Abstract
Young people from the !Xun and Khwe communities living in Platfontein, a settlement in South Africa’s Northern Cape, have adopted hip-hop as a platform through which to identify, express themselves and negotiate their restrictive peri-urban living conditions. Hip-hop enthusiasts in this First Peoples community, often unemployed school leavers, create their own music, produce music videos and albums. This is done in the face of extreme challenges, including limited access to computers, music production technologies, the internet and high data charges. This chapter explores their innovative use of digital media for music production and dissemination. The study concludes that hip-hop offers these young people a platform to voice complex issues of First Peoples culture and life from the bottom-up and the accompanying digital technology offers them the opportunity to control its dissemination.
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Notes
- 1.
The ! sound is a palatal stop. Much like the sound of a cork popping, it is made by pulling the tip of the tongue sharply away from the front hard palate (see Barnard 1992).
- 2.
The !Xun and Khwe originate from Angola and Namibia respectively, having made their home in South Africa for over two decades. They were recruited by the South African Defence Force (SADF) in the border war between South Africa and the nationalist movements in Namibia in the mid-1970s. Finding themselves on the losing side of that war many of the soldiers took up the offer of the SADF to move to South Africa together with their dependants. They were promised housing and by that time they had lived under the protection of the SADF for some time. Once relocated, they settled in a tented military camp for over a decade. Eventually (through military savings and government funding) they became the owners of three farms, living now on the one called Platfontein, approximately 20 km from the Kimberley city centre (Barnard 1992; Den-Hertog 2013; Robbins 2004; Soskolne 2007). Platfontein is semi-arid and lacks access to the most basic of services.
- 3.
In this chapter, we describe First People as the earliest inhabitants of land.
- 4.
The terms Bushmen and San have pejorative roots, meaning savage and forager (or bandit), respectively (see Barnard 1992; Gordon 1992). Both are externally ascribed colonial constructs (Wilmsen 1996), now reclaimed and redefined by the descendants of hunter gatherers (see Barnabas 2009; Bregin and Kruiper 2004; Francis 2007). In this chapter, we use specific group names where possible. While elsewhere, based on the preference of research participants, we used Bushmen to refer to the larger grouping across southern Africa, we use the more popular San in this chapter as our young respondents gave no consensus regarding their preference and San is the less controversial of the two.
- 5.
The full speech can be found at https://www.mbeki.org/2016/06/01/i-am-an-african-speech-by-president-thabo-mbeki-8-may-1996/.
- 6.
Homes in Platfontein form part of the South African Government’s Reconstruction and Development Programme which offers low cost housing, particularly on the outskirts of urban areas where settlements have arisen due to job seekers moving closer to cities.
- 7.
As aforementioned, the !Xun and Khwe are linguistically and culturally different. They are two communities occupying the same land and as such are often referred to as the Platfontein community. This latter term is entirely predicated on their geographical proximity. While residing together within Platfontein, they occupy two separate sides, with a school at the centre.
- 8.
The community radio station, XK FM, established in Platfontein by the public broadcaster, the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), is mandated to preserve and protect the cultures, languages and histories of the !Xun and Khwe people.
- 9.
One of the public broadcaster’s criteria for radio play is that the music not contain explicit language (see http://beta.sabc.co.za/metrofm/music/how-to-submit-music-to-metro-fm/). As an SABC-mandated radio station, XK FM would have to follow the same criteria. While their first album reflected their community in its lyrics, DRAPP JJ STARS’ second album was rife with explicit language, possibly fashioned after their favourite MTV rappers.
- 10.
While unemployment is rife in Platfontein, a few community members have found employment in other cities.
- 11.
Data contracts are cheaper per gigabyte, but without regular employment and good credit, poor individuals are excluded from accessing these.
- 12.
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Acknowledgements
The authors are indebted to the Platfontein hip-hop artists for their research participation and to our colleagues Varona Sathiyah and Julie Grant for their commentary, especially Dr. Grant for her most insightful review.
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Barnabas, S.B., Bodunrin, I. (2021). Indigenous Hip-Hop: Digital Media Practices Among Youth of the South African San People. In: Dunn, H.S., Moyo, D., Lesitaokana, W.O., Barnabas, S.B. (eds) Re-imagining Communication in Africa and the Caribbean. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54169-9_9
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