Jaiva, Township jive (TJ), Soweto jive, Soweto sound or Soweto beat is a

subgenre Genre () is any form or type of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially-agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other for ...

of South African township music and African dance form that influenced Western breakdance and emerged from the

shebeen A shebeen ( ga, síbín) was originally an illicit bar or club where excisable alcoholic beverages were sold without a licence. The term has spread far from its origins in Ireland, to Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Zimbabwe, the ...

culture of the apartheid-era

townships A township is a kind of human settlement or administrative subdivision, with its meaning varying in different countries. Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, that tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, C ...

Influences and particularity

While closely associated with

mbaqanga Mbaqanga () is a style of South African music with rural Zulu roots that continues to influence musicians worldwide today. The style originated in the early 1960s. History Historically, laws such as the Land Act of 1913 to the Group Areas Ac ...

, township jive more broadly incorporates influences from mariba and

kwaito Kwaito is a music genre that emerged in Soweto, Johannesburg, South Africa, during the 1990s. It is a variant of house music that features the use of African sounds and samples. Kwaito songs occur at a slower tempo range than other styles of h ...

, and is synonymous with none of these. To the extent that mariba influences TJ, it may be somewhat sanitised as TJ broke into the international commercial arena.

Emergence in world music circles

The Boyoyo Boys 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 Breakdancing, also called breaking or b-boying/b-girling, is an athletic style of street dance originating from the African American and Puerto Rican communities in the United States. While diverse in the amount of variation available in ...

and hip-hop.Ambrose Ehirim, Sunday, 9 December 2007, The Boyoyo Boys and Township Jive Today , http://magazine.biafranigeriaworld.com/ambrose-ehirim.html Additional momentum for

world beat Worldbeat is a music genre that blends pop music or rock music with world music or traditional music. Worldbeat is similar to other cross-pollination labels of contemporary and roots genres, and which suggest a rhythmic, harmonic or textural con ...

attention to South African music developed as a result of international attention to the demise of

apartheid Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...

and Nelson Mandela's 70th birthday concert in Wembley Stadium, London in 1988.

History

According to Ambrose Ehirim, a US-based Nigeria specialist, township music dates to the 1950s when it was proscribed by South African police. This has been contradicted by anti-apartheid activist/musician

Johnny Clegg Jonathan Paul Clegg, (7 June 195316 July 2019) was a South African musician, singer-songwriter, dancer, anthropologist and anti-apartheid activist, some of whose work was in musicology focused on the music of indigenous South African people ...

, who has claimed 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". It draws on both kweli and maribi. Township Jive is closely associated with the development of mbaqanga but is more closely associated with emergent international trends and not as insular and rooted in tradition. 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". While the international market was absorbing Township Jive under the swirl of commercial activity culminating in the McLaren copyright infringement lawsuit, the subsequent release of BBoys' new album was preferred by a more elite audience closely associated with the black diaspora consciousness movements.

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. Americanizing kwaito, as is many artists' opinion, can potentially dilute the substance kwaito was originally based on. 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". And the Boyoyo Boys have, subsequent to the copyright scandal, signed by Rounder Records which released ''TJ Today'' in 1998.

External links

* Audio track ''Soweto Jive'' Zambia Association of Musicians website * Township Jive clips on web radio * "Jaiva" clip of dance competition in English and Zulu; note "kwaito" context

Additional scholarly references

Charles Hamm Charles Edward Hamm (April 21, 1925 – October 16, 2011) was an American musicologist, writer, composer, and music educator. He is credited with being the first music historian to seriously study and write about American popular music. He al ...

(1987). Review of David B. Coplan 'In Township Tonight! South Africa's Black City Music and Theatre', ''Popular Music'', 6, pp. 352–355 * THE SOCIAL HISTORY OF CAPE TOWN Cape Town: ''The Making of a City: An Illustrated Social History''. Edited by

Nigel Worden Nigel ( ) is an English masculine given name. The English ''Nigel'' is commonly found in records dating from the Middle Ages; however, it was not used much before being revived by 19th-century antiquarians. For instance, Walter Scott published ...

, Elizabeth van Heyningen and Vivian Bickford-Smith. Cape Town: David Philip, 1998. Pp. 283. Rand 250 (). * ''Cape Town in the Twentieth Century: An Illustrated Social History''. Edited by Nigel Worden, Elizabeth van Heyningen and Vivian Bickford-Smith. Cape Town: David Philip, 1999. Pp. 255. Rand 225 (). * David Copeland, Cape Town, 1994: ''Operation and impact of Musical Action for People's Progress in disadvantaged communities in the Cape Flats'' * David Copeland, 1985 ''In township tonight! South Africa's black city music and theatre''. London ; New York: Longman; Johannesburg: Raven Press, 1985. (French edition, published in 1990 by Karthala) * Barbara Browning (1998) ''Infectious Rhythm: Metaphors of Contagion and the Spread of African Culture'' aperbackRoutledge * Louise Meintjes' ''Sound of Africa'' (2003) * Gwen Ansell's ''Soweto Blues'' (2004).

References and notes

{{Genres of African popular music South African styles of music Music genres