I did the speaking on the radio thing last week. The less said about the actual speaking the better. Eugh. I don't think I will be able to bring myself to listen to the finished product as the sound of my voice usually makes me want to vomit.
I really enjoyed hunting down South African music for the guy to play though. You guys gave me so many excellent suggestions that I just didn't have enough space on a CD for all of them, so I am thinking of writing down names for him. He was very excited about the stuff that was not in English. Anything in some kind of an African language sent him nuts.
The only stuff he had pertaining to "Africa" before he met me was a version of " Qongqothwane" sung by Helmut Lotti, some Belgian dude. Dude! That situation had to be rectified asap.
I don't normally listen to Vusi Mahlasela or Miriam Makeba or Johannes Kerkorrel on my iPod, but since I hunted them down for him, I have been playing them and even though much of this music is not my thing I am amazed by the quality of it all.
South Africa is oozing with music brilliance, bloody hell. There is so much variety and amazing talent and good quality music to choose from I could easily have filled up 15 CDs.
One thing I think is that the good music does not try to please an international audience. Good South African music aims to please South Africans and will please the rest by proxy. But when bands start assuming fake American accents and changing their names to suit American audiences and altering their sound accordingly, they sound incredibly bland and characterless, they lose their soul, and then no one in the world wants to listen.
South African music rocks, and I am really happy to able to share some of it with people over here. I don't think it is possible to always be "proudly South African", but our music is definitely something to be proud of.
