In this episode of Gallo Vault Sessions we take a look at music’s role in the retribalisation project of the apartheid regime through the South African Broadcasting Corporation’s radio bantu, Gallo Music’s African music imprints, the impact this had on local conceptions of language, as well as what was deemed African music. 

We’re joined by last month’s guests, Sipho Sithole, Antos Stella, Bra Mike Swaratle, Ivor Haarburger, and Rob Allingham, and also meet some new voices; renowned musician Sipho Hotstix Mabuse, and South African radio veteran, Shado Twala, who all help us understand how race and genre have functioned in South Africa’s music and radio history!

Gallo Vault Sessions in collaboration with KONJO

Talking points: radio bantu, SABC, Hugh Tracey, Phuzushukela, Maskandi, Mavuthela, African catalog, Harari, Oliver Mtukudzi, Pharanyana, Percy Sledge, skokiaan, Thomas Chauke, Radio Thohoyandou, Radio Zulu, Radio Metro, Sipho Hotstix Mabuse, radio dramas, language, LM radio, Peter Gallo, radio banning 

Listen to the all-vinyl mix exploring radio bantu and beyond, by Vusi Hlatywayo @el_metalo from Fly Machine Sessions @fly_machine_projects here

Guests: Shado Twala, Sipho Hotstix Mabuse, Rob Allingham, Mike Swaratlhe, Antos Stella, Ivor Haarburger & Sipho Sithole

Narrator: Kineta Kunutu

Writer: Zara Julius @ KONJO

Producer: Zara Julius @ KONJO

Researcher: Zara Julius @ KONJO

Artwork: PR$DNT HONEY

Production support: The Good People 

Follow us on @k.o.n.j.o & @gallorecordcompany

Kineta Kunutu

00:00 Hello and welcome back to the second episode of GALLO VAULT SESSIONS, a new podcast series brought to you by Gallo Music in collaboration with KONJO.

00:12 In this podcast we chat with artists, label execs, radio veterans and thinkers as we explore the backdrops and overlooked tapes from the Gallo Vault, and reflect on the way music shapes culture, and how our culture has been shaped by music.

00:27 In our last episode we heard from Rob Allingham, Gallo’s resident historian and archivist in the Gallo Vault.

Rob Allingham

Kineta Kunutu

00:58 For the next hour, we will explore this more deeply. Music’s role in the detribalization project of the apartheid regime through the South African Broadcasting Corporations Radio Bantu, Gallo’s African music imprints, the impact this had on local conceptions of language, as well as what was deemed African music.

01:18 We will also meet some new voices, musician Sipho Hotstix Mabuse and radio veteran, Shado Twala. But before we start our story, we have a quick note from our producer.

01:29 It is important to note that much of the contemporary language of the recording industry continues to be influenced by South Africa’s apartheid racial classifications, and the South African Broadcasting Corporation’s policies under the apartheid regime.

01:44 We are aware that some of the language used by the guests in this series is outdated and in some cases, pejorative and we see it as our duty to critically unpack these nuanced connected so that we can imagine new language for the recording industry on the continent.

02:31 At this time, a British self-proclaimed ethnomusicologist by the name of Hugh Tracey was brought on to develop the so-called Bantu radio service in his capacity as the director of the Natal studio of the SABC.

02:46 Following the SABC’s mandate, Tracey facilitated the recording, research and archiving of traditional music in the region and scheduled the music for the so-called native broadcasts using his field recordings.

Rob Allingham

03:32 And in 1930, when Columbia Graphophone sent a field unit to make recordings in South Africa, he brought a group of musicians playing totally indigenous music – he brought them down and they actually recorded in Johannesburg in 1930.

03:52 Those were the first recordings made by Zimbabweans. And then when the SABC was set up, they had an English service and an Afrikaans service but they decided also to set up a Zulu service and somehow, Hugh Tracey ended up getting a job of running Zulu services and was now based in Durban.

Kineta Kunutu

04:17: Presented by journalist K.E Masinga, this early Zulu language wireless radio service was originally broadcast on the Afrikaans and English radio stations. It would inform listeners about the unfolding World War and then end with a record of so-called traditional black music.

04:35 At its inception it was three minutes in length, and by the height of the second World War, the service had been extended to thirty minutes, until languages other than isiZulu. According to scholar, Thokozani Mhlambi, this development in native language broadcasts grew out of a colonial anxiety and desire to control mounting discontent among populations over their role in the war.

04:57 It is said at the time, compounds in townships had become the nurseries of anti-British and anti-government propaganda. Black radio allowed the government an opportunity to obtain control over the information and culture disseminated to its population.

05:14 Tracey’s role in recording so-called tribal and traditional music, aided not only the colonial agenda but it actively shaped what constituted authenticity for first, the SABC and later, the South African population across races.

Ron Allingham

05:29 Hugh Tracey was a preservationist out of a genuine concern that Westernization was going to forever alter these varied indigenous styles throughout Africa.

05:45 As far as Hugh’s South African recordings, he basically was not interested in urban music development for sure.

Kineta Kunutu

05:53 In the 50s, Tracey presented a paper entitled ‘The State of Folk Music in Africa’ to the International Folk Music Council as a proposal for a preservation project in which he describes African music as naturally predetermined along tribal lines, and amends that the urbanization of black folks was supposedly having a detrimental effect on their music.

06:14 Assuming new forms and resulting in strange things happening to their rhythm. He viewed it as the responsibility of white folk to bring the natives back to their natural position and keep them separate from western influence.

Hugh Tracey

06:29 “Now we have a Kipsy love song. Many English words have lately crept into their language and so this whistling young man, Cadondette Aaron Mbasura starts off his serenade with ‘Hello my darling’. The nearest he can get to hello my darling. He calls his girl his little calf. A term of great endearment among these cattle loving people”.

Kineta Kunutu

06:53 This colonial legacy of the SABC and the presence of Hugh Tracey, an ethnomusicologist with preservationist leanings, has largely affected the way we understand and consume African music in South Africa. Subsequent to his setting up the Zulu service and SABC, Hugh Tracey was hired by Eric Gallo.

Rob Allingham

Kineta Kunutu

07:43 Keeping in mind that Griffiths at the time was mainly producing and recording black urban music, kwela and the likes.

Rob Allingham

07:56 They set up a separate division in Gallo called African Music Research and Tracey convinced Eric Gallo that a possible opening for the African market would be if they went and recorded music from all over the sub-continent and into east Africa that they would then sell to workers in the mining compounds.

08:23 As a matter of fact, the idea that was maybe the mining compounds might set up their own kind of PA systems to play this music that they were going to record to sort of sooth the natives you know. I mean I’m not just speaking at the top of my head I actually have memos to this effect between Tracey and Gallo.

08:47 This was going to be a great sort of thing to keep the boys happy in their concrete shelves you know. And on that basis, Gallo were the first people to actually import a tape recording mastering machine which was mounted in the back of a Land Rover with a huge battery pack and Hugh went out recording indigenous music as far north on the east side as Uganda and as far north on the west side of Africa’s Katanga, the Copperbelt.

09:21 And this was totally funded by Gallo. Hugh himself was a preservationist but you know his mission as directed by the company was not only to find indigenous music but western syncretic stuff as well. So for example they had a massive-massive hit with the song Skokiaan originally recorded as by the African dance band of the Cold Storage Commission in Southern Rhodesia.

09:50 The records originally came out and then when they successfully exported it to America they changed the name to the Bulawayo Sweet Rhythms band.

Kineta Kunutu

10:09 Skokiaan became a tsaba-tsaba jazz standard covered dozens of times by artists around the world from the world from Trinidad, the US and Finland to Cuba, Germany and Russia.

10:20 Let’s give it a listen.

10:49 That was ‘Scokiaan’ by Cuba’s Perez Prado followed by the original recording by Bulawayo Sweet Rhythms band.

Rob Allingham

10:56 So Gallo got a good commercial return on that and then there was also for example Jean Bosco Mwenda in Katanga in the Congo as well. Those Bosco Mwenda records also sold very well. It must be said I mean, there is no doubt about the fact that Hugh had a profound admiration for Bosco Mwenda.

11:20 It would be unfair to characterize Hugh as some sort of a bitter preservationist who is instructing the natives they mustn’t listen to these terrible Western influences that have ruined their music but he was definitely very-very concerned about preservation.

Kineta Kunutu

12:07 That was Jean Bosco Mwenda.

12:10 While Tracey’s contribution to music archiving efforts should be commended, after all he made the iconic recordings of royal Zulu praise singer, Princess Magogo kaDinuzulu. These efforts must also be placed within the context of separate development under British rule.

12:25 And what would become the retribalization project of apartheid. His reluctance to record the music productions of the urbanized black South African culture that offered a challenge to the retribalization efforts of the apartheid government, complicated his legacy.

12:41 In the mid-50s Tracey left Gallo to start the International Library of African Music at the Rhodes University what is now called Makhanda.

13:07 A division within the SABC which ran a number of stations each broadcasting in different indigenous languages. SABC articulated a policy to “bring the voices and music of various areas into the homes of the urban bantu” with the intent of “heightening” the listeners pride in his own culture. The language of the SABC echoed the goals of Tracy’s own research.

13:34 Ex Gallo MD, Antos Stella.

Antos Stella

13:36 Ethnic radio was completely 100% brought on by the apartheid regime that is known as the South African Broadcasting Corporation. It was a complete apartheid mindset.

13:49 Let’s just segregate people per vernacular, tribe per, per whatever. So all of these vernacular stations were created not only because the people could speak the language but because that was just how South Africa was segregated that’s how the government understood the people.

Rob Allingham

14:06 As a matter of fact, the commissioning of the Bantu radio system was basically an idea of the Broederbond. That is an absolute fact.

Kineta Kunutu

14:37 Each tribe having its own unique culture and language and that geographical boundaries should be constructed in order to retain and often reinvent this system. And maintain the view that black workers were only temporary city dwellers and should stay true to the so-called pure tribal music of their official rural homelands.

14:59 At the time, most of the senior management of the SABC were members of the Broedrebond. A secret exclusively Afrikaaner Calvinist brotherhood dedicated to Afrikaaner supremacy, occupying every position of influence in the country across private and public institutions.

15:17 The Broederbond became the unofficial think tank for the apartheid government and its chief propaganda machine facilitating the effort of three million white Afrikaaners to repress the countries thirty million black folk.

15:32 For an in depth view on this, lookout for episode three on the Gallo Vault Sessions podcast.

Rob Allingham

15:37 The reason the Broedebond created this system it was just part of the master plan about how you know they were going to build up all of this tribal ethnic identity with the idea that basically they were going to divide the country and all these people were going to leave the cities and go to the allegedly independent bantu stands.

15:56 It was specifically directed as part of the greater divide and rule plan to build up ethic conscious which hopefully was then going to be useful in fermenting ethnic group versus ethnic group conflict. You could almost say it was evil.

16:19 But it did have this marvelous side effect that it created a market for the record companies to record these “ethnic musicians” to supply music to these radio stations and I mean there was a lot of absolutely fantastic music that came out of it. And there I say also extremely distinctively African music as well.

Kineta Kunutu

17:07 In response to this, Gallo music continued to build up its African music catalogue through the establishment of independent imprints to feed directly into the Radio Bantu system. A great example of this is the Mavuthela Music Label, Gallo music’s royalty manager, Bra Mike Swaratlhe.

Mike Swaratlhe

17:28 Mavuthela was started by a gentleman called Rupert Bopape who was in partnership with Gallo. Mavuthela was mostly recording – let’s say umbacanga, isicathamiya, Zulu tradition, Tswana tradition and all that, you know.

17:42 All these kinds of local content. Black local music was separated from other genre of music like white South African or international.

Antos Stella

17:54 That isolated the listeners right. They are the people that got it the worst but in the second breath, it's also what broke the music. If you think of radio Zulu at the time, Ukhozi FM and nothing's changed.

18:05 Obviously the music used to be split up by genre as well. We would know if it was maskhandi. The focus would be Ukhozi FM or Radio Zulu at the time. If it was – I mean from the northern region, you would go to the northern radio stations depending on what – and Gallo was really fortunate because at the time we were releasing quite a mixed bag of genres.

18:24 Whether it was – I mean, Xhosa, whether it was Zulu, whether it was Venda, whether it was Ladysmith Black Mambazo, whether it was Lucky Dube, we knew we had strategically knew what radio stations we would focus on and we managed to make it work in within that environment.

18:39 Yeah, the SABC was just another whole story and they dominated and there was no independent radio at the time, was no community radio at the time.

Kineta Kunutu

18:47 One of the most standout genres to have proliferated through the radio Bantu system was maskhandi. A style of narrative guitar based music sung in isiZulu. The most influential maskhandi artist in South African history was Gallo signed John Bengu, popularly known as Phuzushukela.

20:02 ‘Sehlule Umkhomazi’ by Phuzushukela.

20:07 Over the years, maskhandi music became a platform through which South Africans and migrants shared their feelings of exploitation during South Africa's unjust political history of segregation and grievances of then working conditions.

20:20 While maskhandi music is an art form, its significance in society is beyond music, and it's undoubtedly part of South Africa's popular culture. Another standout artist from Gallo music’s traditional music imprints is Dr. Thomas Chauke.

20:34 A Tshitsonga musician who would have been played exclusively on Radio Thohoyandou. Chauke migrated from Venda to Alexandra township as a child, where he stayed with his uncle who exposed him to umbacanga and taught him how to play Tsonga guitar.

20:46 Lets listen to Dr. Thomas Chauke.

21:39 It wasn't just these so-called neo-traditional artists who were played on Radio Bantu. The 70s and 80s gave birth to a wealth of vernacular language and instrumental soul. A prime example of this was Jacob Mpharanyana Radebe, who remains one of the most powerful voices of township soul.

21:58 Lets listen to his Sesotho cover of Percy Sledge’s ‘Take Time to Know Her’ and ‘Nka Nako Ho Motseba’.

Percy Sledge

22:53 “Right now we would like to do a very beautiful song that you made so great for me here in South Africa. And I dig you the most for that”.

Kineta Kunutu

23:32 Sledge was initially only given a permit to perform to black, colored and Indian audiences. Until the tour became so popular that he was then allowed to perform for white audiences.

23:44 Gallo had the license to release all his album recordings through Atlantic record label.

24:13 Lets meet prolific South African radio veteran, Shado Twala.

Shado Twala

24:19 My name is Shado Twala and I guess we talking now because of the work I've done over thirty five years of broadcasting with a specific interest in South African music but also music from the continent.

24:35 And, there's a leaning towards what is called jazz and that's another big question: do we have South African jazz or don't we, you know, and where does it begin? And where does it end? I mean, how do you separate all these genres?

Kineta Kunutu

24:52 Despite the state attempts to segregate music along ethnic and linguistic lines, music has always been dynamic and changing. And the evolution of umbacanga and jazz clearly demonstrates the way folks from around the country came together in the urban centers to develop new sounds.

Shado Twala

25:09 Also genres were there to divide and rule, you know. And I think the genre idea really worked for the government because they could compartmentalize again that this radio station plays umbacanga because umbacanga is like clean music.

25:28 So there was a lot of traditional cultural music that belongs to the Tswanas, that belongs to the – but it kind of gave you the mood of what was going on in those areas that they had compartmentalized.

25:41 Which brings us to what influenced and gave birth to jazz as well, because those are the people that were kind of thrown in… in Soweto, especially in urban areas. The music started permeating each culture and producing this new sound which eventually was called jazz.

26:02 This music became a melting pot then for a new sound, a new kind of maybe elitist sound which became South African or township jazz as they call it. There were restrictions also for the for the black radio stations that used African languages.

26:22 They were also watched as far as their playlists. So for a long time Radio Zulu would have never played R&B or anything else outside the sicathamiya and what was supposed to be Zulu, you know.

Kineta Kunutu

26:35 Whilst much of South Africa's music identity is known for its jazz musicians who gained prominence in exile, much of this music was actually banned on local radio stations, either for its linguistic positions or political content.

26:50 Ex Gallo MD, Ivor Haarburger.

Ivor Haarburger

26:54 The SABC were the main carriers of music, and if you didn't get it on SABC, you had very little chance to try and make that happen. So there were lots of bannings you know, but Jesus Christ Superstar you know the soundtrack album you know, to try and get that passed.

27:12 Somebody said to me the other day, Iva remember when you were working on JC Superstar and we were scared to buy it because we thought we might get arrested or whatever. But eventually we got there through but they were huge complications with JC Superstar.

27:29 Another one that we had was, Harari did a song called ‘Set Me Free’. I think it was banned for a bit, but eventually it got through.

Kineta Kunutu

27:36 Lets hear from Sipho Hotstix Mabuse, the drummer of the black consciousness inspired band Harari, about the banning of their song ‘Set Me Free’.

Sipho Hotstix Mabuse

27:45 I did a song called ‘Set Me Free’ and then I knew what I was saying “set me free, please let me be” it's like a love song. The lyrics would dictate or determine whether was this political or not.

27:58 So we wouldn't use lyrics like guns and shoot and, you know, we were not as overt politically as we could have. We would always be circumspect. We're using certain words that people would actually respond in understand this the meaning thereof, but at the time we understood what the word free would have meant.

28:23 When you said set me free. Yes, we wanted our freedom at that time. It was a love song, but it was a covert statement. We would write songs along the understanding that the meaning is intended to ignite the interest in the political atmosphere that time.

Kineta Kunutu

29:31 That was ‘Set Me Free’ by Harari, which was previously banned by the SABC.

Sipho Hotstix Mabuse

29:36 I mean, we should remember at that time, the SABC was the only existing medium of disseminating information. So, if the SABC felt that the music was not desirable, they would immediately just ban it.

29:53 They would scratch it off and literally scratching with a nail. So, record companies also had a situation which would be dictated to by what the SABC considered the only kind of music you could bring to us.

30:08 Politics were now a part of what influenced how the record company operated. You know, they were essentially a business and there was no straddling with. It could be decided okay this time, if an album is going to be political it will still be released. No.

30:24 For them it was important that those who were signed to the record label remain within the structures of how the record company would sell the music. Yes, Peter Gallo was open-minded.

Kineta Kunutu

30:41 Peter Gallo, the son of Eric Gallo.

Sipho Hotstix Mabuse

30:43 Whether we could use that as being progressive is another story. My name is Sipho Hotstix Mabuse as I'm known in the music industry. I started my music career about fifty four years ago, and Gallo as a record company has become part of who I am most of the music that I made, I made through Gallo even when I started with my band.

Kineta Kunutu

31:08 Hotstix’s musical journey began with a psychedelic rock and funk band The Beaters. After their tour to Rhodesia, currently day Zimbabwe, The Beaters changed their name to Harari.

Sipho Hotstix Mabuse

31:20 When we went to Zimbabwe, there was a band from Congo Brazzaville called Okay Success. And there was Oliver Mtukudzi, Devera Ngwenya band, I mean this was new music to us because we've never even heard it here at home.

31:36 That became the influence of the music that we wanted to make as a black consciously driven band.

Kineta Kunutu

31:44 Afterwards, Zimbabwe's beloved and hugely prolific Oliver Mtukudzi signed to Sheer Sound, which eventually got absorbed by Gallo music. Let's give him a listen.

32:35 You're listening to GALLO VAULT SESSIONS, a podcast in collaboration with KONJO.

32:41 So far we've heard about the ways the SABC mandated a distinct, apolitical and necessarily ethnisized sound for black musicians who wanted their music to air on radio. But let's hear from Hotstix what it was like to operate almost in reaction to the SABC and the retribalization project it promoted.

Sipho Hotstix Mabuse

33:00 The SABC operated on the basis of an apartheid system and as a result, that would have influenced how we also determined or decided to make music differently. And perhaps in a way with hindsight, it was helpful for us to reconsider how we approach our music in terms of, okay the SABC would not listen to a black rock'n'roll band, you know, because it was undesirable for African musicians to be influenced by English and less we become bad influences of language within radio stations.

33:43 We don't know if we had sang Afrikaans probably they would have loved the music we make but we were determined not to be influenced by anything else either than what we felt was the right music to make.

34:19 Certainly for us as a so-called black rock band, we were monitored sternly because most of the music would have been maskhandi or umbacanga and acapella like Ladysmith or scathamiya. And so that kind of music they were more comfortable with it.

34:44 But certainly with the music the Harari or Sipho Mabuse was making, it was always monitored. We were more influenced by what we heard on LM radio. And most of the music that we heard were the Rolling Stones, The Beatles, you know, soul music which today is referred to as R&B, Stevie Wonder, Otis Redding, and LM radio came from Mozambique but it was very popular in South Africa.

35:15 It was allowed to operate because most of the music it was more a white radio station, an independent white radio station. And for us listening to LM radio was perhaps for language. Where we felt English was the language that we wanted to pursue more. We considered ourselves the elite of the South African music industry at the time.

Kineta Kunutu

35:44 LM radio, Lorenza Marquez was a mostly independent radio station that broadcasts out of Mozambique, and provided an opportunity for folks in the region to listen to music that fell outside of the SABC mandate within apartheid, South Africa.

Shado Twala

35:59 LM Radio opened up my ears to a different kind of sound that was not South African. So they played a lot of Jimi Hendrix, Rare Earth, you know, white hippie music. Sometimes you may call it.

36:13 They played a lot of American stuff, but also music that was Mozambican and Portuguese, Angolan, you know. Those kinds of things. They would have played a Miriam Makeba, they would have played Hugh Masekela because they didn't have the same kind of restrictions we had.

36:30 So now and again, you’d hear some South African music, but predominantly American, really funky stuff. I went to school and Swaziland, so that's all we listened to LM radio and some South Africans, depending on how close to the border you lived could get it. That's what kept me alive as far as radio is concerned.

Kineta Kunutu

36:47 Whilst it's easy to dismiss radio Bantu as merely a consequence of the apartheid project in contrast to the more funky independent stations coming out of Mozambique, it's important that we do not flatten the significance and subtle subversions present in the radio Bantu system, and how it provided a lifeline of a different sort.

Dr. Sipho Sithole

37:28 I can’t talk about the evolution of radio. I can talk about my radio which is Radio Bantu because I'm Zulu. That's all I grew up listening to it was still Radio Bantu. This is where I got my own acculturation, because the African language stations which play a very critical role in this country.

37:51 So we grew up when radio drama was huge because there was no television. We would sit next to the wireless, which we called it ‘wireless’ because it was wireless in Zulu called it wireless. We used to sit next to wireless and listen to these stories, these radio dramas.

38:09 And when you're a kid you even get so scared, you don't want to sleep because some of these radio dramas are so scary. But there we also learned the cultural narratives. And the music was so as at that time, the on air presenters, most of them, also wrote the same radio dramas that we would listen to.

38:29 So they were not just on air presenters, but they were also skilled writers. Some of the biggest radio dramas that you hear that were written in the 60s and 70s, 80s, were written by the same on air presenters. But what was also nice about the stations that we listen to that is that the public service announcement (PSA) was the most important thing.

38:51 We'll be listening to Radio Bantu and then they will say a family in Nongoma is looking for so and so who came to Durban two years ago and has since not returned home. Something has happened at home and is required to return home urgently. It means there is a death in the family.

39:10 You will hear those things on radio. That is the radio that I know, the radio that was centered in the middle of the community in the middle of the people. But it was also interesting back then when you had the news readers because they were sanctioned what they're going to read.

39:27 They will say here the news coming from Pretoria and I've been asked to read them as they are. That was the introduction. Here the news straight from Pretoria. I've been asked to read them as they are scripted by the apartheid regime. Even if the apartheid had not started, I'm sure black people would have started their own radio stations at some point in time that speak to them.

39:49 Except that they will control the program. They'll control the narrative. It's about what they do when they are there. They were able to – just them by saying hear the news straight from Pretoria and I've been asked to read them as they are, they're basically saying don't believe the hype, what I'm reading here is what I've been told is not necessarily what I believe in.

40:01 That's what they said basically, but where we then rescued our culture within the same station was radio drama because we wrote our own radio drama. Of course, there will not be a story about politics, of course, but there will be a story about everything that has to do with the social system.

40:23 You know, the compilers are so important in the cultural formation of this country. We've seen the evolution of radio – I mean if you talk about for instance radio Metro as it used to be called back then, Treasure Tshabalala you know. Those are the oldies who really understood the audiences and gained so much respect from their audiences and stuff.

Kineta Kunutu

41:05 In fact, the unintended outcome of labor migration, the mind and the development of black townships like Soweto, was the emergence of ongoing development and varied black urban cultural identity that spanned and transcended the segregation of language and ethnic grouping.

41:22 For many of us to live in the Metropole is to switch between language, ethnic and class positions. It is against this backdrop that the SABC launches radio Metro with Shadow Twala as one of their first presenters alongside Treasure Tshabalala,

Shado Twala

41:40 My entrance into radio was by fluke, I've always been known to love good music, and they called to say would you like to try, I went and tried, my mother was very upset because she thought it was a dead end job.

41:50 When we started our radio station Radio Metro at the time was the first black radio station to broadcast in English for the urban black. That means they went as far as making sure that each language was catered for, because of the messages they wanted us to absorb and conform to.

42:10 And as you may understand, they made it slightly elitist, because I assumed that everybody or anyone who spoke English would be the elite of the urban spaces, but it quickly spread to whatever you can, however you can speak and how you can express yourself.

42:29 I think it was a government experiment of sorts, you know, our budgets were terrible, because we made a lot of money, but it kind of went to the white radio stations, etc. We were very guarded as far as what we spoke about, and what we played, especially, because there was all this music that because they had a huge library, but you'd find the album you wanted, but with kind of a scratch, each record the scratch for songs that were illegal to play.

43:04 And we, we could sneak in our own. But they recorded everything that went on air, and there'll be a debrief after your show to listen with the big bosses to say, you know, what is it that you played? Or what did these lyrics mean? And we weren't allowed to even use an African language in case you were starting to influence, you know, in particular way.

43:31 So it was very strict. We manage, though, I think, to sneak in one or two things, especially towards the late 80s, early 90s, because it is evidence that the country is changing in a particular way.

43:47 The first few years at Metro, even though there was strict with us, the people that started the station did not know what to expect. So we almost have to teach them what are people like listening to.

44:15 I could go and compile, I could go to all the record companies and get music that I preferred and that would be my show. We played a lot of American music mainly and when we did play South African music, it was the chosen music that the library would allow you to play you know, so at the beginning I don't think we could play the Sipho Hotstix Mabuses because they were there.

44:20 Also the instrumental music was amazing because that gave us almost license to play where there were no lyrics you know, so now and again you’d hear Abdullah Abraham, Mercy Pakela and all those Ray Phiris and Stimela were popular Sakhile, you know.

Kineta Kunutu

Let's listen to 80s bubblegum pop star, Mercy Pakela with her hit written by Gallo composer Chicco Twala.

Shado Twala

45:58 And rightly so because we were now in a celebratory mood and there were things we could openly talk about or be it in a very packaged way.

Kineta Kunutu

46:10 In the 90s, South Africa began to transition politically and of course this seeped into radio. Much of Radio Bantu became stereo and was promoted to FM radio. Radio Zulu became Ukhozi FM, Radio Xhosa became Umhlobo wenene, Radio Thohoyandou merged with Radio Venda and became Phalaphala FM and of course, Radio Metro developed to Metro FM.

46:37 Even LM radio which was eventually bought by the SABC before it shut down under Mozambique’s Filimo Army was replaced in South Africa by Radio Five, later known as Five FM. Despite this rebrand, the legacies and complexities of Radio Bantu have endeared well into the SABC programming in present day South Africa.

Dr. Sipho Sithole

47:03 I will be the first person that will be so sad if African language stations were to be done with. When I was at SABC, there was that talk. You can’t kill your own language. If you are saying you are going to get rid of African language stations, who is going to speak Zulu and Xhosa and Sesotho and Setswana and Sepedi and hear the cultural nuances, the tradition, the language in its purity and the music that speaks to that.

47:32 The issue is editorial control but it’s also about speaking to the issues that affect the community and our society. It’s about a programming but does it mean you cannot play a Thomas Chauke song on Ukhozi FM.

47:44 No, every radio station should be a reservoir for African culture that I can actually – if I was listening to Ukhozi FM, I would be introduced a Sepedi artist. I might not understand what they are saying but I can understand the sound.

48:00 That this sound is from this particular ethnic group. You might have Ukhozi FM but maybe 50% of that could be about what being Zulu is about and the rest should incorporate from the continent, from the country in such a way that you are able to learn more about other cultures.

48:22 I think radio has been juniorised. The whole cultural element has been removed from radio. I would listen to on air presenters, whether it’s on Metro or even Ukhozi, my own station. You’ll hear they want to talk more about what they know Beyonce having done last night in New York but they will never talk to you and tell you that oh by the way Mam Dorothy Masuku was throwing a party in her apartment last night and there was a lot of people attending that, they will tell you about what Kanye West was doing.

48:54 And they want to be seen knowing the best songs that come from America than the best songs that are coming from South Africa.

Kineta Kunutu

49:06 Thank you for listening to the GALLO VAULT SESSIONS, a new podcast series brought to you by Gallo Music in collaboration with KONJO.

49:14 We hope you have enjoyed learning about the SABC’s Radio Bantu and the impact of separate development in South Africa’s radio and by extension, music history. In next month’s episode of the podcast, we will explore parts of Gallo Music’s Afrikaans language catalogue and the conscious formation of whiteness and Afrikaaner culture through music in South Africa.

49:35 Today’s episode was researched, produced and written by Zara Julius at KONJO. With production support from The Good People and narration by Kineta Kunutu.

49:45 Our themed music is the song ‘Toitoi’ by Marumo and you are listening to ‘Kansas City’ by The Movers.

49:52 Special thanks to Shado Twala, Sipho Hotstix Mabuse, Sipho Sithole, Rob Allingham, Antos Stella, Bra Mike Swaratlhe and Ivor Haarburger. Be sure to listen to this month’s curated mix by Vusi Hlatshwayo from Fly Machine sessions.

50:07 Exploring the sound of Radio Bantu. You can find the link to that in the show notes and the KONJO mix cloud. Subscribe on your favorite podcast app so you never miss an episode.

50:19 GALLO VAULT SESSIONS, a collaboration with KONJO: with new episodes and curated mixes monthly.