This website has been created to reflect the progress of a book that I am writing about Johannes Kerkorrel and the other musicians who were involved in the Voëlvry tour that swept across South Africa in 1989.
This “movement” had a profound effect on South African society-through their music these artists politicised Afrikaner youth. When the Nationalist government realised that it could no longer rely on the conscription of white boys to maintain order in the townships, it knew that the writing was on the wall and this hastened the end of apartheid.
The legacy of those musicians lives on today through the work of modern Afrikaans artists such as fokofpolisiekar and Karen Zoid.
This site and the book will celebrate the lives of Johannes Kerkorrel and his fellow musicians, so that their bravery and contribution to a democratic South Africa bravery are not forgotten.
Join me on my journey!
“Any musical innovation is full of danger to the whole State, and ought to be prohibited; when modes of music change, the fundamental laws of the State always change with them.”
Plato, The Republic in Schumann 2008:17
1 comment for “From sit dit af to fokof – Johannes Kerkorrel and the birth of Afrikaans Pop Music”