A hip-hopera in Cape Town: the aesthetics, and politics of performing 'Afrikaaps'

Abstract

The paper presents an analysis of how visual and musical aesthetics converge in the performed production of history, as creolization, and ethnically specific 'heritage', and how the self-stylization is employed in asserting a linguistic-cultural 'identity'. This is done through an investigation of the aesthetics and politics of the 'hip-hopera' Afrikaaps. Afrikaaps was produced in 2010 by a group of musicians and spoken word artists from Cape Town and the rural Western Cape Province of South Africa. The show premiered at an annual Afrikaans cultural festival; it then had a three-week run at a theatre, located in a predominantly white, English-speaking part of Cape Town, followed by different sets of performance in South Africa and abroad and the documentary by a Cape Town film maker. Dylan Valley's [2011. Afrikaaps. Directed by Dylan Valley. Amsterdam: Plexus Films/The Glasshouse] film follows this group of local artists creating the stage production as they trace the roots of...