The Voice Behind The Wall

Afrikaans is a creole language that originated in South Africa when Dutch colonizers had to interact with their slaves. This language is what happens when cross-cultural interaction takes place and true racial integration gives birth to a new culture.

Many years after the creation of this creole language the Afrikaner would however be culturally hijacked by the white speakers even though the majority speakers at this stage were brown people. This white faction would, under the leadership of the National Party (Natte) instate a system of racial segregation called Apartheid.

In a Hilter-esque manner the white National Party would use Apartheid to control the means of economic and social production and strip the non-white population of South Africa of many human rights. In the process the National Party would attempt to whitewash the history of Afrikaans and the Afrikaner - erasing any cultural and linguistic contribution made by the brown people who the language originated with.

This gross crime against humanity would eventually meet its end when the African National Congress (ANC) party, led by Nelson Mandela, would liberate South Africa in the early 1990s. Although many things would change in South Africa, a lot of things stayed the same.

Legally the constitution would grant all citizens of South Africa equal rights and fair opportunities to build a prospering future for themselves and their families, but this would not prevent the unwritten tricks and techniques used to keep unwanted brown voices out of the Afrikaans culture. Moving into the 2000’s the Afrikaans media industry was booming with television networks, radio stations, and print media being the most lucrative in the country. But in this burgeoning industry it was very evident that, despite being more than 60% of the Afrikaans speaking population, the brown voice was missing in all this media. If you have a look at the Afrikaans music festivals, radio stations, and television networks, you will be surprised to find that most of the artists featured on these networks are white. The few black and brown faces featured on these media channels are artists that are required to mimic white mannerisms, white style, white culture, and white music.

In 2014 we began filming a TV series called The Washingline (Die Wasgoedlyn in Afrikaans) which would have a run of 3 seasons on South African television networks. The Washingline is a place where original creating Afrikaans artists would get together to sing and tell their stories underneath their own washing lines. The original aim of the series was to capture the most beautiful music. At one stage we realized however that a common concern was being raised in our interviews with the musicians: Afrikaans music, as it currently exists, is a dead-end street for original creators. In our conversations it became clear that the artists felt the Afrikaans entertainment industry had a very narrow Euro-centric vision of what could qualify as commercially viable music, and there was no expectation that this narrow vision would change in the future. Which brought us to one big question: Why is the brown culture not represented in the Afrikaans music industry. In this film we have a conversation around this question and try to determine what brought us to this point.

As we investigate this question, we travel with the brown Afrikaans rapper Churchil Naudé and try to understand his experience of being the voice behind the wall in the Afrikaans music industry. We hope this documentary could be a platform for further debate which could bring us closer to a solution.