Research Articles (Anthropology and Sociology)

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A hip-hopera in Cape Town: The aesthetics, and politics of performing �Afrikaaps�
(Taylor & Francis, 2017) Becker, Heike
This paper looks into the aesthetics and politics of the �hip-hopera� Afrikaaps. Afrikaaps was produced in 2010 by a group of musicians and spoken-word artists from Cape Town and the rural Western Cape Province of South Africa. The show premiered at an annual Afrikaans cultural festival; it then had a three week-run at a theatre, located in a predominantly white, English-speaking part of Cape Town, followed by different sets of performance in South Africa and abroad and the documentary by a Cape Town film maker. Dylan Valley�s (2011) film follows this group of local artists creating the stage production as they trace the roots of Afrikaans to Khoi-San and slaves in the Cape. The production aimed to �reclaim and liberate Afrikaans from its reputation as the language of the oppressor, taking it back for all who speak it.� (Valley 2011) The paper presents an analysis of how visual and musical aesthetics converge in the performed production of history, as creolization, and ethnically-specific �heritage�, and how the self-stylization is employed in attempts at authenticating a recently asserted linguistic and cultural �identity�.