During Apartheid rock was the music of the white, but without a distinct oppression or resistance, the boundaries have been erased. The Johannesburg quartet Blk Jks is the sound of a new South Africa and their brand of epic rock has been championed by characters as diverse as Bono and Diplo.
Youtube, April 27, 2008 – from Harriet’s Alter Ego, Brooklyn
Afternoon has quietly turned into evening. Midway down the bustling Flatbush Avenue a small boutique has been filled by about 50 people, perhaps more, equally restless, equally hip New Yorkers waiting for tonight’s gig.
It’s overcrowded. The floor beneath the red brick wall has been transformed into a makeshift stage. Cords, speakers, amps and instruments stand on top of each other between coat hangers and clothing racks.
Along the wall in the middle of the room stand a quartet of musicians. They look like a mixture between the old rastafari punksters Bad Brains and a bunch of local art students.
The time has now reached around eight o’clock. Some of the crowd look as uncomfortable as people can only do on such occasions. Some of the others have now, because of the long and patient wait, become enthusiastic enough to jump up and down, clap their hands, say yeah.
But most enthusiastic of them all is Tshepang Ramoba, the drummer of the band. He’s so worked up that he’s bouncing up and down behind his drum kit while stamping on the bass drum. His thick dreads flies around his head like the ears on a cocker spaniel.
The rocking guitar riffs are becoming more and more intensive until an ambulance flies by outside and, for a couple of seconds, drowns out the music.
One minute into the clip – one of those which has made sure Blk Jks have generated more mentions in magazines than they have songs – Tshepang Ramoba has sat down behind the drums to start singing in zulu. Naturally I don’t understand him. The only thing I suss out is the name of the band he plays in: Blk Jks (that’s “Black Jacks” by the way).
The song they’re playing is called Umzabalazo and is built upon the same chanting as the protest songs during the Apartheid regime. By interweaving the repetitive vowels in plucking guitar strings and bass the band lets them build up until the soundscape seems to cover a whole stadium rather than a little boutique in Brooklyn. In the hands of a rock band from the shanty towns of South Africa the protest song transforms into such a charged kind of rock music that it feels like it could well be the most exciting thing that has happened to dub rock since The Clash released Combat Rock way back in 1982.
Real world, seven months later
Mpumi Mcata, who plays guitar and acts as the band’s spokesperson, formed Blk Jks with singer and front man Linda Buthelezi. They had grown up together in East Rand, a shanty town in East Johannesburg. In anticipation of a couple of gigs outside of town bass player Molefi Makananise and drummer Tshepang Ramoba were recruited to the band.
“Tshepang probably thought we played jazz or something similar. After I had played the first song for him he still couldn’t understand he was actually joining a rock band. It wasn’t until Linda and Molefi came in to the room, turned their amplifiers on that he understood what he had gotten into,” Mpumi Mcata says, laughing.
Tshepang Ramoba and Molefi Makananise both hail from Soweto in the south-western part of Johannesburg, a city that with all its suburbs is home to close to eight million inhabitants. In contrast to Mpumi Mcata and Linda Buthelezi who both went straight from trying to churn out acoustic poetry to buying electric guitars, both Ramoba and Makananise have a background in jazz and more traditional African music.
From a Western perspective the prospect of a black rock band is hardly mind-boggling, but in South Africa a rock band from the shanty towns is still controversial. Much due to the fact that to many rock is still viewed as the music of the enemy, the white. Blk Jks seem to strive towards openly showing the same affection and appreciation for everything from African legends such as Fela Kuti, local stars as reggae singer Lucky Dube and Busi Mhlongo to the western pop and rock that was the only thing playing on the radio as they grew up during Apartheid. But more than anything they seem to have a will to embed their influences in as many layers of electric guitars as possible.
“Right when we started Blk Jks it was precisely that mix we were looking for musically. None of us needed to be pushed in a certain direction. It just happened”, Mpumi Mcata tells me.
South African journalist Miles Keylock has described Blk Jks music like slowly driving through Johannesburg with your windows rolled down. I wouldn’t really know. I’ve never been to Jo-burg, as the locals call it, but Blk Jks’ rock – just like jazz from the shanty towns, Jamaican dub and various traditional African styles of music – makes me think that at least I can envisage how it would be.
“South Africa has a long history of making their own renditions of popular songs from the western world. If you liked a song from overseas you tried to re-create it with new lyrics and in a different tempo. It occurred in every genre, from jazz to pop”, Mpumi Mcata explains.
“The music was very modern, but at the same time it was also very concious of its South African identity. You never tried to adapt to a gimmick or an American sound, we had to be proud as a people and as a nation. Especially when it came to music”, he continues.
One of the South African bands that blended contemporary pop music with the native sounds most successfully was disco rock outfit Harari. In the beginning of the 80s the band was enormous in South Africa, and they also toured the US and sold over a half a million albums. Today they are not only one of Blk Jks’ most important role models, but possibly that most important individual piece of the jigsaw that connects epic rock music with African pop and uplifting disco.
The indie rock scene in South Africa loved Blk Jks from the word go. For a country whose rock bands never sounded like anything other than pale copies of the American or British originals, and very rarely was anything other than snow-white, Blk Jks brand of rock ‘n’ roll quite naturally stood out.
The band had opportunities to start recording at the best recording studio in the country – SABC Studios. The idea was that the work would lead to the debut album After Robots. But Blk Jks never succeeded in agreeing with any of the major record labels that wanted them on their roster, so the master tapes remained untouched.
“No one said what we wanted to hear at this stage and we didn’t say what they wanted us to either. And we definitely weren’t the people they wanted us to be”, Mpumi Mcata says.
“For us it was never about reclaiming rock, or just mix the rock with African music or similar. What we do, is not really something new per se, but a blueprint several people have done before us. The unique thing would be these specific songs. You can play whichever genre you want in any way you want, new or old, it doesn’t matter. What differentiate a song that five people like to one five million like is that little bit of magic in the song”, he states.
With the experience from their previous recording taken onboard the quartet started to seek new opportunities. It resulted in the enthralling songs Lakeside and One Must Die that were pressed up on vinyl in 500 copies last year – a record that soon began a life on its own on the internet. Then later last year the Mystery EP was recorded in the legendary Electric Ladyland Studios in New York. The four track record was produced by Brandon Curtis from the American rock group Secret Machine (and now of School of Seven Bells).
Still without a record deal they had to rely on contacts. And with celebrity fans like the backpacker-funkster Diplo and the world-concious Bono I’m sure it was somewhat easier. When I talk to them they have just finished one little tour and are preparing for the next. They have already been touring around both Europe and the States as well as extensively in their native counrty.
The 27th April the day they played in that clothing store in Brooklyn, is actually Freedom Day in South Africa. A national day instated to celebrate the day they, for the first time ever, elected a president – Nelson Mandela – through a democratic election. It’ll be 15 years ago this year. A lot has changed for the better since. And a lot hasn’t.
“What I like about Blk Jks is that we as a band always have to make sure that everything we say through are music is something that will strengthen people. There has to be something in the music that everyone can take in and to feel that it belongs to them, speak to them or about them, Molefi Makananise points out.
As a country South Africa has opened itself up, mentally as well as economically. After the sanctions during the Apartheid regime were lifted, foreign investors have had the opportunity to spend as much as they want in the country. Although, despite the economic growth, the distinction between social classes are as apparent as ever. A lot of the people from the poorer areas around Johannesburg and Cape Town, whose friends and family died on the streets during the struggle against Apartheid, are still as poor as before. A significant difference between now and then is that there is no obvious enemy to direct their frustration and anger at. Neither is there an obvious leader or political party to assemble behind.
“Everything that has happened, and everything still going on to this day, affects us because we allow it to affect us. We do all we can to not try and escape from reality. In that way, there is always a lot to write about”, Molefi Makananise continues.
“Even if we don’t say it directly, you can hear that our music mirrors a reality that sometimes is a horror movie, sometimes an action and at times a romantic comedy. We find so much inspiration and so many topics to write about just because of the political and social change in the country. It’s our home. But every mother must one day let their child see the world”, concludes Mpumi Mcata.
Blk Jks debut EP Mystery is out now on Secretly Canadian
Words by Jonas Gronlund
