This is the sixth and final episode of the first season of Gallo Vault Sessions: A podcast in collaboration with KONJO.

In this episode we think through South African music through transition; both the transition in South Africa’s socio-political landscape, but also how the sounds and music-technologies within South Africa’s music industry evolved along with the shifts in the country in the early 90s and early 2000s. We return to our conversations with Antos Stella & Dr Sipho Sithole, and also hear from esteemed songstress, Simphiwe Dana & writer, producer and performer Don Laka who has been in the music industry for 50 years! 

Gallo Vault Sessions in collaboration with KONJO

You can listen to our specially KONJO curated mix by Nombuso Mathibela @nombusomathibela , which follows South African music through transition here.

Talking points: 1995 rugby World Cup, 1985 Concert in the Park, Umoja, Kalawa Jazzme, kwaito, bubblegum, Yvonne Chaka Chaka, synthesiser, drum machine, South African Music Awards, Arabi Mocheke, Peter Makarube, isipitori, Boom Shaka, Simphiwe Dana, Johannesburg’s underground scene, Malombo, Thandiswa Mazwai

Guests: Antos Stella, Don Laka, Simphiwe Dana & 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 @gallorecordcompany & @k.o.n.j.o

Kineta Kunutu

00:10 Hello and welcome back to GALLO VAULT SESSIONS, a six part-podcast series brought to you by Gallo Music in collaboration with KONJO! This is the 6th and final episode of our first season.

00:23 In this podcast, we chat with artists, label execs, radio veterans and thinkers as we explore the back stories and overlooked tapes from the Gallo Music Vault, and reflect on the ways music shapes culture, and how our culture has been shaped by music.

00:39 In today’s episode we think through South African music through Transition — both the political transition of South Africa’s socio-political landscape, but also how the sounds and music-technologies within South Africa’s music industry evolved along with the shifts in the country.

00:56 We will return to our conversation with Antos Stella & Dr Sipho Sithole, and also hear from esteemed songstress, Simphiwe Dana and writer, producer and performer Don Laka who has been in the music industry for fifty years.

01:12 But before we start our story, we have a quick note from our producer.

01:16 It’s 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. We hope that at this point in the season we have begun to critically unpack much of these nuanced connections in our efforts to understand our cultural history and also imagine new futures for the recording industry on the continent.

01:55 In the first episode, we heard from Antos Stella about the period of Gallo Music that overlapped with the dawn of South Africa’s democracy.

Antos Stella

02:03 We need to remember that Gallo was a very progressive company in the town of the 80s. Its artists were very-very-very at the front of changing the country. That era of music created such harmony and unity in a country that was so torn apart.

Kineta Kunutu

02:48 On Gallo, the bubblegum-turned-gospel singer Yvonne Chaka Chaka released the song, I’m Winning my Dear Love on her 1987 release Thank you Mr Dj. She later revealed that the song was a lyrical veiling of I’m Winnie Mandela, in tribute to the release of femininst freedom fighter, Winnie Madikizela Mandela, from eight years under house arrest as a political prisoner banished to the rural town of Brandfort.

Antos Stella

03:21 There was so much that the entire country was trying to move towards and music, I think music was very integral as part of that, leading the country to that moment.

Kineta Kunutu

Antos Stella

04:10 So there's always been – I think music and sports are very, very closely associated in Africa. I mean, I see it wherever you travel in Africa.

Kineta Kunutu

04:19 Gallo Music recorded a cover of Charlie Skarbek’s World in Union as the official theme song of the World Cup, with Ladysmith Black Mambazo featuring Hotlines PJ Powers.

Antos Stella

04:30 The opportunity to record a song between also having Ladysmith Black Mambazo who were just enjoying I mean, an amazing global career. It just made sense to do the song featuring South African artists which is what we did. We recorded then West Nkosi partly produced the song and you know, West Nksoi had been with Gallo for such – in fact, he was the first producer that I had met but he was also a great penny whistler and you will find in Gallo’s archives, and the other song just ended up being as magical as the rugby match.

Kineta Kunutu

05:02 Let's give World in Union a listen.

06:07 In the early 80s, bassist, and the former front man of The Beaters and Harari, Om Alec Khaoli founded the band; Umoja meaning ‘unity’ in Swahili. The band was signed to Gallo Music and its sound is distinct of 80s South African pop, or what some might call ‘bubblegum’…the songs seemed apolitical on the surface, but clearly demonstrated dreams of a better South Africa and an insistence on joy in the time-being…and most notably, it had synths.

06:39 This is Umoja’s song, Brown Sugar.

06:55 On Umoja’s first album, ‘Om' Alec invited many American musicians to play on the record, with notable US producer Bill Meyers on the Moog synthesizer on the song U. But Om Alec later invited Don Laka to join the band.

Don Laka

07:35 So my father gave me fifty cents and I left with a friend of mine, got into a bus and it was a Saturday morning. And we walked almost the whole Joburg looking for Gallo. I thought I would go in there you know, and I was told not to walk in there because that was only a white entrance.

07:55 So I was shown to go at the back, you know, the parking lot, and there was a walkway that goes to Mavuthela. And that's how I got into Mavuthela and the first person that I met was some few ladies that I came later to understand they were from Mahotella Queens.

08:11 I said no, I'm looking for a producer and they called West Nkosi who came up there – interesting character and with a cigar in his hand.

Kineta Kunutu

08:21 But about a decade later…

Don Laka

08:23 Alec Khaoli asked me to join his band and I was a jazz snob at the time, you know, I just wanted to play acoustic piano. When Alec called me, he had just formed a band called Umoja. And he said, I want you to come and do keyboards for me. So when I walked in at his rehearsal, there was no piano.

08:43 And there was electric piano, the Fender Rhodes. And he just brought with him from the States synthesizers, and those were the first synthesizers in this country. And he said, listen, I don't operate these things, but I want you to play them. So he gave me the manuals.

Kineta Kunutu

09:03 Of course the synthesizer was responsible for shaping the sound of the 80s the world over, and Don Laka having been one of the first adopters of this technology in the country made a major-major contribution to the sound of South African pop.

Don Laka

09:16 Synthesizers, let me tell you, for me it was like God sent stuff because late 70s, I had music coming from the US and we would hear orchestras and stuff, and I realized that there was no way I would get an orchestra on my record, you know, and I sat on this thing, and when I, you know, I really didn't want to touch a synthesizer.

09:36 I really didn't want to because it was not a keyboard. I am a pianist you know, I just want to play piano. And when I touched this thing and it produced string sounds and I was blown. I was blown and then we went and I wrote my first record that went gold with the band called Oneness.

Kineta Kunutu

09:57 Let's listen to Oneness by Umoja.

10:47 When digital synthesizers first arrived in South Africa, it was the Yamaha DX7 that became the most popular unit. It is actually one of the best-selling synthesizers in music history.

Don Laka

10:58 You know when they first came, DX7 was not programmable a lot of people just use the basic sounds, I was one of the few people who could program it. Then a company called Roland came with easier to use synthesizers.

Kineta Kunutu

11:10 This was the Roland Juno 106 synth.

Don Laka

11:13 The sounds were much more available. Then you saw The Big Dudes and other guys now starting to use all these things and the bubblegum music now started to evolve now. Back then because a lot of people were copying Americans, we were all copying American sound but you know with a South African feel, Marabi and stuff, then we came up with this bubblegum music.

Kineta Kunutu

11:52 Some of the Gallo Music affiliated headliners included Umoja, Hotlines with PJ Powers,Yvonne Chaka Chaka, Steve Kekana, Brenda Fassie & the Big Dudes, Harari and Margaret Mcingana. Held at Ellis Park Stadium, the concert was attended by a racially mixed audience of over one hundred and twenty five thousand people.

Don Laka

12:14 And back then, the nice thing about bubblegum, South Africans were actually really hearing their own people, their own sound. And that's why it dominated so much. I remember at a festival, you would have image or band, you have Stimela, you would have Brenda and the Big Dudes, you would have Sipho Hotstix, Yvonne Chaka Chaka, you know, there were so many at one festival.

12:38 These were normal festivals and you had mega superstars. All these bands sold over one hundred thousand each. The sound really grew so much and it lasted for a long period of time. It lasted for nearly ten years.

Kineta Kunutu

12:52 In addition to the major impact of the synthesizer on this era of music was the introduction of the drum machine.

Don Laka

13:06 There was a drum machine that was brought in at the same time when I was doing this album Stages of Love. Drum players in South Africa were not happy, especially in Joburg and they started a union and apparently they started because of using synthesizers and drum machines.

13:24 They were going to lose jobs. My drummer in my own band actually joined the same union. So yeah, that's the funny part about it, but I never looked back. I use drum machines and I use a live drummers. I mix them because for me, they just bring a different flavor to the music. If I need a real feel of a human being, I’m getting a drummer.

13:49 So as I say, it has opened my thinking into getting into more genres into what I'm doing. I have never left any type of music while I was involved with the beginning of bubblegum music, I was still playing jazz.

Kineta Kunutu

14:06 Given the prevalence of drum machines in music today, it’s quite difficult to imagine drummers unionising in this way.

14:17 But another major genre in South Africa that wouldn’t have been possible without the drum machine was Kwaito which emerged in the early 90s, off the heels of bubblegum, the shift in the popular narrative in a new democracy, and of course the international proliferation of house, hip hop and dancehall internationally.

14:35 In fact, Kwaito and its use of the drum machine really remains groundbreaking and true to Don Laka’s constant experimentation with both genre and technology, he co-founded Kalawa Jazmee records with DJ Oskido & DJ Christos in the early 90s — the label best known for its significant contribution to the formation and development of kwaito in South Africa.

Don Laka

14:58 For me Kwaito was a mixture of bubblegum music with the addition of my jazz playing. So if you listen to the early stuff, its more jazzier than stuff that came up and we came up with a new genre of music.

Kineta Kunutu

15:14 Prior to this, Don Laka had been living and working abroad, and his mentor had been working with Jazzie B and the British soul & hip hop collective, Soul II Soul. For Laka, this was his first time seeing Djs working with real musicians in the studio.

Don Laka

15:30 The guy who was my mentor was producing Soul II Soul. And it was the first encounter of seeing a Dj in the studio working with a real musician. I saw what the contributions were from the DJ side. That's what I brought home.

Kineta Kunutu

15:47 And so Kalawa Jazzme and the sound of Kwaito were born! In fact, one can really hear the influence of Soul II Soul in the music of groups like Boomshaka.

15:57 Kalawa managed to get some cassettes from some of the profit Oskido had made from selling boerewors rolls in Hillbrow. Unfortunately radio stations would traditionally only accept tapes from established labels, like Gallo Music at the time, and so Kalawa took their tapes to the inner city, and promoted and sold their cassettes outside the Carlton Centre with a boom box.

16:27 Let's hear the title track.

17:14 The mid-tempo bass and drum accompaniment to oft repeated lyrics chronicling life in South African townships became a well replicated feature of most Kwaito songs of the time; a sound that emerged from the legacies of marabi rhythms, khwela, mbaqanga, maskandi, bubblegum, hip hop, and the introduction of the drum machine.

17:35 This is the phenomenon Don Laka terms “Kwai-jazz” — returning the spirit of black life to the music.

Don Laka

17:42 For me, kwaito was a mixture of bubble gum music and with the addition of my jazz playing, so if you listen to the early stuff, its more jazzier and stuff that came up.

Kineta Kunutu

17:55 For the first time, we were hearing free expression and multiple vernacular languages spoken on tracks, playing on the radio. This was unheard of during the times of SABC radio censorship and the segregation of languages according to the Radio Bantu system.

18:12 Finally South Africans were hearing the ways they actually spoke reflected back to them on the radio through Kwaito; mixing Afrikaans with Setswana and isiZulu. A big linguistic impact on the culture was the tradition of praise poetry and also Isipitori – a township taal spoken on the streets of Pretoria that subverted formal linguistic rules.

Don Laka

18:36 In the 80s, you were not allowed to sing in different languages in one song, and you would not actually mention your name or someone's name, they'll censor it. So in 90s now you'll see Zulu mixed with tsotsi taal. And you know it's all mixed up.

18:54 That's how people speak. People studying, I'm doing so and so like how we do it traditionally. Traditional way, if I have to do a praise singing about me, I'll say, I am so and so, from so and so, and coming from that background and going back – and then and you start telling the story.

19:14 It's a natural African thing. We wanted to reflect what was happening in a township. For me, it was like the opening now. People could talk freely about this. They would record, start swearing and things and being angry at so and so. I would just – because I come from the old school – just edit that out from there because it was a cultural shock even for me, you know, being involved with it.

Kineta Kunutu

19:40 As Don Laka mentioned, artists started to implicate themselves and their own personal histories into the songs in the same way that imbongi — praise poets — did within their own artforms.

A good example of the self-referential lyrical style is this song, The Way Kungakhona by the group Bongo Maffin.

19:59 As the late South African cultural studies scholar, Bhekiziziwe Peterson has remarked, “kwaito is an eloquent testimony of the agency of young black people. Especially in their desires to create their own narratives and meanings in response to the harsh and hostile urban landscapes that they found themselves in beyond the euphoria of a changed political landscape”.

20:44 Let’s listen to Boom Shaka’s Don’t Be Ashamed off their 1998 album Words of Wisdom released on Teal, featuring the pioneering Junior Sokhela, Lebo Mathosa, Theo Nhlengethwa and Thembi Seete.

22:15 As amapantsula evolved, items such as khakhi pants, Converse All Stars and a soft-cotton bucket hat or ‘ispoti’ became synonymous with the way in which kwaito groups started to style themselves.

22:31 In addition to this significant aesthetic, kwaito also saw the rise of Black women occupying a new performance and fashion style in the wake of household names like Miriam Makeba; as Brenda Fassie kicked down the doors of respectability politics in the bubblegum era, icons like Lebo Mathosa walked right through them.

22:50 Lebo Mathosa’s legacy in South African music and aesthetics can still be seen today with the explosion & success of women in amapiano who are currently dictating the fashion and dance styles of the scene.

23:02 While Gallo Music mostly missed the kwaito bus, Sipho Sithole was brought in to help redesign the strategy of the label to make it relevant to contemporary culture in the Black centres of the country.

Sipho Sithole

23:13 I say to Gallo, forget about kwaito. We missed the boat. We need to find new South African voices that can also stand tall amongst greatest world music artists to either find artists that are just brilliant artists, and nobody needs to sympathize with them. They must just be brilliant artist.

Kineta Kunutu

23:32 Sipho Sithole signed Thandiswa Mazwai as a solo artist who was enjoying her career as part of the kwaito group, Bongo Maffin.

Sipho Sithole

23:40 When I signed Thandiswa, Thandiwsa then says to me there is another artist you must hear that I really think is brilliant. Her name is Simphiwe Dana. Simphiwe Dana, the demo was just acapella. At that time, Gallo felt that she was old style, she was more like Sophiatown era, it wasn't gonna work.

23:55 I was like, no, wait till we put music on this acapella then you will tell me what it is. We signed her.

Kineta Kunutu

24:42 Let’s hear from Simphiwe Dana about her entry into music.

Simphiwe Dana

24:48 For a long time I didn't know, I didn't think my voice sounded great. But I really loved to sing. So I grew up in church and before that I grew up in the village. In a society where music accompanied every chore, every gathering, I was always surrounded by music.

25:07 You know if my grandmother was cooking, she was singing a tune. Prayers at night we had to sing. If people were working in the in the fields, they were singing as they were working and sometimes in unison too. But there was something about church and its fixation with God that I quickly adopted.

25:28 I wanted to sing for God.

Kineta Kunutu

25:31 Simphiwe grew up in the Assemblies of God church, who incidentally have also recorded gospel albums with Gallo Music…but when she was young, Simphiwe also sang in all the school choirs, and one day the vice principle at her school in Ntsolo told her that she could be singing for a living after hearing her in a choir performance.

25:49 Those words thrust her into dreaming of making a name for herself in the big city. She left the Eastern Cape, and set her sights to Johannesburg determined to make it as an artist while maintaining a job in IT.

Simphiwe Dana

26:02 I came here with nothing. I don't know even why I did that but something told me if you don't go now, it will never happen. I discovered that I had a message in Joburg, I came here without a message just with my voice.

Kineta Kunutu

26:15 Soon after Simphiwe arrived in Johannesburg, she found herself immersed in an underground scene of poets, musicians and songwriters who were all reckoning with what it meant to be in a post-apartheid reality that didn’t live up to the dreams of freedom and prosperity that the bubblegum era aspired towards.

Simphiwe Dana

26:55 So when I came to Joburg and found this very rich underground culture, I felt for the first time I would be understood. So you know, people of my time were very lucky in that regard, because there was a palpable, revolutionary spiritual, underground scene, you know, that was on the move at the time.

27:46 So identity politics was something that was heavily in discussion. Who are we? That was the biggest question that we were trying to answer to ourselves because we obviously were not the people from before 1994. We were not the people from the 70s. Right, we had a new mandate, you know, that we had to find for ourselves and run with.

28:11 How we looked to the world was a very important thing.

Kineta Kunutu

28:14 There was a concern around both politics and also questioning what it meant to be African; spiritually and aesthetically.

Sipho Sithole

28:22 Remember, we are coming from the bubblegum era, we are coming from Afro pop era, we are coming from jazz or Afro jazz era, and kwaito of course. But suddenly, you are now having these artists who mostly are actually educated and very sophisticated.

28:41 So they are amazing singer-songwriters. And they have a heightened social political consciousness. So their writing is not just about “let's dance”, they are well informed by their societal surrounding, about what's happening. But also, they now have this license to pen something on paper, because we're in a democratic era.

29:09 So they are going to stretch their imagination.

Kineta Kunutu

29:14 Simphiwe Dana was 21, attending underground sessions which were occurring around the city. There were poetry collectives, with the likes of Shaka Sisulu & Lebo Mashile, who wanted to grow Black culture with a new contemporary sensibility, and open mic nights like Black Sunday in Soweto & 206 in Orange Grove where folks would sing, read their poems, do live-painting and break dance in the efforts to build the culture.

Simphiwe Dana

29:41 Almost every day of the week there was some underground something happening somewhere where you could go and get on stage and express yourself and that's where I grew my sound. I literally would write a verse and go and sing it there and they’ll be like, okay thank you. That's all I have.

Kineta Kunutu

29:59 There were two incredibly significant figures in this scene that we need to acknowledge for their role in developing the culture. In many ways, these uncles paved the way for this podcast to even exist within a lineage of committed cultural work that started some thirty years ago.

30:14 The late Peter Makurube, a radio broadcaster with Radio Bop and a slew of other radio stations, including Metro FM & the beginnings of Kaya FM (a station which had a clear afro-centric agenda). He also hosted the open mic night ‘Monday Blues’ at The Cotton Pub in Hillbrow and Jungle Connection in Doornfontein.

30:53 The other elder was the promoter Arabi Mocheke, who was also deeply invested in developing the arts in the country at the dawn of its transition. He was the manager for the Newtown jazz club, Kippies (named after Kippie Moeketsi) and later went on to manage the jazz group, Malombo with Philip Tabane, who released their last album Muvhango with Gallo Music in 1998.

31:17 The title track went on to be the theme song for a local television series of the same name.

31:24 While record labels do the important work of releasing and marketing new music, it’s also important to acknowledge that the music and the artists thrive because of a much wider network of folks who do the heavy lifting of developing a scene in which the music can live. There is never just one player who builds a culture.

31:43 Let’s hear the track Ngwana O Ya Lela from that Malombo album.

33:19 That was Phillip Tabane, Malombo with the fire tune, Ngwana O Wa Lela (the child is crying).

Whilst Malombo had been releasing music since the 70s — It is one of South Africa's longest standing groups, and has helped shape and inspire the musical careers of many, it’s interesting to hear this marked shift in Gallo Music’s local catalogue — beyond mbaqanga, bubblegum and the sound of stimela and Lucky Dube.

34:12 Let’s hear a quick word from our sponsors, and when we get back, we’ll learn more about the transition era in the industry.

34:19 The Sowetan is a proudly South African news, lifestyle and entertainment publication that dates back to the early 80s with its roots as a liberation struggle newspaper. It is still one of Mzanzi’s most influential platforms of trusted journalism with over three million unique readers a month promoting social activism and celebrating excellence.

34:41 Pick up a copy daily at your nearest newspaper outlet nationwide, or log on to Sowetan live and be a part of the rhythm of the nation.

34:59 Welcome back to the sixth episode of Gallo Vault Sessions - a podcast collaboration with KONJO.

35:24 So far we’ve gotten a bit of a sense around the shift in both the sounds and sensibilities of music in South Africa during its transition period.

35:34 Let’s hear more from Simphiwe Dana about her journey into the scene at this time.

Simphiwe Dana

35:39 There was a lot of trying to figure out like who we were right. And it was something that I was also struggling with, you know, because of societal conditioning. A lot of us have grown up ashamed of who we are.

35:53 It was drummed in us, even in schools, even in our history books that we are less. So we were dealing a lot with issues of conditioning. And because I was dealing with that myself, I found it very hard to write songs in Xhosa.

Kineta Kunutu

36:10 But when Simphiwe got into the underground, she befriended the playwright, and poet, Lesego Rampolokeng.

Simphiwe Dana

36:16 We used to hang out a lot together. And one day he brought out this CD of different songs, actually it was a Gallo CD by the way, a collection of Marabi songs.

Kineta Kunutu

36:30 The compilation she’s referring to is titled, From Marabi to Disco: 42 years of Township Music — a Gallo Music release compiled by Rob Allingham.

Simphiwe Dana

36:40 I listened to that music and it sounded like home. And he played Dorothy Masuku “Jerry, Jerry, Jerry ungowam”. And I was like, this is me. Someone who grew up the way that I did, grew up choral music, church music, this is natural progression. But I just didn't think that this would have space in the industry right now.

37:05 Or ever in like I didn't, I didn't think that you know, it was to be something be cool enough to do. But since I do have a job, I can afford to be myself and take the risk of being myself. So I did that.

Kineta Kunutu

37:20 We’ve said it before, but one really cannot overstate the lasting impact of Dorothy Masuku and her music. Let’s listen to that seminal song; Ufikizolo by Dorothy Masuku.

38:30 Coincidentally enough, before Simphiwe got signed to Gallo Music, she was living across the road from Oskido of Kalawa Jazzme and worked as his lyricist — waiting for her big break.

Simphiwe Dana

38:41 I remember being at Oskido’s house and you know, Oskido has always liked me as his little sister even before I had a career in music. I remember I would go to him and complain, I want to sing! I want to sing! Please do something. He would say “Mara, sweetie, you can’t even dance. What are you gonna do?”

39:00 And I would go there and sit while he was recording Bongo Maffin. He was recording Mafikizolo, Trompies – I would be there you know just sitting in the corner, hoping that he was going to call me and say come sing something here. Which he never did.

39:20 You know, he did that once and I was not happy at all. I think he just felt sorry for me because I'd been in that studio for so many days. But what he wanted me to sing I was like, no, come on. Like you literally made me wait for hours so I can come in here and say “hey-ho” in your song.

39:39 I literally stormed out that night, I was so angry at him. Anyways, Oskido has been like a big brother to me ever since I've known him.

Kineta Kunutu

39:48 What’s really remarkable about this moment in the industry is the sheer amount of overlap across labels, styles and projects. Distinctly different to the times where artists were somewhat siloed through their exclusive dealings with labels’ talent scouts and producers, artists were now jamming and engaging with one another across mediums and genres, with agency and a distinct cultural vibrancy.

40:13 Let’s hear Simphiwe Dana’s Ndize Mama Tata off her debut album.

40:55 Clearly she found her voice and comfort in writing in isiXhosa! Sipho Sithole.

Sipho Sithole

41:01 If we look at the artists, for instance, Thandiswa Mazwai, Simphiwe Dana, they are occupying that space of saying we are going to tell our story. And our story is going to be told by what we see and hear happening, but also its a story of hope. Because this is now ten years into democracy because everyone was still hoping that we are now got a black government and things are gonna happen, but let's remind you, what is it that you are supposed to be considering.

41:32 Thandiswa is more on the culture side, very ethno and very cultural. You look at Thandiswa and you are seeing yourself as an African – a proud African. You could be from any village and you can see Thandiswa, you see yourself through Thandiswa.

41:48 With Simphiwe, you are listening and watching an activist.

Kineta Kunutu

41:53 Let’s listen to Thandiswa Mazwai’s Thongo Lam (Iyeza) off her second album; Ibokwe — a sound distinctly different to that of her part in Bongo Maffin.

42:48 On the label side, Sipho Sithole had advocated that Gallo Music take seriously their commitment to the new sound of South Africa, and they made significant marketing budgets available for the new artists they signed, upwards of two hundred and fifty rand — this was unheard of for new artists at major labels.

Simphiwe Dana

43:06 The kind of deal that I got at Gallo, it was such a sweet deal. It was such a sweet deal, especially for a new artist. I got a deal where I was one of three prime artists at Gallo that they will focus on. A new artist does not get that.

43:24 I had no track record of anything, I had not worked with anyone. I did not even do backing vocals for anyone. I was literally fresh from the Eastern Cape. I come in, and I've got this deal that has got a proper budget, so I can have a proper album. I can thank Sipho for that. I got a proper budget and my album got the proper response to the work that I had put into it.

Kineta Kunutu

43:49 The same could be said for Skwatta Kamp, Thandiswa Mazwai and the other artists Gallo had signed at the time. Whilst the label had made considerable investments and executed a new strategy, the reality is that the country was just ready, and we saw all these new artists going platinum, and cleaning out nominations at the South African Music Awards.

44:10 In addition to this new wave of soul and hip hop, Gallo Music and sheer (now acquired by Gallo) expanded the portfolio to the new sound of jazz in the Africa that some might categorize as “world music”.

Sipho Sithole

44:31 The South African Music Awards, you knew that when the various genres have been nominated, it’s just top. You don't even know who amongst the five would win. Anybody could win. I remember one day there was a year where the Best Female was like hardcore.

44:49 There was Thandiswa, there was Simphiwe, there was – wow! Who is going to win here? You know.

Kineta Kunutu

44:56 Sipho Gumede was nominated for Best Male Artist for his Gallo album, African Sunrise alongside Louis Mhlanga with his Sheer release, Tinganekwane.

45:07 Both Simphiwe Dana and Thandiswa Mazwai were nominated for Best Female Artist with their debut releases alongside Lebo Mathosa’s solo album.

45:17 For the record, Thandiswa won Best female artist and Simphiwe won the award for Best New comer. This same year, Trompies was nominated for Best Group alongside Sakhile with their album Togetherness… while Skwatta Kamp was nominated for the Best Rap Album Washumkhukhu — also released off Gallo Music.

45:36 And finally, Sipho Hotstix Mabuse, Margaret Mcingana, Dorothy Masuku and Brenda Fassie all received lifetime achievement awards.

45:46 In fact two years later, Simphiwe went on to receive four more SAMAS for her album, The One Love Movement On Bantu Biko Street. Wow! This was clearly an exceptionally exciting time in the industry, and for Gallo Music in particular… across genres.

Sipho Sithole

47:38 There was a vibe and the journalists were writing about what was happening. So those were the good old years, I mean, honestly and the record companies were investing. They didn't worry. Until such time when it started going down then the music retail shops were now buying stuff on what they call Sell or Return.

Kineta Kunutu

48:02 “Sell or return” is when a realtor buys a number of units from a label, say ten thousand units, and if they haven’t sold them within a couple of months, the realtors will return the dead stock back to the label…of course this culturally exciting era coincided with the rise in digital, the release of the iPod and the eventual decline in CD sales.

Simphiwe Dana

48:23 The company as a whole, they understood what they were doing. It's just that they could not move fast enough with the times and I think that a lot of record labels are suffering from that they're too big to move fast enough with the times.

Kineta Kunutu

48:54 And so here we are, with a record company that has an incredible legacy of taking us through so many stages of not just music, but also our country’s twists and turns … the reality is that we find ourselves coming from a time where the sound of South African music has evolved and we tend to hear far more American music on the radio than we do South African music.

41:21 Given these significant transformations in our cultural story, we are left wondering how we can reintroduce a valorisation onto our own cultural productions, where artists and cultural producers are receiving the support they both need and deserve. Gallo Music has really been at the centre of both the incredible highs and unfortunate lows of the South African record industry.

49:52 Thank you for listening to Gallo Vault Sessions - a limited podcast series in collaboration with KONJO.

49:58 In this first season of Gallo Vault Sessions we have explored the impact of Radio Bantu and the SABC on not just Gallo’s recording trajectory, but also that of South African music production more broadly.

Rob Allingham

50:11 You know, you had a Zulu service, you had a Xhosa service, the radio stations were instructed to only play material in that particular language and the record company stepped up to fill the gap there.

Kineta Kunutu

50:27 We have spoken with radio veteran Shado Twala.

Shado Twala

50:30 Do we have South African jazz or don't we? Where does it begin and where does it end? Also genres were there to divide and rule.

Kineta Kunutu

50:38 And also taken a journey with some of the artists behind many of the songs we all know and love; Lulu Masilela…

Lulu Masilela

Kineta Kunutu

50:47 Sipho Hotstix Mabuse

Sipho Hotstix Mabuse

50:49 At the time we understood what the word free would have meant. When you said “set me free”. Yes, we wanted our freedom at that time.

Kineta Kunutu

50:57 Mam Hilda Tloubatla.

Hilda Tloubatla

50:59 Makgona Tsohle band, Mahotella Queens and Mahlathini was really a family.

Kineta Kunutu

51:04 Don Laka, Anton Goosen.

Anton Goosen

51:06 If you really want to get to the Afrikaaner, call up his sentiments, and you've got him.

Kineta Kunutu

51:11 And Simphiwe Dana.

51:14 We heard valuable insights from researchers Schalk van der Merwe, Thandiwe Ntsinga, Edna Martinez and of course Gallo Music’s own Rob Allingham. We’ve learned about some of the incredible costs and sacrifices it’s taken for artists and producers to make music in our country.

Sipho Hotstix Mabuse

51:33 The record industry was run by white people, anything that the record company wanted to do, they had to do it through the talent scouts.

Kineta Kunutu

51:41 And also the types of strategies labels like Gallo Music employed in order to mobilize the music and talent both locally and abroad.

Antos Stella

51:49 If there's a message that’s going to travel, it's going to be music. Music travels so fast. You would take the artists on the road we would go and showcase it midem. We would have a whole strategy.

Kineta Kunutu

51:58 We spoke with ex Gallo MDs Antos Stella, Dr Sipho Sithole, & Ivor Haarburger and also our favourite royalties manager, Bra Michael Swaratle who helped us delve deep into the stories and sounds we tend to take for granted.

Mike Swaratle

52:13 A lot of artists were discovered at the mines, or composers were discovered at the mines. More especially the ones who comes from Lesotho, KZN, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and all of that.

Kineta Kunutu

52:26 We hope you enjoyed this final episode of our first season, and also learned something new. We really appreciate your joining us on the journey through South Africa’s record industry history.

52:37 The team at KONJO and Gallo Music have really enjoyed putting this season together, and we want to thank you for exceeding our expectations with your enthusiastic support and shares.

52:47 Please continue to follow KONJO and Gallo Record Company on social media, and make sure you rate and subscribe to the podcast on your favourite podcasting app so that you’re the first to hear our plans for a second season of Gallo Vault Sessions - a podcast in collaboration with KONJO.

53:05 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.

53:13 Our theme music is the song Toitoi by Marumo & you are listening to Kansas City by The Movers.

53:22 Special thanks to today’s guests; Antos Stella, Don Laka, Simphiwe Dana & Dr Sipho Sitole.

53:28 Be sure to listen to this month's KONJO curated mix by Nombuso Mathibela, which takes us through Gallo Music in transition out of apartheid. You can find a link to that in the show notes and on the KONJO Mixcloud.

53:42 Please also review and give us 5 stars or however you rate this podcast. We really love hearing from you.

53:48 And so for the final time this season, we say: Gallo Vault Sessions - a podcast collaboration with KONJO.