South Africa and their Culture

Good evening everyone, 

Welcome back to my blog, where today’s topic we will be focusing on South Africa, and its culture. Before I get started I wanted to touch base with y’all, and see how everyone is doing? We have made it halfway through the semester!! Keep up the good work everyone. 

My blog today, will mainly focus on the music of South Africa within the early 20th century and the different types of traditional foods. I feel like my last few blogs have been focused on traditional and more modern music, and I wanted to introduce another time period within my blog. However, before we get started on specific decades of music, we need a little background information. 

Within the 1600’s, the Dutch colonized South Africa and forcibly brought slaves from other parts of Africa over. The Dutch brought over music, where they formed bands using brass and wind instruments. Later on, European missionaries soon followed over, and brought with them Western Christian music like choral singing. Around the 1800’s, South Africans started filtering in their own traditional styles of music to the ones that were brought over, thus making South African music. 

The first decade I want to start with is the 1920’s. During this time in South Africa, there were many black restrictions such as a curfew to keep the nightlife at a minimum and their freedom as well. Although they were put through hell, and struggled everyday, their appreciation for music allowed for them to have joyful spirits. The style of music that was popular during this time was called marabi, and emerged from the slums of Joburg. Marabi is a keyboard style that is linked to other types of music such as American Jazz, ragtime and the blues. It was played on pianos at illegal bars frequented by Southern Africans. Towards the middle/ end of the decade, Zionist Christian churches were spreading, and soon South Afric gospel music was birthed. Below is a video of Marabi, feel free to skip through, but listen to the instruments and the sounds coming from them.

https://theculturetrip.com/africa/south-africa/articles/a-brief-guide-to-south-african-music/

The second, and last decade I want to talk about is the 1960’s. Within this time, jive music and sax jive was still restricted to townships. The early 1960’s saw electric instruments and the marabi and kwela influences added to the mbaqanga style. Mbaqanga also developed vocal harmonies by copying American vocal bands, mainly doo wop. During this time, jazz was split into two parts, dance bands and avant-garde jazz. Due to apartheid, many of the musicians emigrated to the UK and other countries. Cape Jazz also emerged during this time, where it was an improvised version of folk songs with the references of American and European Jazz. Looking back at today, Cape Jazz is one of South Africa’s best Jazz exports. Below is a stream of videos of Cape Jazz and Sax Jive. 

The last thing I want to introduce are the different types of foods in South African culture. Food is a major part of culture, it is what shapes the taste and flavors within traditions and the specific places of culture. The first food I want to talk about are Boerewors, it is a type of sausage made from beef, pork or lamb mixed in with spices. It is usually served in a coil, and cooked on braai (barbeque). The second food is Cape Malay Curry, the Dutch and French brought slaves from Indonesia in the 17th century, who then brought spices, and the Southern Africans used those spices with local produce to create the curry. The last food that I want to talk about is Melktert, it is a pastry case filled with milk, eggs and sugar, thickened with flour. When it is done, it is dusted with cinnamon. It is known as a real South African comfort, and is found all over South Africa. Below are some pictures of the foods I talked about, please feel free to click on the link to see other types of traditional foods!

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/howto/guide/top-10-foods-try-south-africa