Kwaito is what type of music

The production values were decidedly simple and part of its initial popularity certainly rested in the fact that musicians with little resources could adapt pre-existing house beats to create new tracks and then perform them without owning any instruments. Though the songs spoke of local life in the townships, the music soon grew criticism for featuring overly sexualised and misogynistic lyrics that placed an emphasis on glamour and consumerism over substance.

The heroes of the previous generation of South African music, such as Miriam Makeba, Brenda Fassie and Hugh Masekela, had been overtly political, and by making this new music purposefully apolitical in a time of such major national change, the young musicians were making a distinct break from the past.

Like gangster rap in the USA, this in itself was a defiantly political act, declaring for themselves what the first generation outside of apartheid were all about.

Tags: Africa. South Africa. Previous Next article. Next article. The music is also slower than generic house music, with the beats repeating after four counts. It is also meant to be interactive, with the vocalist asking questions and the listener responding. Thokozani Mhlambi, a famous Kwaito writer, says that this form of interrogative lyrics is used to teach youth to live and speak for themselves. The songs are aimed at relaxing youngsters who have undergone stress and struggle and the songs show a reversion to better times.

The criticisms of Kwaito are numerous, with critics frequently condemning the sexually driven lyrics and dances of this genre of music. The language of Kwaito is Isicamtho, South African township slang. Isicamtho is a modern version of tsotsitaal - a Tsotsi is a thug or a gangster, and taal is an Afrikaans term for language.

Tsotsitaal is a language that has always been thought of as the language of township thugs, and is probably derived from flaaitaal of the s slums and mensetaal People's language of the s and s. This language is made up of Afrikaans and a mixture of all other vernacular languages.

It can be argued that Afrikaans is the skeleton of the language.