The journey began when Herbert Tobiansky purchased a patch of land, west of Johannesburg in 1897. Established as an area where low-income white people could lease property, it was named after Tobiansky’s wife, Sofia. Sophiatown was established in 1914 but its first primarily white residents inhabited it in 1912.
During this time, black people had freehold rights and they were able to buy property. Soon, black South Africans came into the area until it was racially mixed to an extent of becoming increasingly black. It was the magnet of many middle class Africans who gravitated towards property ownership opportunities, family, neighbourhood and mostly freedom from government interference.
Sophiatown was an artistic escape. It grew from grassroots into a centripetal home of urban music and culture rooted in the 1940s musical performances and elements of popular culture. The fusion of different cultures moulded an African identity.
Beyond being an urban community, Sophiatown represented the hopes of urban black people during a time where westernisation was controlling African culture like a timepiece.
Sophiatown adopted the name “Sophiatown Renaissance” because the artists at its forefront were compared to New York’s Harlem Renaissance. African American slang rubbed off onto the tongues of Africans and some referred to Sophiatown as “Little Harlem.” Little Harlem had the first female songbirds whose harmonies lead major African orchestras. Those harmonies advanced African jazz and the image of Sophiatown during the 1950s before apartheid took over the notes to beautiful sounds of resistance.
Sophiatown symbolised the self-direction of the African community only to be marginalised by a very small minority apartheid system.
To be oblivious to the level of the consciousness Steve Biko carried in his black body, is to refuse one of higher realisations. When Miriam Makeba incorporated the slogan “Ons Dak nie… Ons phola hier(s)” — “We are not moving… we are staying here” into her hit song ‘Meadowlands’ — she was incorporating the township sounds of resistance against the forceful movements of people of colour from their spaces.
9 February 1955, marks the day when approximately 2000 armed white policemen moved families out of Sophiatown to Meadowlands and other parts of Soweto with force under the Groups Area Act. Stephen Bantu Biko conceptualises the attack on African culture in his paper Some African Cultural Concepts:
“Since that unfortunate date - 1652 - we have been experiencing a process of [o]cculataration. It is perhaps presumptuous to call it ‘acculturation’ because this term implies a fusion of different cultures. [T]he two major cultures that met and ‘fused’ were the African Culture and the Anglo-Boer Culture. Whereas the African culture was unsophisticated and simple, the Anglo-Boer culture had all the trappings of a colonialist culture and therefore was heavily equipped for conquest. Where they could, the conquered by persuasion… Where it was impossible to convert, fire-arms were readily available and used to advantage. [T]his is where the African began to lose a grip on himself and his surroundings” (Biko, 1984:29).
The heart of black African culture was weeded out as the minority government plucked African families out of their Trenchtown, and scattered them across different townships. Who knew that these cruel actions would turn into township beats?
“The Black indigenous sound is beautiful, soulful. Miriam Makeba, our personal musical Ambassador-in-exile, made a plea recently that Blacks should not allow their sound to die.
For centuries the whites have been taking on Black sounds and converting them, making as though they were their own sounds. People in the Black ghettos want us to reach them and we simply refuse them and we simply refuse to reach and communicate with them” (Biko, 1984:30).
Music has been a manuscript of notes spanning deeply into African protest culture. Black people’s throats have, for centuries, been filled with a fight for freedom through song. South African musical activism has resisted segregation yet in the same breathe — it gave life to unity. The significance of the songs of Makeba and Hugh Masekela is the solidarity against injustice embedded within them.
Felix Livingston wrote in his article “Music and the Anti-Apartheid Movement The Influence of Protest Songs During Apartheid Regime in South Africa” for the Cape Chameleon:
“Anti-apartheid musicians in South Africa used song as a communal act of expression which aimed to shed light into the transgressions of the regime, therefore playing a major role in the eventual reform of the country’s politics. However, this communal act didn’t only unify South Africans, it coordinated a global anti-apartheid movement. […] As the apartheid government became entrenched, in the 1950s, protest music began to take full impact”.
All aspects of South African life were influenced by apartheid. Music played a cultural function as a form of art and creativity to respond to the political repression that existed. Subsequently , apartheid shaped the lyrics, the hithats and the 808s of most African music produced during apartheid. Not only was the music profoundly moving and powerful — it also educated the world on the dire political circumstances of apartheid.
By :
The journey began when Herbert Tobiansky purchased a patch of land, west of Johannesburg in 1897. Established as an area where low-income white people could lease property, it was named after Tobiansky’s wife, Sofia. Sophiatown was established in 1914 but its first primarily white residents inhabited it in 1912.
During this time, black people had freehold rights and they were able to buy property. Soon, black South Africans came into the area until it was racially mixed to an extent of becoming increasingly black. It was the magnet of many middle class Africans who gravitated towards property ownership opportunities, family, neighbourhood and mostly freedom from government interference.
Sophiatown was an artistic escape. It grew from grassroots into a centripetal home of urban music and culture rooted in the 1940s musical performances and elements of popular culture. The fusion of different cultures moulded an African identity.
Beyond being an urban community, Sophiatown represented the hopes of urban black people during a time where westernisation was controlling African culture like a timepiece.
Sophiatown adopted the name “Sophiatown Renaissance” because the artists at its forefront were compared to New York’s Harlem Renaissance. African American slang rubbed off onto the tongues of Africans and some referred to Sophiatown as “Little Harlem.” Little Harlem had the first female songbirds whose harmonies lead major African orchestras. Those harmonies advanced African jazz and the image of Sophiatown during the 1950s before apartheid took over the notes to beautiful sounds of resistance.
Sophiatown symbolised the self-direction of the African community only to be marginalised by a very small minority apartheid system.
To be oblivious to the level of the consciousness Steve Biko carried in his black body, is to refuse one of higher realisations. When Miriam Makeba incorporated the slogan “Ons Dak nie… Ons phola hier(s)” — “We are not moving… we are staying here” into her hit song ‘Meadowlands’ — she was incorporating the township sounds of resistance against the forceful movements of people of colour from their spaces.
9 February 1955, marks the day when approximately 2000 armed white policemen moved families out of Sophiatown to Meadowlands and other parts of Soweto with force under the Groups Area Act. Stephen Bantu Biko conceptualises the attack on African culture in his paper Some African Cultural Concepts:
“Since that unfortunate date - 1652 - we have been experiencing a process of [o]cculataration. It is perhaps presumptuous to call it ‘acculturation’ because this term implies a fusion of different cultures. [T]he two major cultures that met and ‘fused’ were the African Culture and the Anglo-Boer Culture. Whereas the African culture was unsophisticated and simple, the Anglo-Boer culture had all the trappings of a colonialist culture and therefore was heavily equipped for conquest. Where they could, the conquered by persuasion… Where it was impossible to convert, fire-arms were readily available and used to advantage. [T]his is where the African began to lose a grip on himself and his surroundings” (Biko, 1984:29).
The heart of black African culture was weeded out as the minority government plucked African families out of their Trenchtown, and scattered them across different townships. Who knew that these cruel actions would turn into township beats?
“The Black indigenous sound is beautiful, soulful. Miriam Makeba, our personal musical Ambassador-in-exile, made a plea recently that Blacks should not allow their sound to die.
For centuries the whites have been taking on Black sounds and converting them, making as though they were their own sounds. People in the Black ghettos want us to reach them and we simply refuse them and we simply refuse to reach and communicate with them” (Biko, 1984:30).
Music has been a manuscript of notes spanning deeply into African protest culture. Black people’s throats have, for centuries, been filled with a fight for freedom through song. South African musical activism has resisted segregation yet in the same breathe — it gave life to unity. The significance of the songs of Makeba and Hugh Masekela is the solidarity against injustice embedded within them.
Felix Livingston wrote in his article “Music and the Anti-Apartheid Movement The Influence of Protest Songs During Apartheid Regime in South Africa” for the Cape Chameleon:
“Anti-apartheid musicians in South Africa used song as a communal act of expression which aimed to shed light into the transgressions of the regime, therefore playing a major role in the eventual reform of the country’s politics. However, this communal act didn’t only unify South Africans, it coordinated a global anti-apartheid movement. […] As the apartheid government became entrenched, in the 1950s, protest music began to take full impact”.
All aspects of South African life were influenced by apartheid. Music played a cultural function as a form of art and creativity to respond to the political repression that existed. Subsequently , apartheid shaped the lyrics, the hithats and the 808s of most African music produced during apartheid. Not only was the music profoundly moving and powerful — it also educated the world on the dire political circumstances of apartheid.
By :Thandolwethu Gulwa
Last Modified: Fri, 15 Nov 2019 11:00:22 SAST
