Re-thinking ‘whiteness’? Identity, change and ‘white’ popular music in post-apartheid South Africa

Abstract

In South Africa, the prospects for social integration were auspicious after the first democratic elections in 1994. As the popular music of the time shows, it was not only blacks who exulted in the new ‘rainbow’ euphoria: many whites did so too. But for millions of black and white citizens, this moment was short lived. The government's adoption of neo-liberal policies had severe social consequences – which it and the new elite sought to conceal behind populist calls to ‘race’ solidarity, a new racial typecasting and slurs aimed at whites in general. ‘White’ popular music has responded to these reversals in a variety of ways – including direct criticism, sharp satire, humour and the expression of ‘fugitive’ identities. Perhaps more remarkably, white musicians have stressed the need for self-reinvention in music that is ironic, unpredictable, transgressive. These songs play with malleable identities; tokens of a disdain for fixed or essential identities, they are hopeful signposts towards a more integrated future.