The politicization of kwaito: from the "party politic" to party politics.

Kwaito--the most important music genre and cultural innovation to emerge in postapartheid South Africa--is often described as explicitly apolitical. Essentially a type of dance music, kwaito in its most common form is music "after the struggle." Most kwaito songs are composed of slowed-down House tracks and repetitive "chanted" lyrics in isiZulu, English, or Scamtho (slang). (1) Enjoyed primarily by black South Africans, the "poststruggle" aesthetic of kwaito usually manifests itself in alcohol-or zol (marijuana)-inspired all-night parties referred to as "bashes."

In a recent article, I explored kwaito's apolitical character in some detail (Steingo 2005). However, that paper was written before the national elections of 2004, and during and since those elections, kwaito has been politicized. In retrospect, I can see that kwaito's politicization did not happen suddenly with the elections: the process of drawing kwaito into the political sphere had been taking place slowly for several years prior. Looking back, the difficulties I experienced in my earlier analysis revolved around the contradictions inherent in the politicization of a cultural formulation that has apolitics at its center. However, my analysis of kwaito as apolitical--even today--is not incorrect. What I hope to do in this article is illustrate how kwaito--specifically because it is apolitical in the way that it is--was politicized, or rather, hijacked, by political parties before and during the 2004 elections. Moreover, I will illustrate not only that kwaito's apoliticalness survived its politicization but that this apoliticalness was essential to the very process of politicization.

Such a study necessarily requires a careful analysis of what the political actually is. In this article, I suggest that "Real" (in the Baudrillardian sense) politics is dead. I read the "political" through Jacques Attali's (1985, 88) concept of the simulacral "political spectacle," which is nothing more than a vestige of the previous era preserved in the contemporary period only to "avoid disturbing or dispiriting us unduly." Today, "power can no longer be located simply in the control of capital or force" (90). "And if there are no longer any localizable power holders, neither are there counterpowers that can be institutionalised in response" (90). The terms political and apolitical cannot be thought about in a conventional way--nor are these terms strictly oppositional. Pursuing Slavoj i ek's (1989, 1994) Lacanian reading of Hegelian dialectics, I would argue that the dialectal relationship between politics and apolitics cannot attain a synthesis. Instead, following i ek, I suggest that one side of the dialectical opposition (synthesis) turns into its own opposite (antithesis). That is to say, the "apolitical" becomes political precisely through its opposition to the political. By being apolitical, kwaito becomes political. It is the becoming political of the apolitical that primarily interests me here.

While it is at times imperative to undermine the binary opposition political-apolitical, I do so here by using the terms conventionally. In this sense, I hope to deconstruct the binarism through what Gayatri Spivak (1996) has called "strategic essentialism." This deconstructive strategy is focused less on the "exposure of error" than in "constantly and persistently looking into how truths are produced" (see Arteaga 1996, 19). It is by appropriating, rather than rejecting, the binary opposition politicalapolitical that the dialectical interplay between the two can be fully revealed.

On (A)politics: Kwaito versus Hip Hop 

Because of seemingly obvious parallels between African-American youth culture and the new black South African youth culture, people have been inclined to think of kwaito as "South African hip hop" or a South African version of hip hop. (In 2000, Sterns/Earthworks released a kwaito compilation compact disc in the United Kingdom called Kwaito: South African Hip Hop.) This perceived familiarity seems based primarily on the shared characteristic of "rapping" in verse (kwaito artists more often call this vocal style "chanting"). And although the above is not a totally invalid categorization, there is a "South African version" of hip hop in South Africa, and it is not (nor has it even come into conflict with) kwaito. Much of the difference between kwaito and hip hop is ideological and concerns the ongoing debate about gangster associations. In this sense, the construction of kwaito as kwaito has less to do with some "inherent" meaning in kwaito itself than in the generic contract "signed" by kwaito musicians, fans, and critics.

The subversive "gangsterism" of hip hop (and perhaps kwaito) thus needs to be examined. Let me begin with a story. In 1998, Makhendlas, brother of kwaito superstar Arthur Mafokate, committed suicide directly after shooting someone at a concert. An article in The Guardian previewed one of Mafokate's London concerts and emphasized kwaito's gangster associations. Mafokate responded sadly:

   [Kwaito] shouldn't be perceived as gangster music, 'cos then that
   way we're just not gonna get anywhere. ... It has to be something
   that we have to forget about, honestly speaking. It's just not part
   of what I would like to discuss. People don't understand how
   emotional that is to me. ... Kwaito is clean and we have to keep
   fighting to keep it clean ... 'cos it was not meant to hurt other
   people's feelings. It's supposed to be about rejoicing about who
   you are as a South African. (quoted in Lusk 2003, 45)

Paradoxically, Mafokate believes that the word kwaito is derived from a gang name, the AmaKwaitos (McCloy n.d.). So, the question is, as Hola, a popular magazine in Johannesburg asked in the headline: "Kwaito: Gangsta Paradise or Spiritual Awakening?" (see Servant 2002).

Mafokate seems to acknowledge that kwaito's history is connected with gangsterism--indeed, he probably would still admit that kwaito is not completely rid of those connections. But Mafokate, like many kwaito musicians and fans, hopes to move kwaito beyond this point. Although Mafokate may be wrong that kwaito is completely "clean," many people certainly hope for such a time. The "break" with history is not complete; and kwaito is defined by Mafokate through the negation of a history whose trace kwaito carries within itself.

Whereas kwaito artists often shun gangster associations--at the very least, the relationship between kwaito and gangsterism is ambiguous--South African hip hop (perhaps better described as hip-hop created by South African artists) seems accepting, even proud, of its gangster associations. In a fashion spread accompanied by brief interviews in a 2003 issue of Y Mag titled "Hip-Hop Style: Gangsta Style Fashion," each picture is intentionally, stereotypically, gangsterlike. In one interview, responding to the question, "Is kwaito Mzansi's [i.e., South Africa's] answer to hip-hop?" emcee Pro Verb exclaimed: "No, no! Kwaito is Mzansi's wack excuse for hip-hop" ("Hip-Hop Style" 2003, 73). Emcee Amu has said simply that he does not want to be part of the "kwaito vs. hip-hop battle" ("Hip-Hop Style" 2003, 79).

While the famous South African jazz musician Miriam Makeba has called kwaito "South African's counterpart to rap," and kwaito artist Thandiswa has similarly called kwaito "Like Hip-Hop in South Africa" (both quoted in "(Bongo Maffin's) Thandiswa" n.d.), such comparisons are limited, as the following analysis illustrates. In the interview, Makeba and Thandiswa seem to be saying that kwaito is like hip hop in America in that both are not merely music genres but encompass complete cultural formulations.

Origins of South African Hip-Hop

In the early 1980s, the youth in poor communities in the southern part of South Africa (the Cape) were "drawn to black American rap and hip hop artists such as Ice-T, Public Enemy, and Niggers with Attitude" (Impey 2001, 45). Prophets of Da City (a hip hop group popular during the late 1980s and early 1990s) was heavily influenced by American rap and hip hop musicians. The group "identified with rap and hip hop's militant stance on racism, poverty and the violent inner-city environment" (45); this identification stemmed from the fact that the poor (nonwhite) youth in South Africa and America "shared similar experiences of socio-economic marginalisation" (45). The representation of this influential music group's political ideology was embraced by almost a whole generation of young, poor, coloured (2) South Africans. As Impey notes: "Cape rappers and their audiences appropriated images of African-American hard-core rap: baseball caps, baggy pants and gold jewelry, as well as their associated subcultures of break dancing, and spraycan art" (45). She continues:

   While the kwaito movement appeared to adopt the politically defiant
   posturing of Cape rap and hip-hop, in reality, it appropriated
   defiance as a fashion statement. ... Groups such as Boom Shaka
   appeared to unleash amongst young black consumers an explosive
   desire to disengage from the long years of oppression and political
   protest of the apartheid era. No longer restrained by the need to
   comment on racial injustice and political freedom, it expressed a
   new set of dreams. (45)

Impey believes that kwaito is--in a word--nonpolitical. In contrast with kwaito, South African hip hop has been, and still is, preoccupied with political struggle. As with American hip hop, South African hip hop's "gangster" image is intimately connected to political critique and social commentary. South African hip hop group Godessa has said that hip hop differs from kwaito because "hip-hop is universal. We were excluded from Kwaito because we cannot understand it. To us, music is not just about dancing, it is a vehicle for us to speak to the masses" (quoted in Kasumba 2003, 56; emphasis mine). Phi, member of H2O (an ex-kwaito duo turned hip hop) explains why H2O decided to switch genres: "Because you just repeat the same thing over and over again in Kwaito. It gets boring." Menzi, the other member of H2O, continues: "With Hip-Hop you get a chance to really talk to people while performing" (quoted in "Like Water" 2003, 107).

Now contrast this with kwaito. One fan had this to say about kwaito's "apolitics": "The thing about kwaito, they just say anything, and the nice thing about kwaito is the instruments. If you're boozing [i.e., drinking alcohol] it's nice to listen to. What's nice is the background, it's not what they're saying. It's party music kwaito. I can't say that kwaito music has a message, they just play it for fun" (quoted in Stephens 2000, 263). Another interviewed fan asserted that "the subject matter [of kwaito] is non-existent. Political music died away with Mzwakhe Mbuli. It stopped around '93/'94, after that nobody gave a fuck about political shit anymore" (quoted in Stephens 2000, 263-264). Ethnomusicologist David Coplan (2005, 21) sees kwaito as a dance form (as opposed to a song form) that accepts the youth's "pleasure principle as a valid replacement for the now painfully passe politicised ideology of social sacrifice."

Often, the lyrics of kwaito songs reflect (and help create) the apolitical, dance-oriented aesthetic of kwaito. For example, "Cyborg," the first song on Mandoza's album Godoba repeats the phrase "cyborg/ move your skeleton" throughout the song. Nothing political there. But the lyrics are appropriate for dancing: Mandoza presents the line as a "catchy" phrase. Perhaps more important than the lyrics of "Cyborg" is what most fans would simply call "the beat." As I found during my ethnographic research in Johannesburg, almost all fans explain that "the beat" is their main reason for listening and dancing to kwaito.

While many see Mandoza's music as apolitical, the opposition political-apolitical is unstable. Although most kwaito is in a sense "apolitical," in another sense, it is overtly political: kwaito represents a radically new politics that negates politics. So-called apolitical kwaito, then, is music that represents the refusal of politics. Impey's comment that the youth of South Africa have a "desire to disengage from the long years of oppression and political protest of the apartheid era," taken together with her comment that young South Africans, "[n]o longer restrained by the need to comment on racial injustice and political freedom, ... [have] expressed a new set of dreams" (Impey 2001, 45), causes us to reconsider what meaning the word apolitical might have when used to describe kwaito. In this context, apolitical may be more accurately read as "anti-political" or "postpolitical": but, certainly, kwaito says something. Simon Stephens (2001) has referred to this radically new politics as "the party politic." Put simply, kwaito's "party politic" is the becoming political of the apolitical.

Kwaito Meets the Politicians

Unlike hip hop musicians, kwaito musicians feel no need to comment on or critique political issues, and kwaito fans revel in alcohol-induced late-night partying. Even if kwaito's "apolitics" is in another sense its profound politics, the "party politic" to many seems incongruent with state or party (in the sense of a political party such as the African National Congress) politics. While for some, the disengagement from state politics by kwaito fans seems to be a natural response to the end of repressive apartheid policies, black politicians in the postapartheid period have blamed kwaito for a number of social ills.

In 2003, journalist Bheko Madlala referred to kwaito's "detractors," who believe that kwaito musicians "preach self-destructive messages and reduce important matters of human existence to the pursuit of fun." He noted a "perception that South African youths have a lackadaisical approach to politics as they have found new heroes in Kwaito stars." Madlala (2001, 18; in Coplan 2005, 19) has also asserted that "[n]ot many people in kwaito realize they have become more powerful than politicians, certainly more powerful than any force that exerts a cultural influence on us." Madlala's argument brings to light several important questions. For example, when a kwaito musician becomes more powerful than a politician, does not that musician subsume the role of the politician within him- or herself? What kind of structural substitution takes place when a kwaito musician becomes more powerful than a politician? Is not "the entire history of the concept of structure.., a series of substitutions of center for center" (Derrida 1978, 280)?

The idea of a structural substitution (of kwaito musician for politician or freedom fighter) can be seen most clearly in the work of David Coplan (2005, 16), who writes that kwaito star Mafokate's "subversive, 'gansta' challenge to the mainstream pop music industry" replaced the "old Struggle discourse of the 'comrades' and 'young lions' with astonishing rapidity." While Mafokate has explicitly refuted the accusation that he is presenting a "gansta" challenge to anything at all, Coplan's argument relies on the notion of replacement. For Coplan, kwaito musicians have assumed the "center" by replacing politicians and freedom fighters. In so doing, they have taken the place of politicians and freedom fighters and have perhaps become politicians and freedom fighters themselves.

While Madlala's and Coplan's analyses are interesting, I believe that kwaito can only be understood as a radical decentering of politics and power. In the postapartheid period, the "history of the concept of structure" has been ruptured. In my view, the structure of margin and center has itself changed. I would argue that kwaito musicians have not replaced politicians; instead, kwaito emerged at a time when the power of politicians and all other authoritative central(ized) voices were dissolving into decentralized micropolitics. If Attali is correct that power is no longer locatable in a centralized force that emanates outward, then surely, the (structural) equation of kwaito musicians and politicians (or freedom fighters) needs to be rethought.

At this point, it will help to analyze how politicians responded to kwaito in the decade prior to 2004. Many South African politicians have criticized kwaito severely for the way it has allegedly encouraged people to disengage from politics. However, we may suspect in such criticisms a deeper anxiety, namely, that South Africans are turning away--not from politics in general--but from a very specific "liberal" politics. In fact, kwaito emerged concurrently with the first democratic elections in 1994; as such, it was, paradoxically, the democratization of South Africa that provided the platform and impetus for the youth's disengagement from state politics.

The secretary-general of the African National Congress (ANC), Kgalmela Motlanthe, refers to the generation that never took part in the liberation struggle and did not experience apartheid firsthand as "born frees." He argues: "If we lose the active support of young people, then our struggle would have been in vain. We have to engage the youth on issues that interest them. They are going to inherit this country. A revolution that does not produce future cadres and leaders from among the young is doomed" (quoted in Jubasi 2000). Kwaito has often been blamed for the "apathetic" attitude of young South Africans. President Thabo Mbeki famously referred to kwaito as a "distraction" from serious political issues (see Jubasi 2000). Directly before the 2004 national elections, Mbeki proclaimed hopefully: "People have said the youth are only interested in kwaito, but they are registered and they will vote" (quoted in Ancer and Sefara 2004). In saying this, Mbeki may have had in mind the earlier local government elections, where the Human Sciences Research Council found that only twenty-five percent of South Africa's youth voted. For Mbeki, kwaito is intimately connected to lack of participation in state politics; it is only by being uninterested in kwaito that the youth will vote. For Mbeki, kwaito is violently opposed to politics and the future of South Africa. It is a distraction.

One should note that some kwaito really is "political" in the traditional sense of the word: some kwaito artists rap, chant, or sing about explicitly political and ideological issues (as these words are used conventionally). (3) Christopher Ballantine (2003) writes about a "mature and critical voice" that "has developed within kwaito." According to Ballantine, "this voice has grown in strength and accomplishment, so that today many of the most interesting and popular kwaito releases are associated with it. Some of these take aim directly at the antisocial values advocated by pieces." In my view, this "mature" kwaito is far less interesting than the so-called apolitical or immature kwaito. Mature kwaito agrees to play the game of conventional politics; moreover, the "mature" version is readily reduced to discursivity, thereby renouncing the bodily and pleasurable aspects of "immature" kwaito that are not so easily conceptualized. It is significant that Ballantine calls this "critical" kwaito "mature," as though "apolitical" kwaito needs to grow up. Ballantine's teleological view of kwaito literally belittles "apolitical" kwaito and, in so doing, assumes a diluted and normative vision of politics that lacks imagination. That politicians and journalists were so concerned with "apolitical" kwaito certainly points to some kind of threat. For Ballantine, "apolitical" kwaito--like a child--must be policed, interned, and normalized.

Even if "immature" kwaito cannot speak (the word infant meaning "without speech") the language of conventional politics, surely, the nonsensical chanting of phrases such as "Cyborg, move your skeleton" or "Izinyoka" (a bizarre song by Mzekezeke about a snake) over a pounding yet smooth, slowed-down House track points to the kind of playful poetics that refuses to play the game of oppositional, yes-no politics. Artists such as Mandoza and Mzekezeke (which literally means "to fuck") have infuriated more traditional cultural gatekeepers (politicians, journalists, ethnomusicologists) by refusing to speak like (grown) men. Celebrating, rather than scoffing at, pleasure-seeking bodies that cannot so easily be reduced to simple discursive formulations, kwaito fans arguably work toward a kind of desubjectification that shouts defiance in the face of "mature" music fans. Resisting normative forms of resistance, kwaito fans skillfully dodge the totalizing dialectic of hegemony-resistance.

A New Politics of Aspiration

Although Mbeki and many other politicians accused kwaito of being nothing more than a distraction from "serious" issues, another side to the story needs to be told. In an "Open letter to the President" published in Y Mag, Itumeleng Mahabane (2003, 41) writes provocatively: "You are familiar with kwaito, we understand, though you don't necessarily think much of it. No matter though, I didn't like the sound all that much myself when it first exploded. I was an intellectual snob--no, I lie, and I just didn't think much of it." The author goes on to tell President Mbeki that "this isn't about you; you're simply a victim of a generational power struggle that is older than most societies. In any case, in countries throughout the world, leaders are seldom tuned into the world of their younger citizens" (41). Mahabane's point is that Mbeki should take "a particular interest in the affairs, interests and tastes" of the South African youth. More specifically, argues Mahabane, Mbeki should take an interest in kwaito.

Mbeki should be interested in kwaito, according to Mahabane, because of its economic benefits. Writing about the unemployment problems in South Africa, Mahabane notes that the R900 million (about $100 million U.S.) Umsobomvu Youth Fund is "great" but will not even "dent that 60% unemployment." He continues: "Yes, Umsobomvu encourages youth entrepreneurship, but hell, some young people aren't really sure what self-employment entails in the first place.... you look at kwaito and you see the inherent opportunities" (41).

We see, then, that the money-making potential in kwaito is important in defining it. Producers and performers, including Mafokate, M'du, and Don Laka, saw the potential for adapting international trends into local music as, among other things, a way out of personal economic difficulties and poverty. Mafokate "was born and bred in the ghetto." For him, "music was the way out of poverty and the path to building a future for my family and for the artists at 999 Music [Mafokate's record label]" (Mafokate 2003, 66). For kwaito superstar Mandoza, it was a way of bettering his future after a jail sentence at age sixteen.

Rejecting an aesthetic of "authenticity," many young South Africans feel that kwaito is important because it encompasses culture and economic development simultaneously. While it may distract people from voting, many young South Africans believe that kwaito stimulates both cultural and economic production and is therefore well-suited to contemporary neoliberal politics. As Mahabane argued in his letter to Mbeki, kwaito's apolitical, "hedonistic and flighty preoccupations" (Impey, 45) are not incongruent with the president's macroeconomic ideology.

Neoliberalism and the Decentralization of Power

Although the term neoliberalism is difficult to define and has been bitterly contested, as a working definition, I offer the following preliminary characteristics: restricting the role of the state as far as possible, encouraging flexibility in the labor system, demanding fiscal and monetary austerity, and prioritizing international competitiveness. It is certainly paradoxical that a government would adopt neoliberalism as its principal macroeconomic strategy since the fundamental tenet of neoliberalism is the restriction of state control. By adopting neoliberal principles, a government essentially cancels itself out. This is what Attali means when he refers to the state under late capitalism (or neoliberalism) as a "simulacral spectacle." The state embraces, and yet attempts to hide, its own demise.

The important point is that South Africa transitioned from a state based on racial capitalism into a modern neoliberal state. While a small black elite has emerged since 1994, the levels of poverty and unemployment have actually risen since the demise of apartheid. In many ways, neoliberalism (or late capitalism) (4) is more oppressive than explicitly racist forms of politics. Seen this way, power and politics have not disappeared in the late twentieth century. On the contrary, they have simply changed into more powerful forms that are even more difficult to deal with.

I do not present here all the old arguments why the liberal democratic model is problematic. However, I will point out a few things. First, liberal democracy creates a "scenario of tokenism" (Spivak 1987, 107). To those who are in a position to succeed, the system says: "[Y]ou are as good as we are. ... Why do you insist on emphasizing your difference?" (107). Typical of neoliberal democracies, structural inequality in South Africa is downplayed, and emphasis is placed instead on the notion of "society as a level playing ground, where different interest groups fight for their interests" (Hesmondhalgh 2002, 20). Torgeir Fjeld has shown how the media in contemporary South Africa perpetuate values of individual growth and success. Such values are, of course, "central to liberal conceptions of a market-oriented South Africa" (Fjeld 2000, 396).

As already noted, neoliberalism is congruent with decentered power. The fact that power lacks any definite origin under late capitalism is related to Attali's conception of autosurveillance. Autosurveillance marks the penetration and internalization of "information technology within the body and the psyche of the individual subject." The subject under autosurveillance is no longer directly controlled by capital or the state; this is because, under autosurveillance, "you have learned to do it to yourself" (Jameson 1985, xiii).

Following Attali, I contend that kwaito represents the internalization of late capitalism and neoliberalism: the disappearance of the political (in the conventional sense) and the colonization of people's consciousness. The mode of power implied by the contemporary situation "eludes precise localization; it becomes diluted, masked, anonymous, while at the same time exacerbating the fiction of the spectacle as a mode of government." However, "in reality, power is no longer incarnated in men. It is. Period" (Attali 1985, 88). Fredric Jameson has similarly pointed out that, in the contemporary situation, former bourgeois, hegemonic ideology has dissolved into heterogeneity without norm. Jameson invokes the now well-known concept of "faceless masters" who continue to control and constrain our existences. However, these invisible masters who are everywhere and nowhere "no longer need to impose their speech (or are henceforth unable to)" (Jameson 1991, 17).

On a more general level, Michel Foucault (1994, 214), the most eloquent proponent of this decentralized conception of power, famously argued that power is "never localized here or there, never in anybody's hands, never appropriated as a commodity or piece of wealth":

   Power is employed and exercised through a net-like organization.
   And not only do individuals circulate between its threads; they are
   always in the position of simultaneously undergoing and exercising
   this power. They are not only its inert or consenting target; they
   are always also the elements of its articulation. In other words,
   individuals are the vehicles of power, not its points of
   application. (214)

My argument is not that oppression and power have disappeared. On the contrary, neoliberalism poses a far greater challenge than earlier forms of oppression precisely because of its "unlocatability." While Foucault's analysis may work as a general model for power relations (i.e., as a model that works for all times, and not only for late capitalism), I believe that earlier forms of oppression such as colonial brutality worked in a more top-down fashion. The colonial conquest of Africans by gun-armed Europeans, for example, can in fact be interpreted in terms of a small group of people exerting power over a larger group of not-so-militant people. On the other hand, neoliberalism or late capitalism can only be understood in terms of decentralized power relations. The "hunting of black skins" by Europeans in West Africa during the times of the slave trade, then, is different from the postindustrial situation in which the "ruling class" comes into being only through the belief (shared by rich and poor) that a huge quantity of abstract capital belongs to a small minority of people. While genocide and military regimes continue in the contemporary world, the global economy is largely driven by the "subjection" of individuals within an abstract network of force-relations. I am not implying that the poor and working class are simply "duped" by an ideology fabricated by the rich; on the contrary, power relations exist is a more complex way. In short, "Power is everywhere; not because it embraces everything, but because it comes from everywhere" (Foucault 1990, 93).

From the "Party Politic" to Party Politics

In light of the complaints about kwaito made by Mbeki and other ANC politicians, it is interesting that kwaito can easily be seen as the embodiment of neoliberal politics. Kwaito musicians and fans are obsessed with economic growth, consumerism, and the weakening of state control (see Boloka 2003; Peterson 2004). Seen this way, it is probably not surprising that in April 2003--not long after he had called kwaito a "distraction"--President Mbeki jumped on stage after kwaito star Mzekezeke had performed his song "Sguqa Ngama Dolo" at the Africa Day Celebrations and demanded that Mzekezeke sing the song again. Mzekezeke shouted out: "Before 1990 people used to struggle and cry for their freedom and after that freedom started people started rejoicing and celebrating and that was reflected in kwaito" (quoted in McCloy [2004]). It seems as though Mbeki had finally realized what Mahabane pointed out in his "Letter to the President." It is "important ... that you do take a particular interest in the affairs, interests and tastes of Mzanzi [i.e., South African] youth [i.e., kwaito music]," wrote Mahabane (2003, 41). By April 2003, Mbeki had finally realized the "inherent opportunities" in kwaito to which Mahabane referred. Ironically, these opportunities were Mbeki's.

The crucial point is that political parties no longer affect kwaito--kwaito no longer needs politics in the traditional sense of the term. It is driven by an individualistic autosurveillance--a micropolitics that is independent of the state apparatus. Today, state politics is merely a simulacral theater, masking its own death. Kwaito fans--much of the youth in South Africa--are fed ideology much more by the Culture Industry--or perhaps, that other CI, the Consciousness Industry--than by politicians.

So why are politicians taking an interest in kwaito? The answer, at least in part, is that while politicians may not have much influence on kwaito, kwaito--the most popular form of music in South Africa today--can change the image of a political party. Kwaito has not changed to make itself more suitable for "politics." Rather, politicians have noticed (rather late, in fact) that kwaito's popularity is incredibly powerful when associated with a particular political party. Politicians can no longer use music as propaganda in the traditional way. All that is left for them to do with music (in this case, kwaito) is to align themselves with it, to support it, and to say that they also like it.

Politics beyond Politics: Affirming Kwaito

In a speech addressed to former president Nelson Mandela, several kwaito musicians, and the ANC Youth League, Brigitte Mabandla (2002), deputy minister of arts, culture, science and technology, addressed the "various spontaneous cultural responses" to the "historic democratisation of a once oppressed people": "There is no doubt that the most vivid and progressively dynamic component of this cultural renaissance is kwaito music." Repeating the familiar trope that kwaito "reflects the new political and artistic freedom as well as the country's identity and modernisation," Mabandla drew her audience nearer by stating that "[k]waito tells stories about you and me." Mabandla also announced that, during South African Music Week 2002, the ANC would "be engaging kwaito musicians to explore how we could enable the growth of kwaito as well as examine its potential in the socio-economic development of our country."

Mabandla's speech is only one example of the ways in which politicians have drawn in kwaito music and musicians, turning them into allies. It is a matter of political parties using the party politic. In exploring how politicians have used kwaito, and how kwaito has been "politicized," one must keep in mind that the "politics" implied here is a depthless, simulation of real politics--a simulacral spectacle.

The "politicization of kwaito" was, in fact, predicted by an astute young writer in the late 1990s: "I have no doubt that 'youth' will soon become the buzzword again. We'll see organisations and political parties trying to use our culture to educate us and get us 'back on track.' If that's going to be the approach, don't even bother. Exploiting our culture will get you nowhere. Don't patronise us. We have brains and we can think for ourselves" (Hill 1999). Even at the time of writing (1999), this author--now a disc jockey for the popular radio station Yfm (which claims to "own" kwaito)--wrote that "[n]ot so long ago, the National Youth Commission (NYC) could not decide whether to use popular culture as a draw-card for youth. Some were in favour but the old comrades thought it would detract from the seriousness of what they wanted to achieve." However, according to Hill: "After meeting with youth clubs about the low turnouts of young people for the registration process," the NYC are now "dancing to a different tune." The NYC has "decided to try and make the process 'cool' for youth. What a wake-up call."

The ANC is not the only party to use kwaito artists to boost its reputation. The Democratic Alliance (DA) (which came in second in the 2004 national elections, with another party coming in a distant third) also used kwaito musicians. The DA is the most explicitly neoliberal of all the parties, with a business-oriented, and highly American, image and approach. In addition to using kwaito songs, the DA used songs whose lyrical content obviously related to the elections. The DA's Craig Morkel reported that two songs that would be prominent in the election campaigns were Right Said Fred's "Stand Up for the Champions" (the DA being the champions, of course) and Bob Marley's "Get Up Stand Up (For Your Rights)" (Smith 2004). Rather humorously, Morkel made it clear that the DA's use of the latter song had nothing to do with the legalization of marijuana: "We want to appeal to people not to be apathetic, but to get up, stand up and go vote. We reserve our right to remain silent on the issue of the decriminalisation and legalisation of marijuana" (quoted in Smith 2004).

According to journalist Paddy Harper (2004), the DA "spin machine sells slick self-confidence." In contrast to the "muscular liberal" image of the DA in the 1994 elections, DA leader Tony Leon "retains the un-African, in-your-face Westminster approach to politics and the abrasive, churlish attitude towards the ruling party." Leon's new image is "slick": "He has cultivated a pseudo-presidential image." He presents himself as the one with the alternatives and the answers, the one "who can deliver South Africa from the depraved grip of the no-longer-so-monolithic ANC." When Leon goes into the townships and "hugs black people" and "almost dances," his image is the mixture of "a populist leader of a liberation movement and a businesslike but caring president-in-waiting." It is not only "slick" but it is also entertaining, and, while determined, it is in a way very light. Leon is "banishing the image of an angst-ridden white man with difficulty in coping with life in a non-racial South Africa."

Harper (2004) begins her article on the DA: "A breathless silence--tinged with hushed expectation--hangs over a darkened Durban city hall as the bass-heavy kwaito rhythm crashes to a halt. A single spotlight sweeps from the stage towards the back of the hall as a voice rings out over the public address system: 'And now, ladies and gentlemen, the leader of the future government of South Africa, Mr Tony Leon'." When looking for a soundtrack, Leon could turn only to kwaito.

One writer (Werth 2002) has complained about the DA's spectacular and showy displays, pointing to the "'bus-'em-in-alive' media circuses" that allegedly attest to the DA's black support. "The fact is," according to Werth, "that the people so bussed in participate because they get a free outing, two meals and a kwaito show." Journalist S'thembiso Msomi (2004) reports on another DA campaigning event at which, using kwaito group Mafikizolo's "Ndihamba Nawe" as Leon's entrance song, the crowd changed the original lyrics from "Ndihamba Nawe" ("we go together") to "weTony thina sihamba nawe" ("Tony, we are going with you"). Significantly, earlier that day, Tebogo Madingoane, Mafikizolo member and co-composer of "Ndihamba Nawe," had been killed. Msomi notes bitterly that the "DA did not stop for even a moment to pay its respects to a young man who had given it its election theme song."

In a sense, politicians actively perform the politics of kwaito. Learning his lesson from kwaito, Leon does not merely pontificate about politics but performs the "new" (post-) politics by enjoying his own body in the company of black people. Leon dances and smiles--and he does this with black people. In fact, Leon does not "go with" black people, as much as they go with him. By going with Leon, they are told, they will all go together.

Leon is not the only politician to "embody" the spirit of kwaito. At the postelection celebration party in 2004, when the ANC won for the second time, President Thabo Mbeki first asserted that the country had obviously refused to "be misled into voting against their movement and their own interests" and then exclaimed he was at the party to celebrate, not to give long speeches (quoted in Seepe 2004). Mbeki, therefore, explicitly performed the new brand of politics by refusing to speak about it. The decision to celebrate and party rather than discuss politics designates a profoundly new approach to politics that can only be referred to as the "party politic." Moreover, there was only one way that Mbeki could possibly have fully embodied his own politics: the victorious politicians of the ANC "got down to some serious kwaito as they partied the night away" (Seepe 2004).

Even the New National Party (NNP)--the updated version of the old apartheid ruling party, the National Party, which was apparently trying to be more progressive--played tunes by the kwaito musician Mandoza at its rallies in the Western Cape, although, as one reporter quipped, Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive" may have been more appropriate for this historically racist party (Smith 2004).

Concerning political parties using "more and more local artists ... to stir up the masses," the question of the various artists' political affiliations has arisen. Mafokate's response to this was: "You have to understand this is the way we make a living, and we have a duty to entertain. Honestly, our fans are from all parties and if we say no to anyone it becomes an issue. It is a democratic country and we are free--when called--to perform for anyone if given the platform" (quoted in Farber, Haskins, and Palmer 2004). Steyn Speed, the communications coordinator for the ANC, reported that artists perform at ANC events even if they are not affiliated with the ANC. According to Speed, performers are "service providers" (quoted in Farber, Haskins, and Paler 2004). Kwaito musicians are not ideologues. They are paid to entertain, not to convert, convince, or simply con. On the other hand, the "entertaining" element of kwaito is the political element; kwaito musicians embody and perform a brand new politics, as they brand political parties.

While many politicians apparently believe that kwaito, formerly thought of as a distraction, will "sell" their parties to the people, others have gone further, asserting that kwaito is in fact at the vanguard of politics. A writer for the ANC Today, for example, has stated explicitly that the youth are in no way apolitical but are rather redefining the parameters politics. The youth are political, we are told, but their slogan has changed since 1994 from "youth to the frontlines," to "go back to school" ("Youth and Politics in SA" 2005). In characterizing "go back to school" as a political slogan, the writer has radically opened the field of "politics" to what would not usually be considered political. In neoliberalism, education, employment, and business are more pressing "political" concerns than older notions of struggle. The writer for ANC Today continues, stating that the politics of the "kwaito generation" are embodied in their self-conscious racial identity and their sympathy toward the "transformation" process. He observes, moreover, that it is the "young lions" who were at the forefront of the antiapartheid struggle who are today most apathetic. The writer even criticizes the ANC, proclaiming that the youth have not disengaged from politics; on the contrary, politicians have not engaged the youth politically. In light of such a scenario, the author claims that the "kwaito generation" has found in culture a rich site for political "energy and idealism." Praising the postapartheid black youth, the author suggests that the lyrics and symbolism of contemporary black youth culture point to a complete reinvention of the political. A new postliberation discourse has been born. "The youth are giving new meaning to the politics of their mothers and fathers and are creating a new politics of human liberation that is entirely appropriate to the democratic order" ("Youth and Politics in SA" 2005).

The "politics of liberation" that the writer refers to is the politics of neoliberalism, which, as noted previously, exists independent of state control. To illustrate this point one last time, I will briefly examine another article written for ANC Today. Although many people have complained that nothing has changed since South Africa's transition, Malusi Gigaba (2004) writes that, today, "one can watch home-grown soapies on TV, community arts in theatres, root for our township boys playing for big European soccer teams, and dance to kwaito every weekend." Most notable here is that the kind of freedom invoked by this politician is independent of the state apparatus. What the ANC has done, we are told, is allow people to forget about politics. The ANC is not directly responsible for television shows, art, soccer, or kwaito but has rather facilitated the possibility of the emergence of these cultural products and activities. The ANC's success is found only in its death--or, perhaps, in its sacrifice. The trace of politics, then, is apparent only in its absence.

Concluding Remarks: Kwaito and the Political

While kwaito was previously considered as an opposition to politics, the redefinition of politics in postapartheid South Africa has meant that kwaito is now seen as the embodiment of politics itself. The political has changed radically since 1994 and there is no longer a locatable hegemonic force against which to struggle. In hyperreality, the nexus of power has dissolved and the reinjection of historical politics into the present "has no value as conscious awareness but only as nostalgia for a lost referential" (Baudrillard 1994, 44). The emergence of kwaito parallels the end of politics and the beginning of one of the greatest challenges in history: late capitalism.

To conclude, I would like to theorize politics and power in the contemporary situation more carefully. The point is that politics and power have not simply disappeared; rather, they have shifted their emphasis, becoming at once opaque (in the sense that they is impenetrable) and transparent (in the sense that they are invisible). Throughout this article, I have attempted to illustrate how the lack of explicit political emphasis in kwaito is in another sense extremely political; that disengaging from politics designates not so much the end of "politics" but rather a dramatic reformulation of the political. Following Simon Stephens, I have called this new politics the "party politic." Even though the state merely simulates a dead form of politics, the politics of late capitalism has violently invaded the globe.

A brief examination of Rupa Huq's work on rave music in Britain can help elucidate these points. In direct opposition to the identity politics of the 1960s and 1970s, the "messages of rave music often decentre identity by encouraging the dancers to lose themselves or 'let the music take control'" (Huq 2002, 94). Huq quotes journalist C. J. Stone on raving: "People don't go on demos these days, they celebrate. They don't protest, they party." While it may seem that there is simply nothing political about raving, Huq suggests that there is much value in fighting for the "right to party," and she refers to the "politics of pleasure in dance music" (95). Similar to kwaito's "party politic," rave has its own "politics" even as it rejects more traditional forms. Standing in opposition to conventional politics, rave--like kwaito--becomes political.

Both rave and kwaito can be analyzed in terms of the dialectical reversal mentioned in the first part of this article; that is, in both rave and kwaito, the apolitical becomes the political. Interestingly, it is more difficult to see how the political might become the apolitical; so we may wonder if we are really talking about a "reversal." Since at least the 1960s, when the slogan "the personal is the political" was popularized, it has been difficult to think of anything that is in no way controlled (even if indirectly) by "the political." The scholarly critique of ideology has had similar results. Correctly challenging the mistaken belief that it is always "the other guy" who has ideology (in the same way that only blacks have race and only woman have gender), it is commonplace today for academics to simply assert that everyone has ideology. While it may be true in a certain sense that everything is political, and that everyone has ideology, we may wonder at this point how useful terms like the political and ideology actually are. Is there not something terribly tautological in such totalizing and catch-all conceptualizations?

Throughout this article, I have argued that, in the contemporary situation, power has no localized origin. Yet the Foucauldian conceptualization of decentralized power (which is similar to the ones offered by Attali and Jameson) relies too heavily on Nietzsche's "expulsion of the negative." Foucault lets everything become visible, read, heard; he lets everything become forces or systems; he indexes everything, registers everything; what was repressed is now produced. (5) For Foucault, capitalism should not be thought of in terms of the theft of the working class; on the contrary, capitalism produces poverty. It is not a matter of taking away (theft, which is negative) but of producing. Similarly, in this scheme, sexual "misery" is not due to the repression of sex (it is not a "matter of explaining [sex] negatively by repression") but rather to the "positive mechanisms that produce sexuality in a given mode" (Foucault 1980, 5). Foucault is interested only in production.

If we argue that power is decentralized and without origin, then we are forced to conclude that "there is simply nothing else either this side of it or beyond it" (Baudrillard 1987, 39). In Foucauldian-type analyses, power is not central or unilateral, or even dominant: it is distributional, immanent--an unlimited field of forces. Power, then, is everything. And yet it is the tautological nature of such a conception of power to which we must finally attend.

While I believe that there is much value in the analyses of power by writers such as Foucault, Jameson, and Attali, I would like to consider another possibility. Countering Foucault, Jean Baudrillard has argued that there is in fact a negative side to power, and this negative side is seduction. Different from Foucault, who sees power as the final principle, "the last term, the irreducible web, the last tale that can be told," Baudrillard argues that something within power resists itself. If there were only a propellant, forward-looking power that saturated the entire field of social networks, then it would be impossible to explain why we are not already dead and buried. If power is unlimited, without negative, and--most tautologically of all--all-powerful, we cannot explain "what power runs into and against what it stumbles" (Baudrillard 1987, 42; see also Baudrillard 1990). The failure to take into account power's resistance to itself (which is seduction) lies at the heart of a question that has perennially haunted dialectical materialists: Why have the masses not already and immediately overthrown power? What is stopping them? This is the puzzle that Baudrillard tries to answer.

The secret of power, contrary to what Foucault says, can only be explained through symbolic exchange. By constantly accumulating, collecting, and producing, we have forgotten that "force comes from subtraction, power from absence" (Baudrillard 1996, 4). Because there is no equivalent to the world, we have nothing against which we can check it. Because every mirror and every representation is part of it, there is no way to verify the world. In this sense, the world is a "fundamental illusion" (Baudrillard 2001, 3). All value is thus exchangeable only for Nothing. Capitalism--like the Foucauldian analysis of power--is problematic, however, because it denies the existence of Nothing. This denial of Nothing "brings about the catastrophic deregulation of systems," and if "it is the Nothing whose absence is missing, it is the Nothing which must be brought (or returned) into play" (8). Foucauldian "productivity" is disturbing precisely because Something can only be formed through symbolic exchange with Nothing, absence.

As an example of symbolic exchange, Baudrillard tells us that the secret of power's lack of existence is realized by the great bankers who know that money is nothing, that money does not truly exist. "Power is truly sovereign when it grasps this secret and confronts itself with that very challenge" (Baudillard 1987, 59). Power dies when it fails to recognize that it is nothing, that it is a void. If power tries to find some truth, some representation, some substance, it immediately withers. There is no use trying to find the productive mechanism that underlies the entire structure of banking; for banking is, on the contrary, constituted by a radical void. A second example is Baudrillard's (1987, 59) conception of fascism. Fascism--precisely because it trifles "with all forms of political 'truth'," and precisely because of its intense simulacral form--is unique in the twentieth century for having defeated any and all symbolic resistances. The only way to defeat Nazism during World War II was to crush it through brute strength. We have lost the secret of symbolic exchange.

Having revised my theory of power in late capitalism, I would like to suggest that kwaito is important because it represents a negative side of politics and power. Kwaito is not simply another kind of power, another kind of politics. On the contrary, I would argue that it is an example of a truly nonpolitical music genre. The dance aesthetic in kwaito is infectious precisely because it is nonpolitical. Ironically, the politicians have probably understood this best. Using kwaito musicians at their campaigns, they have provided a window into a nonpolitical realm. By being useless, fun, and danceable, perhaps kwaito offers the only real challenge to power. Is it possible that kwaito might be nondialectical, nonstrategic, and nonpolitical?

I would like to thank Timothy Rommen for his help with this article. His generosity and insight constantly inspire me. Thanks also to Roger Grant for helping me with a definition of House track.

DISCOGRAPHY 

Kwaito: South African hip hop. Sterns/Earthworks STEW42CD (2000). Compact disc.

Mandoza. Godoba. EMI CDCCP2 020 (2001).

Mzekezeke. Izinyoka. EMI CDCCP2 (WLM) 042 (2004).

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(1.) House is a form of electronic dance music that originated in Chicago and New York in the 1980s. A House track is a substrate consisting of looped synthesized drums and bass over which a variety of vocal or nonvocal layers might be added. The resulting complex is usually shaped in volume and intensity on the spot by a DJ, who responds to, and interacts with, the crowd for whom he or she is performing.

(2.) In a South African context, the word coloured refers to a group of people with mixed racial heritage who have, by this stage, formed rich cultural identities that usually differ from both "black" and "white" communities. The racial segregation laws of pre-1994 South Africa are largely responsible for fragmented and distinctly racially based cultural identities.

(3.) An example of explicitly political kwaito is Mbongeni Ngema's song "AmaNdiya" (The Indians), in which he complains bitterly about the Indian community in KwaZulu Natal:

"Oh my fellow brothers we need strong / And brave men to confront the Indians ... / Indians don't want to change / Even Mandela has failed to convince them to change" (in Coplan 2005, 23-24).

Another example of conventionally political kwaito is M'du's "Bab' Government" (translated in Ballantine 2003): "Father government! We are tired of stealing cars / Now is the time to stop this crime and live a normal life / Just like anybody else."

(4.) Throughout this article I use the terms neoliberalism and late capitalism more or less interchangeably.

(5.) My argument here is not against Foucault as such. Rather, Foucault is a particularly good example of a theorist who has written about power as a decentered force that emanates from everywhere.

GAVIN STEINGO has published articles on contemporary South Africa in Popular Music and Society and African Identities and is currently editing a collection of essays on kwaito. He is a Ph.D. student in anthropology of music at the University of Pennsylvania.