Jaiva

Jaiva or Township Jive ("TJ") is a subgenre of South African township music and African dance form[1][2] which has influenced Western break dance[3] and emerged from the shebeen culture of the apartheid era townships.

Influences and particularity

While closely associated with mbaqanga, Township Jive more broadly incorporates some influences from mariba and kwaito[4] rather than mbaqanga, neither of which is it synonymous. To the extent mariba influences TJ, it may be somewhat sanitised as TJ broke into the international commercial arena.[5]

Emergence in world music circles

Also featured on the Graceland album were The Boyoyo Boys, who received additional press coverage when Malcolm McLaren allegedly plagiarised their song "Puleng" and released it as the hit "Double Dutch", capitalising on the emergence of breakdance and hip-hop.[6]

Additional momentum for world beat attention to South African music developed as a result of international attention to the demise of apartheid and Nelson Mandela's 70th birthday concert in Wembley Stadium, London in 1988.

History

According to Ambrose Ehirim, a US-based Nigeria specialist,[6] township music traces to the 1950s when it was proscribed by South African police.[7] This is contradicted by the assertion of anti-apartheid activist/musician Johnny Clegg,[8] that "by the 1960s, the development of umbaqanga hadn't even really started". Mbaqanga or Umbaquanga has been characterised as urban pop music "with high-pitched, choppy guitar and a powerful bass line" influenced by "funk, reggae, American R&B, soul and drawing on South African Marabi, gospel music".[9] It draws on both kweli and maribi.[10]

Township Jive is closely associated with the development of baquanga, umbaquanga or mbaqanga but is distinguished in that it is more closely associated with emergent international trends and not as insular and rooted in tradition as mbaqanga.[11] Christopher Ballantine traces the "shift from imitating American jazz to localizing the sound with African features. This he connects to the emergence of the ideology of New Africanism".[12] While the international market was absorbing Township Jive under the swirl of commercial activity culminating in the McLaren copyright infringement lawsuit and the subsequent release of triumphant BBoy's new album was preferred amongst a more elite listening audience closely associated with the black diasphora consciousness movements.[13]

Actually Township Jive and Mbaqanga are inter-changeable and this article is taking you all down the wrong path. It arose from the penny-whistle music called kwela which became hugely popular in the 1950s, particularly in the shape of Spokes Mashiyane or "King Kwela". When Spokes recorded a song on the saxophone rather than the penny whistle in 1958 called Big Joe Special (Quality, TJ 500) it had an immediate impact and kwela music faded as the new Sax Jive took over into the 1960s and dominated the South African music scene for the next 20 years, also knocking Marabi (S. African big band Jazz) off its perch of popularity. The resulting music was coined mbaqanga (cornbread) by trumpeter Michael Xaba, either as a way of downgrading it, or perhaps acknowledging that musicians need to eat. Mbaqanga IS Township Jive. [14]

Globalization

The homogenisation of Township Jive with US and UK culture, due to globalisation, is viewed by African artists as a threat to the preservation of their local tradition and credibility. Thus, artists focus on maintaining an emotional link between customer and brand. This explains why transnational corporations are much less interested in homogenising or Americanizing kwaito music because true kwaito represents and dictates South African experience.[15] Americanizing kwaito, as is many artists' opinion, can potentially dilute the substance kwaito was originally based on.[16]

On the upside, critical awareness of TJ has enhanced appreciation of fusion artists and others influenced by its style. For instance, Vibration Bookings bills its artist Nomfusi as a proponent of "a new style where South African Township Jive ("Jaiva") meets Motown".[17] And the Boyoyo Boys have, subsequent to the copyright scandal, signed by Rounder Records which released TJ Today in 1998.

See also

External links

Additional scholarly references

References and notes

  1. 1 2 "Jaiva". YouTube.
  2. ↑ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xykC1IP6odU|Tina and Mvuyisi jiving at the Ikamva Lethu centre in Kayamandi South Africa
  3. ↑ band=Wozani |title= Township Jive |http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-pdj9oC_5s&feature=related
  4. ↑
  5. ↑ Stone, Ruth (1998). Garland Encyclopedia of World Music: Vol. 1. New York: Garland Pub.
  6. 1 2 Ambrose Ehirim|Sunday, 9 December 2007|The Boyoyo Boys and Township Jive Today |http://magazine.biafranigeriaworld.com/ambrose-ehirim.html
  7. ↑ Ehirim, Ambrose (9 December 2007). "Amazano Music: The Boyoyo Boys and Township Jive Today". Samakamusic.blogspot.com.
  8. ↑ "Johnny Clegg". Everything2.com. 27 October 2002.
  9. ↑ "Everything2". Everything2.
  10. ↑ "mbaqanga (thing) by StrawberryFrog". Everything2.com. 9 January 2002.
  11. ↑ Louise Meintjes (1996). Review of Christopher Ballantine 'Marabi Nights: Early South African Jazz and Vaudeville', Popular Music, 15, pp 245–247 doi:10.1017/S0261143000008187
  12. ↑ Christopher Ballantine|Christopher Ballantine 'Marabi Nights: Early South African Jazz and Vaudeville|xxxx|xxxx
  13. ↑ Louise Meintjesa1. "Cambridge Journals Online – Popular Music – Abstract – Marabi Nights: Early South African Jazz and Vaudeville. By Christopher Ballantine. Johannesburg: Raven Press, 1993. xii + 116 pp., taped examples". Journals.cambridge.org.
  14. ↑ http://electricjive.blogspot.com/search?q=mbaqanga+coined+cornbread
  15. ↑ Magubane, Zine. The Vinyl Aint Final "Globalization and Gangster Rap: Hip Hop in the post-Apartheid City". 220
  16. ↑ Swartz, Sharlene. "Is Kwaito South African Hip Hop? Why the answer matters and who it matters to". May 2003
  17. ↑ "Nomfusi, Manou Gallo, Ernestine Deane, Layori, Batucada Sound Machine – Delicioustunes booking- concerts- management". Vibrationbooking.com.
  18. ↑ http://zamonline.com/browse_vidfeeders.php?tag=jaive&keyword=Movies
  19. ↑ "Township jive music – Listen free at". Last.fm. 15 January 2013.
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