Kwaito's Legacy of Aestheticizing Freedom: Amapiano in Langa township and the World
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2023
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An electronic dance music originating from South African townships around 2012, amapiano (literally ‘the pianos') represents a contemporary musical and cultural form which offers a means of expression for black youth. Currently the most popular music in the country, this thesis examines the form through the lens of kwaito and its literature, a music which emerged in a similar fashion shortly before the first democratic elections in South Africa. My introduction presents the kwaito literature as well as the relevant theories it raises and makes the argument for using these theories to address amapiano as a post-kwaito phenomenon. Chapter One investigates Kwaito as History, both as a shared history and a historiography. It analyses the use of a plethora of voices present in contemporary, urban historical accounts and how these can be read. The second chapter outlines the aural aesthetic encompassed by amapiano, arguing for the value of musical analysis in the study of similar forms. The following two chapters examine aesthetics as a broader sensory experience and how this allows for the mitigation and reversal of socio-economic circumstances and the formation of groupings along aesthetic lines (aesthetic formations), respectively. While these chapters focus more on the local function of the music, Chapter Five explores a wider conception, specifically its Afrodiasporic role in challenging the perception of Africa as the past, placing Africans as active agents in the present and future. I do this through an investigation into digital community spaces, Afrodiasporic influences, and various localisations. The final chapter examines amapiano artist Focalistic's Ke Star and the song's associated media, to demonstrate the role of aesthetics such as amapiano in the township, as well as the township aesthetic in amapiano. My conclusion posits along with many practitioners that “amapiano is the future”, both in the form of aestheticizing a freer future as well as representing the future of research.
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Eaby, D. 2023. Kwaito's Legacy of Aestheticizing Freedom: Amapiano in Langa township and the World. . ,Faculty of Humanities ,College of Music. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/39331