Afrikaaps goes on further to explore the language of Afrikaans and how it was formulated in order to understand why it is used in a certain dialect by ‘coloured’ person. The artists participating in the documentary predominantly speak Afrikaans in the dialect of what is known as ‘kombuis taal.’ The concept of ‘kombuis taal’ can be interlinked to what Adam Haupt, and Cape Town-based hip-hop artists, call ‘gamtaal.’ The dialect of ‘gamtaal’ is a Cape Flats dialect of Afrikaans that consists of non-standard dialects of English, Xhosa and Zulu (Haupt, 2001: 173). Cape Town-based hip-hop artists, or crews as they were called, used ‘gamtaal’ in order to create a connection with their communities through the use of music, with a particular focus on hip-hop. Haupt uses a quote from Prophets of Da City (POC)’s Shaheen to explain why the use of ‘gamtaal’ was incorporated in POC’s music (Haupt, 2001: 178). Shaheen stated when POC did interviews they spoke ‘gamtaal’ so that the community could relate to the fact that POC’s were speaking a language that they could understand. Shaheen also validated the fact that POC were not only using ‘gamtaal’ so that they could be understood by the average individual in the township but also the fact that they were there to represent the community, i.e., the townships on the Cape Flats and other townships, in general (Haupt, 2001: 178). In Afrikaaps, Emile YX? Jansen takes the cast and crew of the documentary to a high school in Lavender Hill on the Cape Flats to discuss the issue of the Afrikaans language with some of the students. The students are able to interact with the cast as they speak the dialect of Afrikaans that Afrikaaps presented in their production and documentary.
Artistic creativity is one of the ways in which individuals are able to express themselves in order to portray a certain message to a wider audience. Afrikaaps makes use of this artistic creativity through the use of music, dance and poetry. In his book, Stealing Empire: P2P, intellectual property and hip-hop subversion, Adam Haupt explores the influence of hip-hop, its technological subversion and its cultural, racial, social, political and gender dynamics. In chapter six, “Hip-Hop, Counterpublics and Noise In Post-apartheid South Africa,” Haupt discusses hip-hop in the context of identity and places particular focus on coloured identity with regard to the hip-hop subculture. He uses the works of Cape Town based hip-hop artists in order to validate his discussions and arguments. This can be interlinked as to what Erasmus and Afrikaaps are contextualising in their concepts of the ‘coloured’ identity and how it is, or is not, defined.
Haupt states that during the 1990s, Cape Town based hip-hop challenged issues of neo-colonisation, such as apartheid, and explored the politics of identity, history and location. (Haupt, 2008: 184) In the exploration of identity, Haupt refers to Zimitri Erasmus and her concept that “multicultural discourse obscures relations of power” and the concluding statement on coloured identity being reduced to minstrelsy (Haupt, 2008: 187). An interesting concept that Haupt discovers in his research is that most Cape Town based hip-hop artists who, under apartheid, would be defined as ‘coloured’ on racial levels do not conform to this identity, particularly on cultural levels but rather refer to themselves as ‘black.’ This aligns the concept of Black Consciousness thinking and the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) which was initiated by anti-apartheid activists, such as Steve Biko (Haupt, 2008: 190).
Afrikaaps does not only employ hip-hop music in order to explore the cultural identity of the ‘coloured’ race and the history of the Afrikaans language. Jazz music is also used in Afrikaaps as the ‘coloured’ culture in Cape Town have been associated with the genre of the jazz since before the formation of the terminology ‘coloured.’ In the production and the documentary, jazz music is contrasted with hip-hop elements through collaborations by artists such as Kyle Shepherd and Jitsvinger. Shepherd, who is a multi-instrumental jazz musician from Cape Town, employs different forms of jazz into his own style. Many of the styles that he employs are local South African jazz rhythms such as marabi, kwela and what is known as Cape Jazz.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Haupt, Adam, 2001, “Black thing: Hip-hop nationalism, ‘race’ and gender in Prophets of da City and Brasse vannie Kaap,” Coloured by History, Shaped by Place: New Perspectives on Coloured Identities, Zimitri Erasmus (ed.), Kwela Books and South African History Online.
Haupt, Adam, 2008, “Hip-Hop, Counterpublics and Noise In Post-apartheid South Africa,” Stealing Empire: P2P, intellectual property and hip-hop subversion, HSRC Press.
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FOR MORE INFORMATION ON ADAM HAUPT - VISIT:
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