s Music Industry and The Lack Of Celebration

South Africa has one of the worst music industries in the world, and yes, I am comparing it to The United States Of America and The United Kingdom. Both these countries have museums and halls of fame for their artists and as a South African who has done enough research on music, I know more Americans and the British than I know of my own and this is not because I am blinded by the foreign curtain, but because we don't have enough information on these artists.

A while back I discovered The Cum In Your Face, abbreviated as TCIYF, and Shameless Band. These are Black South African rock bands and I assumed that they are the first to be commercial when doing a presumably White people thing. They are not. Thanks to Shazam, we can just turn it on and find out what we're listening to, especially in movies and on the radio. This is when I found Saitana. Saitana is a Black South African band from the apartheid era that dealt with the genres Afro-Disco and Zulu Rock. Zulu Rock. There was a whole genre named Zulu Rock. We learn every day. Now, going on deep, I discover Harari, which also dabbled in Zulu Rock but focused mostly on Afro-Disco, and their drummer was the decorated Hotstix, the Burn Out hitmaker. The most interesting band that caught my attention was National Wake, a Punk Rock band whose existence was treason. A multiracial band led by a black vocalist. Two black men, and two white men, going against the government with music. That must have been a sight to see.

When I talk about celebrated, I am not talking about musicians being celebrated just for making good music, but for also reaching milestones. We have Hugh Masekela, a great musician and one of the first exiled South Africans to make big moves in the USA, which will go on to include Miriam Makeba, a lovely songbird turned rebel who had an impact not only in South Africa but also overseas, touring with some of the most celebrated musicians in the world, and Brenda Fassie because it seems that her family is still living off her legacy, especially her son. That is as far as my “celebrated South African artists” list goes and it’s not my fault because our musical history is not kept, not even on the internet, so where do we find this history? Is it forever lost? Are we doing anything to archive what we have right now? I don’t know.

To solidify my argument, look at old rock bands from the UK. The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and Queen are still big today if not bigger because they are much more celebrated, I mean- everybody knows who Mick Jagger, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and Freddie Mercury are, if not, you've heard their songs somewhere from the media we consume, including advertisements and film. The same with RnB and Hip-Hop from the United States of America, everybody knows Destiny's Child, Whitney Houston, The Notorious B.I.G, 2Pac, Aretha Franklin, and Marvin Gaye. This is not because they made/make great music but it is also because they get celebrated regularly.

Celebrating artists has never been about “Dick riding" or being "fanboys" but it's an act of appreciation because we relate to music more than anything, making these artists our friends, and making sure that they sleep with their stomachs full. My example of what happens when there is a lack of celebration has to be Mandoza. MDZ has a string of hits up his sleeve and those who resonated with him were not the only people who felt his music as white people also love Mandoza (same reason why they balance their functions with Nkalakatha when there are black people around), but what happened to him? Well, Mandoza didn’t have anything when he died and that has to be one of the worst things to happen to a hero who people danced to, and still do. Same case with Zola. Zola is now a “has been” because he doesn’t do what he used to do and that’s unfair, living legends are not supposed to be “has been" and try to release music as they did back in their days just to make that they don't sleep with empty stomachs. All they should be doing is attending conferences on music and events made to celebrate them.

Now, I know I cannot make much of a difference but if nothing is to be done about this, many more generations are going to suffer the same thing, next thing we know, our grandchildren will not know who Simphiwe Dana, Nasty C, and Thandi Ntuli are, flushing all our musical existence into a wormhole. Let's make our music stay forever.