Punk music tends to conjure up images of grungy suburban teens making a noise in their parents’ garages. But the music has a long history of protest and rebellion even here in Southern Africa. Directors of the documentary Punk in Africa Deon Maas and Keith Jones spent two years exploring this forgotten piece of African music history.
The resulting film, Punk in Africa, which has attracted positive attention internationally, throws light on the unlikely punk scenes in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Mozambique. These three countries are linked in lots of ways and share some history, but punk played a different part in each one.
Punk’s love-fest with the continent kicked off in South Africa during apartheid, when the in-your-face attitude of the music spilled across the racial divide. Maas describes the scene as the “first multiracial movement after jazz”. Sticking it to the man and restrictive laws through music and just having a good time wasn’t limited to Sophiatown, where jazz was king in the 50s.
The 70s and 80s gave rise to a new sound that united South African youth who were oppressed in their own different ways. Black youth added their voice to the growing anger during the Soweto uprisings in 1976. Their white counterparts resisted being conscripted into an army that was fighting a war they didn’t understand or believe in. The tumultuous events of the time touched every corner of the country. And all the different groups found a common ground to share their frustration and stand up for what they believed in – punk music.
Multicultural bands like Wild Youth, National Wake and The Geniuses added their own blend of punk to the melting pot. As times changed in South Africa so did the music. In the 90s the scene evolved into a more upbeat sound, heavily influence by African sounds, known as Ska- punk. South Africa wasn’t the only country experiencing social change and a more open society at the time.
In the 90s, Mozambique was just coming out of a 15-year-long civil war. It was experiencing a culture explosion, especially in the capital Maputo, according to Jones. Citizens were getting a voice and exercising their right to be heard. In current Zimbabwe, where the punk scene is on the rise, the people are fighting to be heard. Music is offering a voice to a frustrated youth, and a chance to meet together while avoiding ruthless crackdowns, very much like apartheid South Africa.
“Punk Rock exists where there are injustices and attention needs to be drawn to something,” Maas explains. In South Africa it has seemingly moved away from the interracial movement of the 70s and 80s to a more monoracial scene. Maas agrees that it might seem that way on the surface, but adds that he was surprised by how multiracial the audience was at their screenings, “which shows that there are more punk fans who aren’t white than we realise.” Leon talks about meeting a young black woman from Soweto who was excited about the documentary because it meant she didn’t have to defend herself for her choice of music – there are already trailblazers from her community dating back three decades.
The directors say they made the film partly to create an “inter-generational transfer of knowledge so that today’s artists can understand where they fit into history. “South Africans tend to forget quickly, and as a result they are a bad at documenting their history, and we hope to contribute to changing that.”
For more about Punk in Africa, check out the February edition of the Red Bulletin.
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