Individual Research Project

Xiaotang Wang

IAH-241A

07/14/2020

Popular Music and its Relationship to Apartheid

The topic chosen for the individual research project is popular music and its relationship to apartheid. Popular music played an instrumental role during the apartheid period 1948-1991in South Africa, which led to enhancement of resistance movement history (Shoup, 1997). The research will be based on online sources as well as library because they have rich information about the whole idea of pop music and apartheid in South Africa, how it started and what was motivation of the artists who pioneered this music genre.

Music in South Africa was not used as mirror of the society but also as a hammer to shape the reality of racial segregation by expressing experiences and concerns of the society during the apartheid period (Schumann, 2008). The Crossover Trail of the 1980s was a new dawn for the fight against apartheid as most blacks collaborated with the whites in antiapartheid songs (South African History Online , 2019). Apartheid is associated with the pioneering of pop music which was used as a tool for responding to political repression of the time (Thomson, 2019). Those supporting the apartheid openly provoked the forces that supported apartheid by warning their end was coming to pass (Roberts, 2013). Although popular music plaid a significant role in its advocacy against apartheid, it was not easy because most of the centralized nature of Directorate Publication, which was under the apartheid government (Drewett, 2004). According to Pooley (2016), most of the songs were against the new regulations such as pass laws and the forced relocation of the black, but the Africans never seemed to give up.

Some of the problems likely to be encountered include lack of sources addressing the situation directly, because the apartheid government sent those against them to exile, but there are sources that are devoted to analyze the situation even after this era and people were able to give real experience enabling the researchers to make objective conclusions on the matter (Drewett, 2019).

References

Drewett, M. (2004). An analysis of the censorship of popular music within the context of cultural struggle in South Africa during the 1980s (Doctoral dissertation, Rhodes University).

Drewett, M. (2019). Music and Fear in Night-Time Apartheid. In Nocturnes: Popular Music and the Night (pp. 129-144). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.

Pooley, T. M. (2016). Extracurricular arts: poverty, inequality and indigenous musical arts education in post-apartheid South Africa. Critical arts, 30(5), 639-654.

Roberts, R. (2013, December 5). Nelson Mandela and music: 10 essential anti-apartheid songs. Retrieved from Los Angeles Times : https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/music/posts/la-et-ms-nelson-mandela-dies-music-ten-essential-antiapartheid-songs-20130627-story.html

Schumann, A. (2008). The beat that beat apartheid: The role of music in the resistance against apartheid in South Africa (p. 17). na.

Shoup, J. (1997). Pop music and resistance in apartheid South Africa. Alif. Journal of Comparative Poetics, 17, 73-97.

South African History Online . (2019, August 27). The development of Music in South Africa timeline 1600-2004. Retrieved from https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/development-music-south-africa-timeline-1600-2004

Thomson. (2019, February 11). Rhythmical Resistance: Musicians from the Apartheid Era. Retrieved from Culture Trip: https://theculturetrip.com/africa/south-africa/articles/rhythmical-resistance-musicians-from-the-apartheid-era/