Tuulikki Pietilä THE DISCURSIVE CREATION OF A SUBCULTURE BY CONSCIOUS RAP AdHERENTS IN SOUTH AFRICA abstract The early hip hop made in South Africa in the 1980s was politically conscious and openly critical of the apartheid system. Hip hop has proliferated and diversified since its beginnings, and according to several contemporary researchers, this development has entailed a shift from an emphasis on black consciousness towards a focus on individual achievement, sensuous pleasures, and materialism (e.g., Künzler 2011; Watkins 2012). This article shows that conscious rap still exists in South Africa. It studies the discourses of contemporary conscious rap artists and adherents and argues that they construct putatively distinct subcultural factions according to the music styles followed by the youth. The distinctions are driven by both the musical and socio-political considerations of the interlocutors. Theoretically, the article contributes to subcultural studies by arguing for the significance of both affective attachment and political context in the analysis of the subcultures. Key words: conscious rap, hip hop, house music, kwaito, South Africa, subculture INTRODUCTION on individual advancement, sensuous pleasure, and commercial-mindedness in South African Hip hop was adopted early in South Africa. The hip hop lyrics (e.g., Künzler 2011; Watkins first crews to gain popularity in the 1980s were 2012). However, there is also a relatively the politically conscious Prophets of Da City thriving ‘conscious rap’ scene, and this article (POC) and Black Noise, both based in the Cape focuses on the performers and followers of this Town area. POC’s album Our World (1990) was genre. In contrast to much of the existing hip among the first full-length rap albums in Africa hop literature that is based on analysis of lyrics, (Charry 2012: 13), and break dance competitions I will concentrate on the discourses of conscious were started in Cape Town as early as 1982 rap devotees that I have gathered through (Watkins 2004: 130). Since its beginnings, hip interviews and informal conversations. What hop has proliferated and diversified and several emerges from these discourses are surprisingly researchers have recently noted the decrease of recurrent themes that come to define conscious politically critical content and an increased focus rap as a subculture and a value orientation suomen antropologi | volume 42 issue 2 summer 2017 25 Tuulikki Pietilä distinct from competing youth music styles, ‘subcultural capital’, and in that way acquire kwaito and house music in particular. status in their social worlds. She coined this Here, rather than viewing ‘subcultures’ term by drawing from the work of Bourdieu as distinct youth groups that set themselves (1984) on diverse forms of capital. The picture against the norms of the wider society as in the that emerges from Thornton’s interpretation early writings of the Birmingham School (e.g. is devoid of the subversive capacity that the Hall and Jefferson 1976; Hebdige 1983 [1979]; early scholars associated with subcultures. Willis 1981), I am interested in the ways that While this is an important, balancing view the youth construct subcultural relations and for subcultural research, it is simultaneously distinctions among themselves. In this regard, problematic because it tends to reduce youth my approach aligns with that of Thornton styles and distinctions to mere competition over (1995) whose study of British dance club status. While I acknowledge the micro-political cultures explores the distinctions and hierarchies dimensions of the conscious rap followers’ made by the youth within the popular culture discourses—that is, the ways they aim at domain. In Thornton’s material, as well as in increasing their own value vis-à-vis those of the my own, the studied subculture is constructed adherents of the other styles—I do not see this by its devotees’ defining other youth music as their only dimension. Being engaged in—or styles as ‘mainstream’ and thus of lesser value. in economistic terms, investing their time and In the opinion of the conscious rap followers energy in—making and listening to music that studied here, contemporary kwaito and house does not necessarily bring them decisive social music in particular represent the ‘mainstream or economic capital means that there is more other’ that epitomises and enhances what they to that engagement than an analysis inspired consider to be the currently hegemonic socio- by Bourdieu can reveal. The content of the political values. For this reason, the macro- discourses—the expressed aesthetic, affective, political situation enters my analysis in a way and socio-political values—deserves serious that it does not in the analysis of Thornton consideration. and the Birmingham School; indeed, the hip Because this article is based on conversa- hop adherents’ discourses and expressed values tions with conscious rap adherents, and not on cannot be fully understood without the wider a holistic analysis of their lives and practices, it political context. I use the term ‘expressed values’ does not seek to measure the truthfulness or quite deliberately because this is what discourses the authenticity of the discourses vis-à-vis the are about. interlocutors’ lived reality. Instead, the article Even while disregarding the macro-political examines the discursive creation of a subculture context, Thornton’s sobering contribution to and subcultural boundaries. It views subcultural subcultural studies was the acknowledgment of identity construction as based on narratives and the micro-politics involved in young people’s stories that people tell about themselves and making of distinctions. Unlike earlier scholars each other (cf. Yuval-Davies 2010 on identities). who tended to view and celebrate subcultures as In addition, it regards such discourses as forms of progressive defiance to the dominant performative (e.g., Austin 1962; Butler 1990), order and values, Thornton emphasised the ways that is, as having an impact on how social in which the making of subcultural distinctions reality is conceived. The investigated discourses enables youth to negotiate and accumulate construct understandings about distinct suomen antropologi | volume 42 issue 2 summer 2017 26 Tuulikki Pietilä subcultures, allegedly woven around disparate whites, the Khoisan and Xhosa populations and musical, social, and political values. The article imported slaves especially); and ‘whites’ refers to shows that, in addition to the subcultural micro- Afrikaans- and English-speaking descendants politics of status competition, the discourses of European settlers. In addition to these, there tackle the macro-politics of the state and the is also the population group called Asians that elites. refers to people of Indian origin, and nowadays In what follows I first describe how also to the newer settlers of Chinese origin.2 contemporary conscious rappers consider early kwaito a formative experience for them, rather THE IMPORTANCE OF than the early local, politically conscious hip hop. KWAITO: INSPIRATION After that, I will examine other recurring themes AND EVALUATION in their discourses. I do not aim to conduct a rigorous linguistic discourse analysis, but use Kwaito appeared in the 1990s and quickly the word ‘discourse’ in a wider Foucauldian gained popularity. It combined elements from sense, where interpretation is not based on several foreign music styles such as house detailed analysis of a speech situation but on its music, hip hop, dancehall, and raggamuffin wider social and historical contextualisation. My with earlier South African styles, in particular material is derived from numerous interviews kwela, mbaqanga, marabi, and bubblegum (or and informal conversations with conscious ‘township disco’). Even though combining rap adherents, that is, producers, rappers, foreign and local styles, kwaito was perceived as event organisers, and fans in Cape Town and a local style, as it was sung in township street Johannesburg between 2005 and 2013.1 All language and dealt with township issues.3 the people cited appear with their real names Furthermore, it localised the international styles or their artist names; when the artist name is by slowing down the tempo to about 100 beats the person’s real first name, I have added the per minute, to make the music more danceable surname in parentheses when introducing the by South African standards of the time. All person for the first time in the text. this distinguished kwaito from the other urban I use the terms black, coloured, and white, youth music of the era, predominantly hip hop and write them in lowercase letters, even and house music of foreign origin.4 though I acknowledge that these are artificial Exceptions to the US-dominated hip labels created by the apartheid regime to hop scene at that time were the two above- classify and differentiate various population mentioned groups—Prophets of Da City (POC) groups. The political definition of blackness and Black Noise—who had emerged in the includes all of the non-white population of the 1980s from the townships close to Cape Town. country, that is, black Africans, coloureds, and These groups were expressly political and vocal Indians. However, the apartheid-era categories about the injustices of the apartheid system continue to be used in the official statistics and in that way strongly local in their lyrical and in much of the popular parlance. Hence, content and approach. Composed of coloured in this article