South African Music after Apartheid: Kwaito, the "Party Politic," and the Appropriation of Gold as a Sign of Success

Headnote

"Kwaito" refers to the musical genre associated with South African black youth in the post-Apartheid era. Essentially a form of dance music, in its most common form kwaito is intentionally apolitical and represents music "after the struggle." The term "kwaito" also refers to a whole youth culture complete with vernacular and fashion norms. The "values" of the kwaito generation reflect mainstream consumer capitalism. However, kwaito is infused with, and complicated by, its own unique history. Therefore, the adoption of European capitalist values by the kwaito generation does not lend itself to simple analysis. I focus on the place of gold in kwaito culture. A system of racially based exploitation ensured a stable and cheap supply of labor for the white ruling class. This system was cruel and nothing short of barbaric. I explore the tragic paradox of a "new South Africa" which has-with kwaito as its form and kwaito musicians as its leaders-appropriated gold as a sign of success and ostentatious wealth. Such a theorization is, of course, overly simple, and a much more elaborate analysis is necessary for a meaningful discourse of kwaito to emerge.

Introduction

Kwaito is the music associated with the black youth of post-Apartheid South Africa. Essentially a form of dance music, in its most common form kwaito is intentionally apolitical and represents music "after the struggle." However, the term "kwaito" also refers to a whole youth culture complete with vernacular and fashion norms. The word, in fact, describes a number of differing and, at times, conflicting ideologies; in many ways it hinders our understanding of kwaito to think of it as something consistent, or stable.

While the content in kwaito music is usually frivolous and apolitical, at other times it is politically charged. Also, while kwaito is often associated with street culture-i.e., the black youth who still live in the poverty-stricken ghetto-areas created by pre-1994 racial segregation laws-on the other hand, partly due to the packaging and commodification of the genre, kwaito also represents the emerging black middle class and elite. Difference, conflict, fragmentation, and antagonism are inherent in kwaito culture-a culture that defies (and seems to intentionally avoid) simple representation and coherency.

Often the same songs and artists are meaningful both to the poor and to the wealthier...