Inhale Determination, We Will Overcome
Eavesdrop, Mr Devious and Brasse vannie Kaap’s Representational Politics
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/jwpm.37840Keywords:
agency, apartheid, hip hop activism, representational politicsAbstract
This article contends that the work of South African (Cape Flats) MC Eavesdrop, the late Mr Devious, Brasse vannie Kaap and Prophets of da City provide important insights into the extent to which South African hip hop activists challenge hegemonic representations of working-class black subjects over two decades after the fall of legislated apartheid. In a context that is influenced by racialized class inequalities, which are produced by neoliberal macroeconomic policies, the terms upon which race is represented are highly contested. Thanks to apartheid spatial planning and the internalization of racism, tensions between subjects classified as black, coloured and African immigrants/foreigners run high. Eavesdrop presents the Black Consciousnessinspired concept of knowledge of self, meditation and introspection as a means of engaging these tensions, thereby producing counter-hegemonic narratives about the forces that shape spaces that continue to be shaped by the violent legacy of apartheid.
References
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Greene, K. J. 1999. “Copyright, Culture, and Black Music: A Legacy of Unequal Protection”. Hastings Communication and Entertainment Law Journal 21: 339–92.
Gumede, William Mervin. 2005. Thabo Mbeki and the Battle for the Soul of the ANC. Cape Town: Zebra Press.
Hall, Ruth. 2004. “A Political Economy of Land Reform in South Africa”. Review of African Political Economy 31/100: 213–27. https://doi.org/10.1080/0305624042000262257
Hall, Stuart. 1977. “Culture, the Media and the ‘Ideological Effect’”. In Mass Communication and Society, edited by J. Curran et al., 315–50. London: Arnold.
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—2014. “Interrogating Piracy: Race, Colonialism and Ownership”. In Postcolonial Piracy: Media Distribution and Cultural Production in the Global South, edited by Lars Eckstein and Anja Schwarz, 179–92. London: Bloomsbury.
—2017. “‘Non-Poor Only’: Culture Jamming and the Limits of Free Speech in South Africa”. In Media and Citizenship, edited by Herman Wasserman and Anthea Garman, 139–56. Cape Town: HSRC Press.
Hebdige, Dick. 1979. Subculture: The Meaning of Style. London and New York: Routledge.
Herman, E., and N. Chomsky. 1988. Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. New York: Pantheon.
Holman, Michael. 2004. “Breaking: The History”. In That’s the Joint! The Hip-Hop Studies Reader, edited by Murray Forman and Mark Anthony Neal, 31–39. New York and London: Routledge.
Jensen, Steffen. 2008. Gangs, Politics and Dignity in Cape Town. Oxford: James Currey.
Kato, Matahite T. 2012. From Kung Fu to Hip Hop: Globalization, Revolution, and Popular Culture. New York: SUNY Press.
Lemanski, Charlotte. 2007. “Global Cities in the South: Deepening Social and Spatial Polarisation in Cape Town”. Cities 24/6: 448–61. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2007.01.011
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Levenson, Z. 2014. “We are Humans and Not Dogs: The Crisis of Housing Delivery in Post-Apartheid Cape Town”. Berkeley Journal of Sociology 58: 14–22.
MacDonald, Michael. 2006. Why Race Matters in South Africa. Scottsville: University of Kwazulu-Natal Press.
Mamdani, Mahmood. 2002. “Amnesty or Impunity? A Preliminary Critique of the Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa (TRC)”. Diacritics 32/3-4: 33–59. https://doi.org/10.1353/dia.2005.0005
Meersman, Brent. 2012. “State of the Arts in SA”. Mail & Guardian. Online: https://mg.co.za/article/2012-05-06-state-of-the-arts (accessed 14 November 2018).
Ntsebeza, Lungisile, and Ruth Hall, eds. 2007. The Land Question in South Africa: The Challenge of Transformation and Redistribution. Cape Town: HSRC Press.
Petersen, Tammy. 2018. “Controversial Gatvol Capetonian Claims to be ‘Pro-Brown, Not Anti-Black’”. News24. Online: https://tinyurl.com/news24-20180703 (accessed 10 October 2018)
Pinnock, Don. 2016. Gang Town. Cape Town: Tafelberg.
Qambela, Gcobani. 2016. “‘There is No Such Thing as a Single-Issue Struggle’: Xenophobia in the Time of Decolonisation”. Agenda 30/2: 35–45. https://doi.org/10.1080/10130950.2016.1216817
Rose, Tricia. 1994. Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.
Salo, Elaine R. 2018. Respectable Mothers, Tough Men and Good Daughters: Producing Persons in Manenberg Township South Africa. Cameroon: Langaa RPCIG.
Schoeman, Monishia. 2018. Personal interview via email with Adam Haupt.
Sidley, P. 1999. “South African Doctors Demand Action on ‘Unethical’ Colleagues”. British Medical Journal 31/7210: 594. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.319.7210.594
Smith, Matthew J. 2011. “Violence, Xenophobia and the Media: A Review of the South African Media’s Coverage of Xenophobia and the Xenophobic Violence Prior to and Including the Events of 2008”. Politikon: South African Journal of Political Studies 38/1: 111–29. https://doi.org/10.1080/02589346.2011.548673
Staff Reporter. 2018. “WATCH: Police Fire Rubber Bullets at Angry Parkwood Land Protesters”. News24. Online: https://tinyurl.com/news24-20180523 (accessed 31 August 2018).
Villet, Charles. 2017. “Donald Trump, White Victimhood and the South African Far-Right”. The Conversation. Online: http://theconversation.com/donald-trump-white-victimhood-and-the-south-african-far-right-73400 (accessed 14 November 2018)
Wilkinson, Kate. 2018. “FACTSHEET: South Africa’s Official Poverty Numbers”. Africa Check. Online: https://africacheck.org/factsheets/factsheet-south-africas-official-poverty-numbers/ (accessed 31 August 2018).
Blignaut, Charl. 2018. “Whistle Blown on Arts Boss”. News24. Online: https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/whistle-blown-on-arts-boss-20180311-2 (accessed 31 August 2018).
Du Bois, W. E. B. 2009 (1903). “The Souls of Black Folk”. Journal of Pan African Studies. Online: http://www.jpanafrican.org/ebooks.htm (accessed 5 November 2018).
Eavesdrop. 2018a. Personal communication via WhatsApp with Adam Haupt.
Erasmus, Zimitri. 2017. Race Otherwise: Forging a New Humanism for South Africa. Johannesburg: Wits University Press. https://doi.org/10.18772/12017090589
Evans, Jenni. 2018. “Public Protector asked to step in to probe allegations of housing list corruption after Parkwood protests”. News24. Online: https://tinyurl.com/news24-20180524 (accessed 31 August 2018).
Fanon, Frantz. 1968. The Wretched of the Earth, translated by Constance Farrington. New York: Grove Press.
Fraser, Nancy. 1992. “Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy”. In Habermas and the Public Sphere, edited by Craig Calhoun, 109–42. Cambridge, MA and London: MIT Press.
Gibson, Nigel C. 2011. Fanonian Practices in South Africa: From Steve Biko to Abahlali baseMjondolo. New York: Palgrave Macmillan; Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press.
Gilroy, Paul. 1993. The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Gosa, Travis L. 2015. “The Fifth Element: Knowledge”. In The Cambridge Companion to Hip-Hop, edited by Justin Williams, 56–70. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CCO9781139775298.007
Gould, Chandré, and Peter Folb. 2002. “The Role of Professionals in the South African Chemical and Biological Warfare Programme”. Minerva 40/1: 77–91. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1015061614159
Greene, K. J. 1999. “Copyright, Culture, and Black Music: A Legacy of Unequal Protection”. Hastings Communication and Entertainment Law Journal 21: 339–92.
Gumede, William Mervin. 2005. Thabo Mbeki and the Battle for the Soul of the ANC. Cape Town: Zebra Press.
Hall, Ruth. 2004. “A Political Economy of Land Reform in South Africa”. Review of African Political Economy 31/100: 213–27. https://doi.org/10.1080/0305624042000262257
Hall, Stuart. 1977. “Culture, the Media and the ‘Ideological Effect’”. In Mass Communication and Society, edited by J. Curran et al., 315–50. London: Arnold.
Haupt, Adam. 2001. “Black Thing: Hip-Hop Nationalism, ‘Race’ and Gender in Prophets of da City and Brasse vannie Kaap”. In Coloured by History, Shaped by Place, edited by Zimitri Erasmus, 173–91. Cape Town: Kwela Books & SA History Online.
—2008. Stealing Empire: P2P, Intellectual Property and Hip-Hop Subversion. Cape Town: HSRC Press.
—2012a. “Locating Agency: Music, Technology and Copyright.” In Static: Race and Representation in Post-Apartheid Music, Media and Film, 13–75. Cape Town: HSRC Press.
—2012b. Static: Race and Representation in Post-Apartheid Music, Media and Film. Cape Town: HSRC Press.
—2014. “Interrogating Piracy: Race, Colonialism and Ownership”. In Postcolonial Piracy: Media Distribution and Cultural Production in the Global South, edited by Lars Eckstein and Anja Schwarz, 179–92. London: Bloomsbury.
—2017. “‘Non-Poor Only’: Culture Jamming and the Limits of Free Speech in South Africa”. In Media and Citizenship, edited by Herman Wasserman and Anthea Garman, 139–56. Cape Town: HSRC Press.
Hebdige, Dick. 1979. Subculture: The Meaning of Style. London and New York: Routledge.
Herman, E., and N. Chomsky. 1988. Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. New York: Pantheon.
Holman, Michael. 2004. “Breaking: The History”. In That’s the Joint! The Hip-Hop Studies Reader, edited by Murray Forman and Mark Anthony Neal, 31–39. New York and London: Routledge.
Jensen, Steffen. 2008. Gangs, Politics and Dignity in Cape Town. Oxford: James Currey.
Kato, Matahite T. 2012. From Kung Fu to Hip Hop: Globalization, Revolution, and Popular Culture. New York: SUNY Press.
Lemanski, Charlotte. 2007. “Global Cities in the South: Deepening Social and Spatial Polarisation in Cape Town”. Cities 24/6: 448–61. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2007.01.011
—2014. “Hybrid Gentrification in South Africa: Theorising across Southern and Northern Cities”. Urban Studies 51/14: 2943–960. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042098013515030
Levenson, Z. 2014. “We are Humans and Not Dogs: The Crisis of Housing Delivery in Post-Apartheid Cape Town”. Berkeley Journal of Sociology 58: 14–22.
MacDonald, Michael. 2006. Why Race Matters in South Africa. Scottsville: University of Kwazulu-Natal Press.
Mamdani, Mahmood. 2002. “Amnesty or Impunity? A Preliminary Critique of the Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa (TRC)”. Diacritics 32/3-4: 33–59. https://doi.org/10.1353/dia.2005.0005
Meersman, Brent. 2012. “State of the Arts in SA”. Mail & Guardian. Online: https://mg.co.za/article/2012-05-06-state-of-the-arts (accessed 14 November 2018).
Ntsebeza, Lungisile, and Ruth Hall, eds. 2007. The Land Question in South Africa: The Challenge of Transformation and Redistribution. Cape Town: HSRC Press.
Petersen, Tammy. 2018. “Controversial Gatvol Capetonian Claims to be ‘Pro-Brown, Not Anti-Black’”. News24. Online: https://tinyurl.com/news24-20180703 (accessed 10 October 2018)
Pinnock, Don. 2016. Gang Town. Cape Town: Tafelberg.
Qambela, Gcobani. 2016. “‘There is No Such Thing as a Single-Issue Struggle’: Xenophobia in the Time of Decolonisation”. Agenda 30/2: 35–45. https://doi.org/10.1080/10130950.2016.1216817
Rose, Tricia. 1994. Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.
Salo, Elaine R. 2018. Respectable Mothers, Tough Men and Good Daughters: Producing Persons in Manenberg Township South Africa. Cameroon: Langaa RPCIG.
Schoeman, Monishia. 2018. Personal interview via email with Adam Haupt.
Sidley, P. 1999. “South African Doctors Demand Action on ‘Unethical’ Colleagues”. British Medical Journal 31/7210: 594. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.319.7210.594
Smith, Matthew J. 2011. “Violence, Xenophobia and the Media: A Review of the South African Media’s Coverage of Xenophobia and the Xenophobic Violence Prior to and Including the Events of 2008”. Politikon: South African Journal of Political Studies 38/1: 111–29. https://doi.org/10.1080/02589346.2011.548673
Staff Reporter. 2018. “WATCH: Police Fire Rubber Bullets at Angry Parkwood Land Protesters”. News24. Online: https://tinyurl.com/news24-20180523 (accessed 31 August 2018).
Villet, Charles. 2017. “Donald Trump, White Victimhood and the South African Far-Right”. The Conversation. Online: http://theconversation.com/donald-trump-white-victimhood-and-the-south-african-far-right-73400 (accessed 14 November 2018)
Wilkinson, Kate. 2018. “FACTSHEET: South Africa’s Official Poverty Numbers”. Africa Check. Online: https://africacheck.org/factsheets/factsheet-south-africas-official-poverty-numbers/ (accessed 31 August 2018).
Published
2018-12-28
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Haupt, A. (2018). Inhale Determination, We Will Overcome: Eavesdrop, Mr Devious and Brasse vannie Kaap’s Representational Politics. Journal of World Popular Music, 5(2), 152-168. https://doi.org/10.1558/jwpm.37840
