Before Count Basie and Duke Wellington whipped up dancefloors in Harlem and Lindy Hop swept through America, Sophiatown was already swinging to its own sound. Despite the poverty and resultant violence, Sophiatown became a hub of culture, music, dance and politics, and marabi music emerged in the 1920s as a response to the urbanisation and social changes affecting black South Africans during this period. Shebeens pumped out marabi, and people drank and danced the nights away. Marabi, the mother of African jazz and later kwela, was “a modification of traditional musics, songs which our fathers sang before they came to Jo’burg.” (Interview in a thesis by Lara Allen, 1993)
Marabi tunes were an improvised mix of African Christian hymns, commercially popular and traditional music, played primarily on pedal organs, more prevalent than pianos in shebeens. It was also played on guitars, piano accordions and concertinas, often with a percussion line of homemade instruments: condensed milk tins filled with pebbles for maracas, drums made out of the inner tube of a car tyre stretched over a paint tin. Short lengths of hose pipes served as drumsticks, and upcycled tin containers and repurposed wood became guitars. The necessity to create music led to some ingenious inventions!
Marabi was an antidote to social injustice, harsh living conditions and political unrest. In the words of Dr. Lara Allen, “For as long as the consumption of alcohol by blacks was prohibited and a frustrated and exploited underclass existed, there would be a need for marabi-type social situations. There would be a need firstly for venues where emotions could be expressed and an identity forged; and secondly, for establishments in which life’s realities could be temporarily forgotten – drowned in liquor and stamped away in wild dancing.” The repeated chords and simple melodies made for infectious tunes that filled shebeens night after night with this uninhibited dancing.
This emerging culture of music and dance was also a result of industrialisation and segregation. As the British and their imposition of taxes forced men from their rural homes towards the cities, traditions, languages and cultures merged within labour settlements. Here, men from all over South Africa, and, indeed, other parts of Africa, developed a bluesy jazz style that reflected all their respective African roots, plus the outside influences of American jazz, which was becoming increasingly popular at the time. Though life in America at this time was extremely tough for African Americans, it was considered much better than life for black South Africans, so the American musicians who performed at important venues and who were revered, even by whites, were seen as beacons for a better life (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qj0zE8N_2QA).
But the Sophiatown musicians didn’t simply emulate their American heroes. They incorporated the swing jazz style into their own and created a sound that was distinct. Marabi was the first black South African musical style to evolve in the urban residential areas inhabited by the new black working class, resulting from the advent of industrialisation in South Africa in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. According to Allen, Marabi was the mother who birthed tsaba-tsaba, mbaqanga, “African Jazz”, and kwela, and the Stokvel parties and shebeens were the nurseries where this uniquely South African music grew.
And what is music without dance? It was impossible not to swing to the rhythms of marabi and its offspring, and some unique, energetic, joyous styles sprung from the sounds of Sophiatown. Kofifi is the term that embodies the cultural and social life of Sophiatown and is the nickname for the neighbourhood itself, which was a vibrant hub of art, music, and culture during the apartheid era. Kofifi was freedom, resistance, and diversity; a middle finger held up to the authorities, which sought to divide and conquer South Africa’s ethnic groups and make them hate each other. Kofifi was music and dance that united.
The problem is, because marabi and the dances it provoked were associated with immorality and social deviance—not just by the oppressive white government but also by the more educated black artists and professionals—original records were confiscated and destroyed by the authorities. As a result, there are almost no records of this vital element of South African history, and we can only rely on secondary sources to piece together the sounds and rhythms of the time.
Cape Town Swing has made an attempt to redress this by retrieving, transcribing and rerecording Sophiatown-era songs. Echoes of Sophiatown is a project to bring this heritage back to life via recordings and performances by The Pebble Shakers. Read more about that here.
Thankfully, there is also a broader drive to revive and keep Kofifi culture alive. Kofifi Movement was founded in 2015 to bring old-school Sophiatown back to life with an era-appropriate dress code, live music and even vintage cars to set the scene.
When I searched YouTube for Kofifi dance styles, I was heartened to see plenty of school groups, mainly in Gauteng, performing vintage Kofifi dances. This performance by Future Nation School in Lyndhurst is introduced by a senior phase learner, wearing a traditional headdress with his tracksuit, who talks briefly about Sophiatown and its forced evictions. The performance aimed to keep the legacy alive and not forget the area’s rich history.
It was delightful to see so many young people dancing the dances of their heritage. Seeing the joy on their faces and the energy and conviction of their movements was even more delightful. They seem to dance with every fibre of their being. Each limb, finger, and hair on their head is involved, and the audience feels it and goes wild. In one video, it’s clear that the person filming is dancing along because the camera moves up and down to the rhythm of the song. They are not “trained dancers”; they are teenagers putting on a show, but it’s effortless and flows. The music and the moves seem to be part of their DNA, and it oozes from them, infecting the audience with sheer joy.
You find yourself trying to watch every couple because everyone is doing something different. Usually, everyone is synchronised in a choreography, and my eye tends to settle on one person or couple in particular because everyone is doing the same moves simultaneously. But in Kofifi, there is so much going on! So much personality. The dance is a story, and each dancer is narrating it with their own distinct voice. It is clearly choreographed, but, quite similarly to Lindy Hop, the moves can be executed however the dancer wishes; indeed, they need not be the same moves as others are doing at all, but along similar lines.
I found myself watching the boys a lot, which made me realise how, in traditionally gendered lead/follow roles, particularly in the Latin dances, the woman is showcased; the man’s job is to make her look amazing. One of my salsa instructors once said that the man is the frame, and the woman is the painting. But the guys in the Kofifi videos are definitely more than a frame: they’re as much a part of the show as the girls; they’re captivating. However, neither party outshines the other, and the partnership doesn’t get noisy. It’s a clear and coherent conversation, and the couples complement each other beautifully.
Though it’s partnered dancing, the couples are not often in a closed position. It’s more of an interaction between them. The American swing and jive influence is clear: I identified plenty of Charleston, collegiate shag and solo jazz moves, but the flair is distinctively South African. In the same way that Marabi and African Jazz musicians incorporated American jazz into their own style rather than emulating it, the Kofifi dances on YouTube are very reminiscent of, but very distinct from, early African American swing dances.
The merging of these cultures and movements seems like a beautiful circle. American swing dancers were initially influenced by their African roots. Then, they influenced African dancers, who in turn incorporated it into the very dances that influenced the Americans in the first place. This shows the perpetual interconnection of cultures around the world. Swing dance continues to absorb and spread international influences as each region of the world develops its own—sometimes subtle—differences.
Watching the Kofifi kids, it occurred to me that there are a lot of conversations about how swing dance has become so white and here in South Africa, our scene is predominantly white. Kofifi is black and firmly connected to Sophiatown and South African history. There seems to be no link or reference made to international swing dance. It’s primarily performed around Johannesburg as a homage to and revival of the Sophiatown days. Its swing influences are clear, but the interluding decades between its inception and present haven’t impacted or influenced the Kofifi revival, which is all about preserving South African music, dance and cultural heritage.
Images from Zonk!
Let’s celebrate Heritage Day through music and dance; after all, this has always been at the heart of South African life. Let’s remember the importance of Sophiatown, where so much of the art we know today was born. Apartheid attempted to destroy it, but they underestimated the tenacity of the people who were and still are determined to keep it alive.
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Here are more links to some wonderful Kofifi dances
