Rocking the laager

Cornia Pretorius exposes the soul of Afrikaans rock 'n roll

Karen Zoid is no Barbie doll. The 23-year-old rock chick is blonde, sassy and sexy with the kind of face that could easily grace the cover of a glossy women's magazine. But when she smashed a guitar to pieces on stage earlier this year she proved she had big balls too.

Zoid captured the hearts and minds of a young generation of Afrikaans speakers looking for new icons to reassure them that they were okay and that their language was okay.

"Where are our Sheryls and our Sineads and our Toris and our Courtneys?" asked boere-blues legend Valiant Swart in an Internet column.

Then Zoid arrived and her cult following is hard to miss when she performs.

They chant her name in eager anticipation. They want to marry her and have her babies. And when she executes her rock and rap version of Afrikaners is Plesierig (Afrikaners are cheerful) they croon along as if they had crafted every word themselves.

Determined to sing in a band and whack her guitar until her fingers are stiff from old age, Zoid is working hard to make a living from the poetry of music. And she refuses to apologise for her businesslike approach .

"I always wanted to do this. Throughout my life I have been a performer," she says. "And if you want to be a musician, be prepared to set up a CC or a Pty Ltd and be prepared to work. Underneath your jeans and your T-shirt you actually wear a suit."

Zoid may be a lone woman in the world of testosterone-fuelled egos, but she is not the only symbol of cool on the stage of Afrikaans rock 'n roll.

"There are undoubtedly more new Afrikaans bands on the scene. They have the guts to sing in their own language. The stigma that Afrikaans is shit is disappearing. You get everything from metal to hip-hop," says Angola Badprop, trendspotter and youth culture journalist for Jip, a youth supplement to Beeld newspaper.

While many new bands are fresh from the basement, some artists have for years lived on the fringe and only recently managed to penetrate the mainstream music market.

There are Koos Kombuis, Valiant Swart, Beeskraal , Kobus!, the Brixton Moord en Roof Orkes , battery9, Diff-olie, Brasse vannie Kaap, Not My Dog, Akkedis , Spinnekop , Plank, The Buckfever Underground, Tynhys, Riku Lätti and many more on a lengthy list of recorded artists.

The new Afrikaans rock poets claim that they are neither language activists nor politicians. They are a happy-go-lucky, peace-loving bunch who shed the shackles of Calvinism and Christian National Education and are creating an original, indigenous flavour of music. And they sing in Afrikaans because they speak Afrikaans.

Says Paul Riekert (formerly Joos Tonteldoos) of battery9, a band with a gritty, industrial sound: "The music is accidentally Afrikaans. We are Afrikaans speaking - at least half of my day is. If we were Polish we would have sung in Polish. I love Afrikaans, but I am not on a [language] mission."

However, the rock-and-rollers do reject the sing-along mob's strategy to drag Afrikaans back into an exclusionist lair as it undermines their effort to break through to non-Afrikaans speakers.

"We don't want Afrikaans to be an exclusive language. From the start our mission was to make Afrikaans more interesting to English people," says Brixton Barnard, bass player for Brixton Moord en Roof, and Plank.

Failure to take up the mantle as language advocates doesn't mean that their lyrics are devoid of politics. They do express opinions, and their songs contain an ample supply of social and political commentary.

Ultimately, says "Roof" Bezuidenhout of Brixton Moord en Roof: "Afrikaans rock is about South Africa. It is unconditionally local", and it is "unintentionally political".

"There are enough politicians and dominees . Musicians needn't also preach and they need not be prescriptive. It's about expression, not politics. Rock-and-rollers should sing and not speak."

Indeed, the majority are not political animals. They sing about babes, booze and the places they love . Frikk-E of the band Diff-olie calls it the "natural progression" of lyrics from protest against the political status quo during the 1980s, to love songs in the early 1990s to songs about day-to-day living in South Africa in 2002.

Veteran musician Piet Botha agrees: "The bitterness is gone. They sing about the torment of love and against phenomena such as reality television. "

The future's rock-and-rollers are still at school and in the musical laboratory. This was evident when some strutted their stuff at the Aardklop Arts Festival in Potchefstroom two weeks ago, during a contest in search of the hottest young talent.

Jeffreys Bay-based outfit, Die Melktert Kommissie , beat the other wannabe rockers, with schoolgirl blues about lost love.

Betsi van Zyl, 17, Lucinda Strydom, 16, Tim van der Westhuizen, 19, Jan-Adriaan Korff, 19, and Jean-Marie Vlok, 18, say Afrikaans has become cool again. "It is as if Afrikaans has been reborn," says Korff, the drummer.

Indeed the 1990s - South Africa's decade of freedom - relieved the country of more than its cruel politics. It liberated Afrikaans, but long years after the first wave of Afrikaans musical pioneers such as the late Bernoldus Niemand (James Phillips), Anton Goosen, David Kramer, Koos Kombuis and Johannes Kerkorrel first confronted the Afrikaner establishment.

The definitive period was the 1980s.

Niemand's 1984 song Hou My Vas Korporaal! ushered Afrikaans rock 'n roll into a mood of defiance as the 1989 Voëlvry tour took off with Kerkorrel and the Gereformeerde Blues Band, Kombuis and Niemand.

They sang in smoky bars and chilly town halls. Their message to students was that they were "gatvol". They annoyed the regime with their PW Botha-bashing . Police were in the shadows where they performed, there were power cuts and they were banned from campuses. They roamed the platteland, they established a network in small towns that continues to exist and remains the lifeblood of the latest generation of Afrikaans rock-and-rollers.

Kombuis (formerly André Letoit), who has cult status as a writer, poet and musician , captures the significance of the tour in the CD sleeve of a recent release of a live recording of the Voëlvry performances.

"With Voëlvry we stole the fire from the old people. We protested against the NP without giving up our Afrikanerskap. It was the kind of attack that the Bothas were unprepared for. They never expected it."

Despite the support of independent record labels such as Shifty Record and Wildebeest to expand the influence of the so-called alternative artists, there was a lull in the Afrikaans rock and roll scene post-Voëlvry. There was Houtstok in 1990 , but the pace only picked up again around the middle of the 1990s when small groups of fans began travelling to a Bushveld resort outside Northam in the Limpopo province.

Oppikoppi, just a bar and a few rondavels on a small hill, began as an intimate meeting place for performers such as Kombuis and Valiant Swart and groupies prepared to boogie throughout a weekend.

Oppikoppi represents the second wave of Afrikaans rock 'n roll. It grew into a mega-festival that attracted thousands of revellers , and together with new arts festivals began to give new talent the opportunity to appeal to a crossover audience of Afrikaans and English speakers.

As Afrikaans rock 'n roll shifted into the mainstream spotlight, some of the newer bands such as Beeskraal managed the transition brilliantly. They introduced the concertina, a trademark sound of boeremusiek, into rock.

Drummer Corné "Happy-Bees" Olckers says their fan base includes young and old, English and Afrikaans speakers, surfers, headbangers and people who sakkie-sakkie.

"I had a lady of 60 who told me we are cool," Olckers says.

Another band that has been pushing the boundaries of Afrikaans music is Kobus!.

Francois Blom and Theo Crous, respectively former members of the Voice of Destruction and the Springbok Nude Girls, together with Huyser Burgers's mixing dexterity, perform macabre rock - a dark and fantastic rip-off act of everyone and everything once considered holy in Afrikaans music.

"Afrikaans has reached a new level if you can have a band such as Kobus!. It is a send-up of the older generation. It is more like a cabaret . . . and they do music that usually doesn't appeal to the rock crowd," says Badprop.

Dirk Uys, one of the first champions of the Afrikaans rock movement, says the umpteenth reincarnation of Afrikaans rock 'n roll is not translating into sales in what remains a very small niche market.

Nevertheless, the energy of the youth may make a difference this time around. There is a new generation of South Africans who believe local is lekker. They have disposed of their hang-ups about identity and language, in particular being Afrikaans. They speak it, they write it and they rock 'n roll in it.

They might just take Afrikaans rock 'n roll well into the future.

Global Ear: Johannesburg

A survey of sounds from around the planet. This month: Charles Leonard discovers a caucus of dissident Afrikaners in a former heartland of South Africa’s police state.

Not far from the Abelarde Sanction, a club situated on a prominent street corner in the Johannesburg suburb of Brixton, a grafitti artist has altered all the red Stop signs by stencilling the words "being afraid" underneath. As one of the network of underground Afrikaans musicians who frequent the place puts it, the Sanction is "a dive, but an honest one". Pushing open its red painted doors, the first thing you notice is a massive poster of Che Guevara watching over a bar stocked with cheap Namibian beer. Young Afrikaans bohemians are draped over worn coaches, others sit at cheap tables drinking. Among other things, the Sanction is also home to The Female Headshaving Association, with numerous posters urging women to "sacrifice your locks", but tonight they’re nowhere to be seen. Instead, the pub is hosting one of its Monday Night Blues, a popular open mic evening which has been running for the past year, serving a small community of Rastafarian students and white B-boys, as well as providing a platform for the Afrikaans underground that thrives there. On stage is a young ‘Kalahari Surfer’ calling himself Piet Plante (‘Pete Plants’). Irony and cynicism are normally as thick as Piet's accent at any gathering of the Afrikaans underground, but he charms and disarms the crowd of city slickers with his acoustic set about life in rural South Africa.

"Play something in English!" someone shouts as a trio, Brixton Moord & Roof ("Murder & Robbery"), take to the rickety stage. Their bear of a singer, Andries Bezuidenhout, smiles and responds: "Go back to Natal!", referring to South Africa's most English province. When they’re on form, BM&R's music reminds you of US outback rockers Giant Sand. Apart from their ironic name, it's their lyrics (dark histories of drugs and emigrating friends) that are most interesting, as with most musicians in this loose network. The names these young Afrikaans groups select for themselves often derive from the taunts used against them, just as ‘insults’ such as ‘nigga’ and ‘queer’ have also been reappropriated: Spinnekop ("Spider", short for rockspider - a less than flattering term for Afrikaners), Plank (ditto), and Duusman (archaic version of ‘honky’). There's often less of a gap between Afrikaners and young blacks than between the Afrikaners and their English-speaking counterparts – in fact, it’s usually the latter who make these derogatory remarks.

Brixton has always been a strange borough: a former lower middle class/working class suburb where several police units were based, including the head office of the notorious Brixton Murder and Robbery Unit. Many anti-apartheid activists suffered. Some even died under the Nationalist regime’s brutal interrogation methods. But in the mid-80s, a number of white left wingers and a smattering of their black comrades started moving into Brixton and even organising street committees affiliated to the United Democratic Front, the ANC's predecessor in South Africa. Most of these radical whites were Afrikaners. The cops tolerated it, being suddenly able to spy much more easily on their enemy. At about the same time, a bunch of brave young musicians started performing cabaret shows which viciously attacked the repressive PW Botha regime - in Afrikaans, which compounded their transgression. The prime stirrer was journalist Ralph Rabie, who took on the stage name Johannes Kerkorrel (‘John Churchorgan’ – satirising the Afrikaner's immense respect for anything linked to the church). But, as Rabie put it, "The shit came raining down when we plugged in the first electric guitar.”

Forming a rock group called The Gereformeerde Blues Band (‘Reformed’, as in the name of the biggest Afrikaans church), they kickstarted the first Afrikaner punk movement, attracting the police's notorious Security Branch to their concerts. The Branch members stood out in the crowds with their macho moustaches and grey shoes, casting an intimidating influence on the young audiences and performers, often slashing car tyres outside.

Their reaction may have seemed similar to killing a mosquito with a Scud missile, but what Kerkorrel and his mates’ activities were dangerous in the eyes of their elders: they were liberating Afrikaans from its nationalist apartheid shackles. It is impossible to estimate, but this ‘Alternative Afrikaans Movement’, as it was dubbed in the media, certainly contributed to the downfall of the Nationalists, if only to raise the consciousness of many young Afrikaners. A decade and a half later, South Africa is (to understate wildly) a different country: a democracy run by a black ANC government where Afrikaans has none of the special privileges it enjoyed under apartheid.

Back at the Abelarde Sanction, pan-genre artist Riku Latti is telling the audience it's "fucking difficult to rap in Afrikaans". He brought out his own double CD ‘'n Pleister Vir My Nerwe’ (A Plaster For My Wounds), featuring bold USSR-style socialist realist artwork.

"I'm singing in Afrikaans," Latti says, "because it's another extension of my music. I don't see the need to stand up for Afrikaans though - it's become de-stigmatised." More of a studio musician than a live performer, Latti's second disc contains minimalist electronica, featuring one rhythmic track using his toothbrush the main instrument. He's collaborating with Jean Marias, Duusman's singer and sax player, on a new electronic project. The five-piece Duusman - a mix of Skidoo23, TNT-era Tortoise, Radiohead, Slint, Elliot Smith, Zappa, Ethiopean soul and South African jazz - are based in Pretoria but often play in Johannesburg where audiences have frequently been left stunned by their music.

Marais says he makes music simply because "it should be in Afrikaans, and isn't there". For him Afrikaans is a tool, and "it's a nice percussive language". He was the prime mover behind a beautiful new disc, Mondmusiek (‘Mouth Music’), which features former guerrilla fighter and Afrikaans artist Breyten Breytenbach reading his poetry over an ‘African electronic’ accompaniment – Afro-jazz colliding with Chicago-style post-rock.

Another prominent collaborator on Mondmusiek is Paul Riekert, the brains behind hard Techno/Industrial/HipHop outfit Battery 9. "I don't think I'm an Afrikaner,” asserts Riekert, “I happen to speak Afrikaans: I love the language but not the culture. Afrikaans is harsh and abrasive - it suits our heavy, clanging, Industrial music quite well. Maybe this interest in noise is an Afrikaans thing." On tracks like "Blameer" (“Blame”) and "Kakstraat" (“Shit Street”) from Battery 9's new album, Sondebok ("Scapegoat"), both which he describes as a "carnivalisation of violence", Riekert uses Afrikaans deftly in a vivid cartoon-style, yet with a sensitivity to the language's many idiosyncrasies. On "Kan Jy My Se?" (“Can You Tell Me?”) and "Jy Walg My" (“You Disgust Me”) you don't need to understand the language to feel Riekert's dark voice being drowned in noise, paranoia and alienation. He gives voice to a frustration common among fellow young Afrikaners: "My generation were the lapdogs of apartheid,” he complains, “but now that we're grown up there's no lap to sit in. It's frustrating still being sometimes branded the oppressor because of that, while you're nowhere, socially or politically."

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