Choosing a song of revolt is not easy when it comes to South Africa. What is called in this southern cone of the African continent the songs of freedom (freedom songs) are plethora. Even today, participating in a conference of the African National Congress (ANC), Nelson Mandela’s party, or of the South African Communist Party (SACP), is first of all, even before the debates begin, find yourself immersed in a melodic wave that seizes you and carries you away. There is human strength there, that of unity, dignity and will.
Originally, Shosholoza is sung in fanagalo by workers in the gold, coal and diamond mines. a mixture of Ndebele, Zulu and various other ethnic languages. Suffice to say that the words changed according to the units of minors and that any translation looks risky. Shosholoza can be understood as “going forward”.
A way for them to cheer themselves up, more than six feet underground, and to give rhythm to the blows of the pickaxe given tirelessly against the walls of the mine. Most certainly also a way of forgetting the death present in these guts ready to collapse. Sure, Shosholoza immediately comes back to the lips of these miners when they demonstrate for better living conditions, decent wages and also to reject apartheid and the hand of the white man. Nelson Mandela himself once described how he sang Shosholoza, as he broke stones in the yard of Robben Island prison, off Cape Town where he was imprisoned for eighteen years, from 1964 to 1982, before being transferred to other detention centers detention until February 1990, when he was released.
Freedom songs have always been at the heart of South Africa’s liberation struggle.
Outside the country, this song was best known in 1995, after the fall of apartheid, when South African fans took it up to support their team during the Rugby World Cup which was held in South Africa that year, and which the Springboks won. Thanks to Shosholoza? Since then, the song has been recorded by a number of artists, including Peter Gabriel, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, singer PJ Powers and Belgian tenor Helmut Lotti.
During a symposium in Cape Town in May, Mantoa Motinyane, professor at the Faculty of Arts at the University of the Western Cape, emphasized the role of music in the “language” of meaning, unity, political defiance and celebration. Not without humour, she quoted Shosholoza, which multitudes of football and rugby fans sang after the first democratic, non-racial elections in 1994, to point out: “People never thought about the language or what the words meant, but they sang anyway. And yet, the same group of people will struggle to pronounce an African name. »
“Songs as Weapons”
Freedom songs have always been at the heart of South Africa’s liberation struggle. They played a decisive role in the liberation of the country. Meadowlands, for example, written by Strike Vilakazi in 1956, captures the cry of former residents of Sophiatown who were forcibly evicted from their homes near Johannesburg and placed in the remote township of Meadowlands. Or Mannenberg, by Abdullah Ibrahim, inspired by the township of Manenberg in Cape Flats (Cape Town), one of the areas where many displaced people of color had been resettled.
Created in London in 1975, the cultural group Mayibuye (named after an action plan intended to overthrow white power and which inspired Myriam Makeba, in 1964, a song of the same name as well) of the ANC had turned in Europe to popularize the anti-apartheid struggle. It was also at this time that Mandela’s party recruited artists from its camps in Angola, and set up the Amandla group, led by Jonas Gwangwa, which recorded albums in Moscow in 1982 and 1987.
“Without these freedom songs, our struggle would have been much longer, much bloodier, and perhaps not even successful,” noted South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize winner in 1984 and President of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). And for Ronnie Kasrils, former head of the intelligence services of the armed wing of the ANC:Songs and toyi-toyi (a South African street dance characterized by stamping the feet on the ground and chanting – editor’s note) were like weapons. This is what inspired people, fired them up and was part and parcel of this massive avalanche that buried apartheid. »
SERIES Songs of Revolt
We Shall Overcome, the gospel turned soundtrack of the civil rights movement
Le Chant des partisans, a “weapon for France” on the airwaves
Ay, Carmela!, the cry of the Spanish Republicans
The song of women to break the shackles
Grândola, vila Morena: Portugal, brown land of brotherhood
The International, the anthem of the working class
Porcherie, the cry of a generation against the far right
No Going Back, the new life of “miners’ wives”
We fell victims, eulogy of Russian comrades
La Butte rouge, an anti-militarist anthem
El Pueblo unido… the legacy of Chileans to the world
Paopga the voice of South Korean workers
Aristide Bruant’s canuts, a legacy still alive
A SERIES IN PARTNERSHIP WITH ZEBROCKto be found on the Mélo application.
WE KNOW THE SONG… NOT THE LYRICS!
From “The Black Eagle” by Barbara to “Macumba” by Jean-Pierre Mader, via “He’s not coming home tonight” by Eddy Mitchell or “City of Light” by Gold… You liked our series d’été “We know the song, not the lyrics” on the unknown meaning of the texts of musical hits?
Good news, this series is coming back for a second season in August 2022!
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