South African Choral Music (Amakwaya): Song, Contest and the ...

6 The Mrican Native Choir (1892) and Early Manifestations of Black Middle Class Identity
emerging nationalism, which, as we will see later, is closely linked to the promotion of a national
culture (see Chapter 4.2, page 107).
The transatlantic slave trade had initiated contacts between Africa and America that crucially influenced
the development of black cultures on both sides of the Atlantic. After the abolition of the
slave trade in the early nineteenth century, cultural exchange between African communities in
America and Africa intensified. South Africa was somewhat on the margins of these developments,
which mainly involved the West African coast, but in the second half of the nineteenth century
contacts with the other side of the Atlantic "grew into an enduring and possibly the most significant
influence on black thinking and cultural development in South Africa, particularly on literature
and the performing arts".9
African-American minstrel shows had a major influence on South Africa, and especially touring
minstrel groups like the Fisk Jubilee Singers, who travelled around South Africa during their 1870s
world tour. In the 1890s the Virginia Jubilee Singers left a lasting impression on black, coloured and
white communities alike. lO The term "Jubilee",l1 borrowed from the Bible, became synonymous
with freedom and black American identity. Many spirituals tell of the "Day of Jubilee", and the
names of many popular black groups performing minstrel songs or other repertoire were variations
of this term. Spirituals became an important part of the repertoire of those groups and by 1889
were used to "open and close most black minstrel shows".12
The encounter with minstrel songs was first an indirect one. Coon songs 13 reached the Cape
brought along by visitors and travellers. Some songs like 'Jim Crow" seem to have been quite famous
even before the first troupe of American minstrels visited South Africa. 14 They were already
well known by the time they arrived in the country, and their tour resulted in an extreme popularisation
of the genre. Coon acts became an indispensable feature in most public entertainments and
social functions. The rage for minstrels can be estimated by the fact that the Fisk Jubilee Singers
and the Virginia Jubilee Singers were just the spearhead of a number of overseas groups visiting the
country in the 1880s and 1890s. 15 The success of these troupes was remarkable and inspired many
local musicians to imitate the visiting artists. One direct result of the encounter of local musicians
with the travelling groups can be witnessed in Cape Town today on New Year's Day, when Cape
Coloured minstrel groups walk down the streets during the famous "Cape Coon Carnival".
In July 1890, ten singers led by Orpheus Myron McAdoo arrived in South Africa from a
previous tour to Britain. Their appearance in all major South African towns and some mission
schools enchanted both black and white audiences and contributed to the establishment of new
9 V. Erlmann,AJrican Stars: Studies in Black SouthAJrican Performance. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991): 21.
10 For the history of the minstrels see D. Coplan, 1985: especially 38-39; V. Erlmann, 1991: Chapter 2; and V. Erlmann,
1996: 46-51.
11 Leveticus 25:10
12 D. Coplan, In Township Tonight! South AJrica's Black City Music and Theatre. Oohannesburg: Ravan Press, 1985): 38; see
Chapter 7.2.4 for a discussion of the significance of spirituals in the repertoire of school choirs.
13 'Coon', derived from the word racoon, was used in nineteenth century America as a racist designation for African­
Americans. 'Coon' songs appealed to American and South African Blacks alike, and despite their crude and profoundly
racist caricature of Negroes they became the single most important musical style of the 1880s and 1890s. What fascinated
the black audience in particular was "not in what they said, but in the rhythm and swing in which they said it". (A.
Locke, The Negro and His Music, New York 1969; quoted in D. Coplan, 1985: 71).
14 M. Deniss-Constant, "Cape Town's Coon Carnival: Aesthetic Transformation, Collective Representation, and Social
Meanings', manuscript published online (http://iias.leidenuniv:nl/host/ccrsslcplcp3Icp3-171.html): 6 and in Papers
Presented at the 15 th Symposium on Ethnomusicology. Rhodes University. (Grahamstown: International Library of African Mu­
sic).
15 Other groups included the Christy Minstrels who visited Cape Town as early as 1862, returning the following year, the
Devere's Novelty Company, the Empire Minstrels and the Mississippi Minstrels in the 1880s and early 1890s.