Kwaito....

So... What is Kwaito ? 

Firstly, the word "kwaito" derives from the Afrikaans word "kwaai" which means angry but in more modern translation means "cool". Kwaito started to break into the music scene in the 90's townships of South Africa when the country was going through a massively historic change. Local DJ's were mixing different ages of South African music and poetry together with International House music. This gave Kwaito a broad listenership and was jammed by many South Africans. What made Kwaito unique was that it made use of many different languages including English and Afrikaans, which was unexpected. This actually led to the invention of a new "slanguage" called Isicamtho. It’s ironic because it’s believed that Afrikaans is the skeleton of this language which was spoken mainly by the “whites” who ran the apartheid government. This just showed the power of music, that they could stand above and look beyond the horrible situation placed upon them and just make music for the love of it. Kwaito is a language of the townships in South Africa, understanding the townships and living the townships, townships that were made by the apartheid government who gave them practically nothing.

Kwaito is a true representative of the power of music because through hard times and anger a genre was born that united the people and brought a temporary escape route from the sadness.