National Youth Day: Sizwe Sibiya looks back across the last 50 years, when drastic changes were taking place in South Africa’s education system, and new eras of music took shape in Mzansi.
Taking the baton from soul music and African jazz that was pioneered by the late Hugh Masekela, Abdullah Ibrahim and Jonas Gwangwa in the 1950s and 1960s, mgqashiyo and isicathamiya, products of traditional music genres that were formed earlier called cothoza mfana and mbaqamba, reigned throughout the 1970s.
In the modern parts of the country at the time, disco from North America and punk rock from the United Kingdom were absorbed by local musicians into the music scene, with artists like the late singer Jacob “Mpharanyana” Radebe, a coloured band called The Flames and Harare gaining recognition.
The Flames band consisted of the two legends Blondie Chaplin and Ricky Fataar who were recruited by a famous American group, The Beach Boys, to be part of the band.
In isicathamiya, the multiple Grammy Award-winning group from KwaZulu-Natal known as Ladysmith Black Mambazo reportedly dominated the genre locally and internationally, with their 1973 debut album titled Amabutho, which sold over 25,000 copies, the first gold plaque for a black musician in the country.
While the Soul Brothers and The Movers made people dance in shebeens and local taverns from Soweto in Johannesburg to Umlazi in Durban, a new genre called bubblegum came into the picture in the 1980s with stars like the late Brenda Fassie, Yvonne Chaka Chaka and Chicco Twala using their music to preach against apartheid.
During the 1980s music not only made the fans dance and artists famous, but it also created awareness globally on what was happening in Mzansi under the apartheid regime.
Fassie released iconic bubblegum songs like “Weekend Special” and “Too Late for Mama” in 1989. Her popularity carried the genre to the early 1990s after the struggle veteran from Eastern Cape, Nelson Mandela, was released from prison after 27 years behind bars.
In 1992, African gospel queen Rebecca Malope, who had been competing with Fassie and Chaka Chaka doing disco and bubblegum, released her first gospel album and seventh studio album titled Rebecca Sings Gospel, which introduced African gospel music to the world.
Malope has collectively released 36 albums. Her last album, Lord You Are Good, was released in 2019.
With the release of Mandela and the first democratic election coming into play in the year 1994, citizens, including musicians, began mixing, as they were now able to move freely without apartheid laws forcing racial segregation.
And that saw the rise of the kwaito era, the early years of SA hip hop, and contemporary SA music which was largely rap at the time, according to Carla Lottering of SouthAfrica.co.za.
With the political struggle over and the gates to the world open, SA musicians were able to develop to international standards in production, which aided in founding the early Afrohouse, which was focused largely on instruments in the early 2000s.
Artists like DJ Oskido, Black Coffee and now Black Motion, to name a few, have developed the music genre to what the world knows and appreciates today.
Now with the internet playing a crucial role in music development globally, through learning from international DJs and using equipment to make music, artists locally developed the kwaito genre and gqom music after the 2010 Fifa World Cup. And now amapiano.
Both genres gqom and amapiano rose from the back rooms in Mzansi townships, as they can be produced using only a computer and a microphone when needed.
With an average paced rhythm focusing on both instruments and vocals which may or may not include a verse in the middle, the amapiano genre has been unstoppable in the past few years, after blowing up in 2018.
Even though music has developed and taken many rhythms and direction, many SA music artists still do the traditional mbaqanga, maskandi, isicathamiya, jazz and even the original kwaito sounds other people still enjoy.
Meanwhile, amapiano is evolving and giving birth to a few subgenres like sgija, which has gqom music influence and soulful amapiano which are influenced largely by jazz and Afro-deep house music.
Image source: CNN
