Browsing by Author "Klopper, Annie Elizabeth"

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    Identiteitskonfigurasies in wit Afrikaanse rap-musiek met spesifieke verwysing na Die Antwoord, Jack Parow en Bittereinder
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2017-12) Klopper, Annie Elizabeth; Foster, P. H.; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Afrikaans and Dutch.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study investigates identity configurations in white Afrikaans rap music, by focusing on rap artists Die Antwoord, Jack Parow and Bittereinder. Rap is a constituent element of hip-hop, a cultural form that developed during the 1970’s among the socio-politically and economically marginalised youth of New York’s South Bronx, and harbours a connection to black oral cultural traditions stretching back hundreds of years. Since the establishment of hip-hop, rap continued evolving and expanding its reach globally. It has been localized beyond North America as a mechanism – among many others – utilised in the continuous processes of cultural formation and identity configuration. Hip-hop is thus a glocal art form; global in reach but where it is adapted at a local level, it morphs to meet local realities and assumes a distinctive local character. Since its inception, hip-hop has aroused a steadily growing interest among academics. Whereas erstwhile examinations explored it as an African-American cultural form, studies have since the turn of the century increasingly focused on the variety of hip-hop’s local permutations, across continents and languages. This shift in focus entails a closer interest in the ways in which hip-hop functions in the continuation of local oral practices, processes of cultural formation and identity configuration. Popular music provides a space wherein South African youth actively and continuously reconfigure identity and interrogate associated issues surrounding it. This dissertation contributes to not only the discourse on local popular music and identity, but also to the discourse on the varied glocal permutations of hip-hop, by focusing on the development and the nature of white Afrikaans rap music. This follows local whiteness studies post-1994 democratisation which zeroes in on whiteness, centralised and normalised by the legacy of colonialism and the apartheid regime, to critically appraise its meaning and challenge its centrality. In doing this, and by exploring white artists utilising a historically black cultural form in various ways, the notion of essential or fixed identities are contested. To identify the symbolic capital of rap music, as well as to recognise its nature and characteristics, this study investigates the development of hip-hop culture whilst acknowledging the oral traditions preceding and influencing it. Earlier permutations of South African hip-hop during the 1980s and 1990s are examined. This is followed by the case studies, exploring Die Antwoord, Jack Parow and Bittereinder. Considering the uniqueness of the South African context, an interdisciplinary qualitative analysis is necessary to make sense of the ways in which local white rappers are actively negotiating identity, through an originally black cultural form. In conclusion, I argue that hip-hop is deployed in ongoing local processes of creolisation of language and music by (the very) means of language and music themselves.
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    Die opkoms van Afrikaanse rock en die literêre status van lirieke, met spesifieke verwysing na Fokofpolisiekar
    (Stellenbosch : University of Stellenbosch, 2009-03) Klopper, Annie Elizabeth; Foster, P. H.; Grundlingh, A. M.; University of Stellenbosch. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Afrikaans and Dutch.
    The aim of this study is to examine the rise of Afrikaans rock music and the literary status of Afrikaans rock lyrics, with Fokofpolisiekar as example. An investigation is done into how the specific sociopolitical context within which Afrikaans rock music developed manifests in lyrics and musical style. The implications of Afrikaans rock with regards to the identity of Afrikaner youth in the new millennium are also explored. A case study of the Afrikaans punk rock group Fokofpolisiekar is done by way of demonstration of this interdisciplinary and contextual investigation. Not only the formation and impact of the group are examined, but a considerable section of the thesis is dedicated to the analysis and interpretation of this group’s lyrics, which are viewed and explored from a literary point of view. In this process certain questions regarding the position of lyrics in the Afrikaans literary system comes under scrutiny. The analysis and interpretation of the lyrics of Fokofpolisiekar are therefore aimed towards examining the literary status of this group’s lyrics. It will be proved that the sociopolitical context within which Fokofpolisiekar’s lyrics came to be formulated, impacted on the character and themes thereof. The thematic struggle with issues like liberation (redemption) and identity in the lyrics are shown to bear relation to the sociopolitical context of the Afrikaner youth after the Afrikaner’s loss of power in 1994 and the postmodern condition at the turn of the millennium. This postmodern condition is characterized by the continuing fragmentation of identity. The conclusion is made that Afrikaans popular music sets up a space within which new ideas with regards to ‘truths’ of identity can be formulated. In other words, the punk rock music of Fokofpolisiekar offers an opportunity for the re-articulation of Afrikaner identity. By incorporating the polysistem theory (and other relevant theories) in investigating the creation and reception of Fokofpolisiekar’s lyrics, it is shown that the Afrikaans literary system holds a place for Afrikaans lyrics. Although similar, lyrics should not be regarded as synonymous to poetry. Seeing that the creation and reception thereof differs from that of other literary forms, I argue that lyrics are lyrics and should be regarded as such in order for it to come to its full right in literary study.