AFRIKAANS SINGERS THE HISTORY AND
HERITAGE OF POPULAR AFRIKAANS MUSIC

The political context of the apartheid era was instrumental in dividing the local attentions of
musicologists between Western classical music (as many Afrikaans conservatoires tended to do,
thereby also subtly accommodating the dominant narrative of white cultural supremacy) and
ethnomusicology involved with local black music that represented various forms of resistance,
mostly undertaken by liberal scholars in opposition to apartheid (Lucia 2005, p. xxxv). Thus,
while popular music studies were gaining legitimacy abroad and among liberal local scholars (for
example Anderson 1981, Coplan 1985), popular Afrikaans music was doubly excluded: from
within the conservative Afrikaans scholarly community which did not regard it as a legitimate
field (reflecting the global stance before the 1980s) to other scholars who regarded it as part of
the culture of the oppressor. There was some merit in this assumption, since white Afrikaners
as a group had the most invested in apartheid, and popular Afrikaans music often complied
with, and reflected, its cultural requirements. There were, however, instances towards the end
of apartheid when Afrikaans music artists resisted these requirements, and these were the first
to draw academic attention, mostly from outside the field of musicology. The most prominent
example of this was the anti-establishment Afrikaans rock music of the 1989 Voëlvry (literally
translated as ‘free as a bird’, or even ‘free penis’) tour. The tour consisted of three acts, head-
lined by Johannes Kerkorrel (Johnny Church Organ) and the Gereformeerde (‘Reformed’)
Blues Band, with Bernoldus Niemand (Bernard Nobody, the working-class alter ego of native
English-speaking artist James Phillips) and poet/songwriter André Letoit, who later changed his
name to Koos Kombuis (Jacob Kitchen).
Voëlvry is commonly regarded as the height of political Afrikaans music against a con-
servative white middle-class Afrikaner society and apartheid politics. Journalist and writer Pat
Hopkins (2006) published an authoritative book on Voëlvry, accompanied by a DVD produced
by Shifty Records (a small, progressive record company that recorded, among other things,
political music during the 1980s) boss Lloyd Ross. Although perhaps not strictly speaking an
academic investigation, the book is more than just a documentation of the tour, and Hopkins
successfully interrogated the way in which Voëlvry subverted the deep historical relationship
between Afrikaner nationalism and Afrikaans music. Koos Kombuis’s Sex, drugs en boeremusiek
(2000) and Short drive to freedom (2009), on the other hand, offer autobiographical accounts of his
experiences as part of Voëlvry. Apart from these books, there is a substantial body of academic
articles on Voëlvry. Jury (1996), Bosman (2004), Grundlingh (2004), Laubscher (2005), Viljoen
(2005), Baines (2008) and Suriano and Lewis (2015) have all focused on either the movement
directly, or the artists associated with it. Not unlike popular music studies elsewhere, protest
singers, poets (through literature studies of their lyrics) and music movements are often explored
themes and Voëlvry embodied all of these.
Apart from Voëlvry (and distinctly different in what it represented), the hit song ‘De la Rey’
has featured prominently in the literature on popular Afrikaans music. It was released in 2006
by singer Bok (‘Buck’) van Blerk and the album (with the same name) became the fastest sell-
ing Afrikaans debut album in history. The song was a reference to Koos De la Rey, a revered
Boer general in the Anglo-Boer War (1899–1902), and the stunning effect of this invocation
in post-apartheid South Africa drew much scholarly attention (Du Pisani 2001, Bezuidenhout
2007, Lotter 2007, Baines 2009, Lambrechts and Visagie 2009, van der Waal and Robins 2011,
Pretorius 2013). Furthermore, apart from a flood of local newspaper articles, it also featured
in UK’s The Guardian (McGreal 2007) and The New York Times (Wines 2007). Although not
groundbreaking in terms of musical style (a slow paced, folky ballad with a 6/8 time signature
that is easy to sing along to) ‘De la Rey’ struck a nerve which is of significant importance for
the study of post-apartheid Afrikaner identities. It is a controversial song. Some interpret it as
a call to arms (McGreal 2007), while others have questioned its play on Afrikaner nostalgia:

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(Bezuidenhout 2007, Baines 2009, van der Waal and Robins 2011). The song’s popularity
hinted at a surprisingly high degree of social cohesion among white Afrikaans speakers in the
absence of political party platforms. ‘De la Rey’ provided an opportunity for many to express
solidarity with an Afrikaner identity that was rooted in victimhood (the loss of independence in
the Anglo-Boer War and the horrors of British concentration camps), instead of relating to the
days of being in power (during apartheid). Such nostalgia encodes all sorts of meanings, from
rightwing Afrikaners trying to hijack the song as an anthem of white power, to representing a
retreat from the wider South African society in which it is felt that Afrikaans as a language and
a culture is under threat.
Expanding somewhat on this topic is Senekal and Van den Berg’s (2010) lyrical analyses of
62 post-apartheid Afrikaans songs released between 1998 and 2009. The most common themes
they identified had to do with crime, service delivery, appeals to stand together and more com-
plex issues surrounding (assumedly white) Afrikaner identity. Under the latter, they included
issues surrounding the problematic place of the Afrikaner in South Africa, the new generation
positioned between the past and the future, the changing landscape (including Afrikaans place
names), the maltreatment of the past and emigration as an alternative. These themes suggest that
a number of Afrikaans artists experience a sense of friction within the wider, culturally plural-
istic South African society. Stylistically, many of the younger generation of Afrikaans protest
singers seem to have continued on a trajectory established by Voëlvry, but since the context
has changed so dramatically, so has its meaning. The broader South African public is sensitive
to Afrikaner calls ‘to stand together’ or complaints about crime and the government’s ineffi-
ciency, and often, whether legitimately or not, see them as the cultural tropes of right-leaning
Afrikaners. Deidre Pretorius (2013) has made an important study of stylised representations of
masculinity in Huisgenoot Tempo magazine (the premier Afrikaans pop magazine). Here, she
identified seven stereotypes: boer, metroman, sportsman, retroman, student, worker and rebel, all vari-
ations of white male identities.
Another more recent phenomenon that has attracted much academic interest is Afrikaans
music’s biggest export, the zef (‘common’ or working class) rap group, Die Antwoord (‘The
Answer’). Haupt (2012a) has looked at both Bok van Blerk and Die Antwoord (specifically their
use of blackface) while exploring important issues of race and agency in post-apartheid music,
media and film. Heavily influenced by coloured and black gangster culture even though they are
white, Die Antwoord’s appropriation of the cultural practices of the ‘other’ was discussed in a
special roundtable edition in the Journal of South African and American Studies, or Safundi (Haupt
2012b, Kreuger 2012, O’Toole 2012, Van der Watt 2012). Other articles on Die Antwoord have
also appeared elsewhere that focus on issues of authenticity, whiteness, cultural appropriation
and the like (Marx and Milton 2011, Scott 2012, Haupt 2013, Smit 2015). Haupt is a leading
author on South African hip hop and has focused especially on its development around col-
oured neighbourhoods on the outskirts of Cape Town from the 1980s onwards, and how it has
encoded issues of power, authenticity, race, identity and language. Often rapping in vernacular
Afrikaans, these artists portray an alternative type of popular Afrikaans music that stands outside
the standard space where mainstream white popular Afrikaans music, with its exclusive and insu-
lar nature, dominates. They also represent deep-rooted fault lines among the various first language
Afrikaans-speaking communities. Haupt (2006) has also addressed the motives behind Afrikaans
arts festivals that invite coloured Afrikaans groups to perform there. He questions whether or not
these are acts of buying legitimacy, and furthermore, if coloured artists are only acceptable (and
thereby given access) if they perform music that caters for the tastes of white Afrikaans speakers.
Whereas the literature on Voëlvry, ‘De la Rey’ and Die Antwoord is very specifically
focused, there has been a number of works that have employed a broader scope. The widest

Popular Afrikaans music
is On Record: Popular Afrikaans Music and Society, 1900–2017 (Van der Merwe 2017), which
provides a historical take on salient themes in the entire history of recorded Afrikaans music to
the present, starting with the first Africana and Afrikaans records. Rob Allingham, archivist of
the Gallo Record Company (an important South African label that has released a trove of local
music since 1930, including very popular early boeremusiek records), was the first to provide
a summary of the history of popular Afrikaans music, in the African, European and Middle
Eastern section in World Music: The Rough Guide (Allingham 1999). Although a potted version,
he did manage to highlight many important historical themes such as the influence of imported
American music on the ‘concertina-led brand of dance-music’ of the 1930s (a reference to
boeremusiek), the ubiquitous background of Afrikaner nationalism, the post-war imitation of
middle-of-the-road European light music styles, the emergence of alternative Afrikaans music
during the 1980s and 1990s, and the link between music revivalists and right-wing politics after
1994 (Allingham 1999, p. 651).
Denis-Constant Martin’s Sounding the Cape (2012) is a notable work that provides a long his-
torical account of the social complexities that played on the development of music traditions in
and around Cape Town and beyond. It pays proper attention to the enormous cultural contri-
butions of coloured and black musicians across a variety of genres and also highlights the role of
racial segregation in breaking musical relations that have historically transcended such bounda-
ries. Although it is not specifically focused on Afrikaans music, a large part of the study includes
Afrikaans music elements that have emerged in this setting. Importantly, the book bridges the
lasting insularity that persists in the music industry to give a comprehensive and balanced view
of the music of the Cape. Another important study is Froneman’s ethnomusicological work on
boeremusiek (2012), which is of special significance for the period from the 1930s to the 1950s,
when it was one of the most popular genres of recorded Afrikaans music. The literature on boer-
emusiek actually has a longer history. Between the 1940s and the 1960s, nationalist intellectuals
wrote numerous papers and articles and made regular speeches on whether or not boeremusiek
resembled an authentic Afrikaans folk tradition. They were especially interested in the cultural
value of the genre and how to preserve it against foreign influences like jazz. These were, how-
ever, written from a nationalist angle and subscribed to the dominant narrative of racial segrega-
tion and hierarchies of apartheid. Froneman succeeds in portraying the position of boeremusiek as
a juncture between race, class, religion, morality, politics, power and identity, and is authorita-
tive. Klopper’s (2009) dissertation on the Afrikaans punk rock band, Fokofpolisiekar (‘Fuck off
police car’), is authoritative and provides a lyrical analysis of this hugely influential group’s work.
Klopper (2011) also published a biography on the band for a wider, less academic, readership.
There are also other popular works, like Danie Pretorius’ Musieksterre van gister en vandag:
Lewensketse En Foto’s Van Meer as 100 Musieksterre (‘Music stars of yesterday and today: life
sketches and photos of more than 100 music stars’; Pretorius 1998) and Ilza Roggeband’s 50
Stemme: Die grootste name in Afrikaanse musiek (‘50 voices: the biggest names in Afrikaans music’;
Roggeband 2009) that provide biographic and discographic information about prominent
Afrikaans singers. Another example is the 2003 documentary, Kom laat ons sing (‘Come let us
sing’), presented and co-produced by singer Laurika Rauch (Rauch et al. 2003). Here, the main
focus was on Musiek-en-Liriek (‘Music and Lyric’), a television programme aired in 1979 that
heralded a new phase in Afrikaans music. Although more folk than overtly political, some sub-
tle resistance started to emerge in the music. The documentary also provided a wider historical
perspective on popular Afrikaans music, including the manner in which apartheid censorship
prohibited a lot of music innovation and how the post-apartheid era represents a time of libera-
tion. The South African music industry during apartheid was indeed subject to strict censorship,
mostly written about by Merrett (1994) and Drewett and Cloonan (2006). This had a direct

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impact on the production of popular music, including popular Afrikaans music. The SABC used
extremely subjective measures to determine which songs could be broadcast or not. As political
tension increased during the 1980s, so did the power and intensity of censorship.
It is clear that, although a relatively new field, the literature on popular Afrikaans music
stems from numerous disciplines and is growing at a rapid pace. There is, however, still much
room and scope for studies on, for example, Afrikaans music videos, postmodernity in popular
Afrikaans music, issues of gender, its role in mass Afrikaner culture and the relationship between
music and technology. In terms of archives, most South African university libraries have music
collections that range from ethnic to Western art music, and in some cases also popular music.
However, archival material of specifically popular Afrikaans music is more limited. An impor-
tant archive is the Documentation Centre for Music (DOMUS) at Stellenbosch University,
which houses the personal archives of influential Afrikaans artists like Anton Goosen and Nico
Carstens. DOMUS also houses the Hidden Years Music Archive Project (HYMAP), which is a
vast collection of material (live recordings, albums, ephemera) documenting the popular music
scene in South Africa between 1960 and 2005, and is currently being sorted. It is one of the
best sources of information on popular music performance in South Africa during apartheid.
The radio archives of the SABC in Johannesburg hold numerous transcription records (many
in Afrikaans), censored albums (of which offending tracks were scratched out) and the like,
and although it is not all sorted, it remains an important source. The Gallo Record company
has an archive in Johannesburg, but it is currently (as far as can be ascertained) not curated and
difficult to access. One of the more useful online sources is the South African Audio Archive
(2017), which features audio clips and visuals donated by private collectors. The oldest Afrikaans
recording on the site dates to 1912. Another useful online resource is the South African Rock
Encyclopaedia (2017), which focuses on local rock in both English and Afrikaans. A welcome
new venture is the Music van de Caab Museum on the Solms-Delta wine farm in Franschhoek
which aims at showcasing the music heritage of the Cape, which is in line with the farm’s broader
policy of empowering farm workers and celebrating their cultural roots. This is important in
a wider context of not just preserving, but re-discovering, aspects of coloured Afrikaans music
heritage that fall outside the popular mainstream. If one looks at more modern manifestations
of such linguistic and racial identities in Afrikaans music (mostly hip hop), artists like Jitsvinger
(who performs in an Afrikaans dialect called Afrikaaps), Churchill Naudé and Hemelbesem are
notable names. The history of popular Afrikaans music is a rich one and part of a tumultuous
and complex past. It is an especially relevant topic when it comes to determining the contours,
or looking for indications of, social cohesion (and tension) among its various speak