The Soapbox | Where South Africans Speak Out

BY GRAHAM ROBERT POTE

Listen to a plain djembe drumbeat, and your heart beats faster, almost instinctively, as if to say your heart runs to a beat. Music is so very much a part of man, but then can someone please explain why bands are struggling in South Africa? In our country, when people are angry, they dance, sing and toyi-toyi. Politics is plagued by songs that, to some, mean more than the political policy of the party associated with the song. (The instance to which I am referring is, no doubt, Umshini Wam, JZ’s fun-filled “let’s-remind-ourselves-of-apartheid” exclusion-inducing tribal nursery rhyme. But I’ll leave my opinions thereof for another article.) But if music is the cheese to our macaroni, why is South African music such a grappling industry? There’s a reason why our music scene is struggling, and here it is: Because people aren’t supporting it. But let’s deconstruct that statement for a moment and consider what our problem is.

For starters, there are some people supporting it, except that they’re supporting the wrong type of music, and this is why Steve “Stofsuier” Hofmeyer (vacuum cleaner) sells so many albums, and why the rest of the Afrikaans music scene sounds altogether exactly the same. Commercially-driven “treffers” are not music, they’re nasty CD fodder that get dusty on the shelves at Musica and eventually end up on some Braai-tyd-Bliksem compilation, the adverts for which are even more horrendous. Commercially-driven music sucks, and it should be outlawed. It’s fake, tasteless, and sounds bad after you’ve heard it four times. At this point, regret is felt for buying such junk and you’re loathing the troll musician that has now given you a migraine.

There’s also the manner in which people go by in the showing of their support of musicians they like, which sadly, on the large part, does not include the purchase of an album. Ripping your friends’ iPods dry is not a nice thing to do! I’ll ignore the illegality of the action for a moment, but rather stay on this: How can you expect people to be able to make music for you to put on your iPod, if you aren’t allowing them the funds with which to produce said music by? So next time you rape an iPod, think about what you’re doing to a musician who has so much more to give, but no cash to produce more music with. Recording albums, producing songs and creating music videos are not cheap, and you don’t need a B Comm to know that.

The fact that the population of South Africa to whom music is marketed is so small is also a problem for CD sales. In the US, the country with the largest music industry, the total population is around three hundred million people, which means that there are loads of potential album buyers. Back home in SA, we’re sitting at forty eight million, and we all know that the larger portion of that number is not financially able to consider even looking at a hundred-something-rand CD, let alone own a CD player or even get to the music store. So that leaves us with a really small market from which to gain support and expect purchases. This is why bands such as “Lark” (the electro-dance-alternative masterpiece that just died) don’t last. “Lark’s” music was brilliant, surreal, and at times, so much to handle, and yet due to a lack of financial “support”, they had to call it quits. But go to the US iTunes store, and on Lark’s page, you’ll see their music’s popularity is huge. Consider also “Just Ginger,” who are touring successfully… in the US. There’s also the phenomenon that is the “Dave Matthews Band”, who South Africa barely knows, but are thriving in the States. You don’t know Dave Matthews Band? My point exactly. It’s better for them there.

There’s more than enough support for music in South Africa for the industry to thrive. This is why we have things such as MyCokeFest, which are becoming regular fixtures on the music scene’s calendar and why the Black Eyed Peas have already been here twice. But that support is just not equating to sales, not for South African bands at least. It’s all very well that Coke have their nice concert, but can they rather put forward homegrown musicians and bands, who I’m sure won’t come on stage like “Oasis” and tell us “we aren’t in to crowd interaction, so we’re just going to play while you listen”” Nice, thanks for that comment, you idiot, remind me to buy your album next time you’re at a loss of record deal due to pathetic image. I want to hear “Zebra & Giraffe” and “Freshlyground” and “The Dirty Skirts” and “aKing” and “Gazelle” and “Goldfish” — not a band of trolls that are here “on safari”.

So then excuse me for asking, but why aren’t people buying our music? It surely sounds good, otherwise it wouldn’t be so popular and well-reviewed? But then the interesting part is that it is popular, which is why every one of my friends has or wants the new Zebra & Giraffe and aKing album. But the ones who want the album want to get it from my Mac, not from a music store. If this is you, stop it, you’re being a troll! If you’re downloading an album from Limewire, stop it (I do, however, support the downloading of songs in order to get a feel for the CD itself, as a preview, of sorts). If you like something, don’t be a scrooge — go out and buy it. Much like food. I go to Cocoa Wah Wah in Rondebosch because I want to eat that insane chocolate brownie, trouble is, I have to buy it, otherwise I might not get let in to the café next time round.

People of South Africa, our music industry needs you. Music is the rusk to our tea, the pap to our vleis, the airtime to our phones, the wheels to our taxis, and, as was said by good old Madonna, “music makes the people come together.” Yeah. It does, so let’s go out and buy some and get this show on the road like it should be.

Graham Robert Pote is a Politics, Film and Law student at the University of Cape Town.