The Influence Of Late 19th Century African American Minstrel Groups Performing In South Africa On South African Music

Edited by Azizi Powell

This pancocojams post presents several online excerpts about the influence of late 19th century African American minstrel groups performing in South Africa on South African music.

The content of this post are presented for historical, cultural, and educational purposes. 

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to all those historical African American groups and historical South African groups for their musical legacy. Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post.
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Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2024/03/timeline-of-music-development-in-nation.html for the closely related pancocojams post entitled "Timeline Of Music Development In The Nation Of South Africa (online article excerpt)."

Portions of this March 8, 2024 pancocojams post are quoted sometimes in longer forms in previous pancocojams post on this subject. Click the tags below to find those posts.

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VARIOUS ONLINE EXCERPTS 

These excerpts are given in no particular order and are numbered here for referencing purposes only.

ONLINE EXCERPT #1
From https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/development-music-south-africa-timeline-1600-2004 THE DEVELOPMENT OF MUSIC IN SOUTH AFRICA TIMELINE 1600-2004

[...]

"1860s

In the mid-1800s, travelling minstrel shows began to visit South Africa. As far as can be ascertained, these minstrels were at first white performers in "black-face", but by the 1860s black American minstrel troupes had begun to tour the country. They sang spirituals of the American South, and influenced many South African groups to form themselves into similar choirs; soon regular meetings and competitions between such choirs were popular, forming an entire subculture that continues to this day.

1890s

Orpheus McAdoo and the Virginia Jubilee Singers were among the most popular of the visiting minstrel groups, touring the country four times. African American spirituals were made popular in the 1890s by Orpheus McAdoo's Jubilee Singers."...

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ONLINE EXCERPT #2

"Chapter 10

Isicathamiya

MATTHEW MIHALKA

Isicathamiya is a performative vocal style in South Africa that is primarily associated with Zulu migrant works. ‘Isicathamiya’ translates roughly as ‘on tip toe’ or to stalk/walk carefully, which is reflected in some of the signature dance moves used in performances. As with many styles, it is a synthesis of various indigenous and foreign styles. Indigenous traditions include the Ingoma dance, a stomping dance of the Zulu people, and choral singing found amongst many of the Indigenous people in eastern South Africa. Isicathamiya was also influenced by minstrelsy and the various musical traditions brought by minstrel groups, particularly ragtime, along with the hymnody spread by Christian missionaries.

Blackface Minstrelsy

Developed and popularized during the 19th century, the minstrel show was one of the earliest forms of theatrical entertainment within the United States. In the decades preceding the American Civil War white performers used burnt cork on their face to portray black characters. Performances included a variety of acts including songs, dances, and comic skits that drew heavily on music produced by blacks and reinforced racial stereotypes. After the Civil War black minstrel show tropes emerged, including a group led by African American singer and impresario Orpheus McAdoo. McAdoo toured South African during the 1890s and his group is credited with influencing the creation of isicathamiya."...

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ONLINE EXCERPT #3
From https://www.coursehero.com/file/p1366g1/Virginia-Jubilee-Singers-an-African-American-minstrel-troupe-toured-South/

Introduction to World Music-.Course: MUSIC 009

School: Pennsylvania State University

The Social History Of Zulu Migrant Workers
..."Virginia Jubilee Singers, an African-American minstrel troupe, toured South Africa in 1890, performing in concert halls for white South Africans and in churches and community halls for black South Africans. While on tour the Virginia Jubilee Singers sang spirituals such as "Steal Away" and "The Gospel Train" along with traditional minstrel songs such as "The Old Folks at Home" and "Old Black Joe." Both white and black South Africans were extremely impressed with the American minstrel performances, but the music, particularly the spirituals, appealed especially to the black South African people, who could relate to the longing for freedom and justice communicated in the songs. Soon black South Africans began forming their own minstrel troupes. The music of the minstrel troupes was typically a four-part singing style. Gradually the South African minstrel music, known as isikhunzi (lit. "coon" style), incorporated more traditional South African dances and songs.

Urban music

During the 1870s and 1880s many rural South Africans migrated to the cities to work in the mines and factories. In the cities formerly-rural South Africans were exposed to many urban musical styles, particularly ragtime, ragtime dancing, and jazz. Thus urban styles (e.g., ragtime, and American jazz styles) had an influence on traditional South African music, including isicathamiya. The four musical traditions described above came together to create isicathamiya, and in the early years they also provided the repertoire for isicathamiya performers. The typical sound of isicathamiya or mbube is a cappella male voices. (There are some female isicathamiya groups, but traditionally this is a men's genre.) The music is typically in four-part harmony, which is Western-influenced, with most voice parts singing repeating ostinato patterns. There is an emphasis on the lowest voice, which is characteristic of traditional Nguni polyphony, with a heavy doubling of the bass part. And a soloist sings the top voice, usually in a more improvisatory manner and sometimes in a falsetto voice (a man's high register, far above the normal male range). Isicathamiya favors a call and response form, in which the voices overlap. No two voices begin or end their phrases at the same time, creating an overlapping effect. Another distinguishing feature is the use of glissando, as heard in traditional Nguni music. (You can see how much the other musical genres influenced this genre.) The texts, usually in Zulu or another South African language, often address real-life experiences, sometimes criticizing or protesting current events."....

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ONLINE EXCERPT #4
Pancocojams Editor's Note: I amended the spelling of the "n word" that is given in this article.  The page number are given at the bottom of each page.

From https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/39666757.pdf
University ol the Witwatersrand
THE MAKING OF CLASS
February, 1987
AUTHOR: V. Erlmann
TITLE: "Singing Brings Joy To The Distressed"
The Social History Of Zulu Migrant Workers'

...."THE HISTORY OF ISICATHAMIYA: STYLE AND CONTEXT

In October 1956, the following article appeared in the Zulu newspaper Ilanga Lase Natal:
The history of the jazbaatjie singers dates back to 1890. It becomes clearer after 1925 and usable after 1939. The legendary Champions were led by Mabhulukwana Mbatha of Baumannville. There are hundreds of them in Durban alone. There are the Crocodiles of Enoch Mzobe, the Home Tigers of Samson Ntcmbela, the Five Roses of Aaron Ntcmbela...to name but a few. The jazbaatjie musicians have their own mannerisms. Educationally they are generally literate only in their own language. They.dress well and are simple in style. They believe in the principle "as loud as your voice can take it " when singing. Each member of a group almost tries to sing louder than his comrades. The audience are in most cases men. The few women you see now and then, are admirers of certain individual singers. The jazbaatjies, as they are commonly known, love to compete among one another and the popular trophy in Natal is a nice live goat for the winners, 5 for the second prize and 2/10 for the third. Their adjudicators are usually picked at random in the street so that they may not know or have any special interest in any individual group. If they are Africans, they stand a good chance of being beaten up should their verdict be queried. Attempts to bribe adjudicators are often made by some competitors. The competitors pay as much as 2 or more in order to enter a contest and there is a lot of money being made by organizers of such contests. The money comes from the musicians themselves and the spectators are entertained almost free of charge.

The jazbaatjie concerts are an attraction for the semi-literate. The music has grown so popular among Whites that it has been mistaken for pure Zulu traditional music. The "step" of the jazbaatjies remains unequaled in its uniqueness, while their beautiful compositions remained original and simple.

Although the term jazbaatjies has become somewhat obsolete , present day competitions in the single sex hostels near the Durban airport and oil refineries, or on the southern fringes of downtown Johannesburg do not differ substantially from the one the Ilanga correspondent witnessed in the 1950s. Apart from the "mannerisms" in stage behavior and dress, a modern observer would most probably be astonished by the diversity of musical styles represented. Although generally recognized as one of the most advanced forms of Zulu musical expression , isicathamiya reflects a rich mixture of Western, Afro-American, traditional

[page 4]

and modern stylistic sources. American revival hymns, Zulu traditional wedding songs, rock and roll, yodeling a la Jimmie Rodgers - to name but a few, are all part of the choral repertoire. They are the product of intensive experimentation by several generations of migrant workers with the most advanced and popular urban styles available to them. Reflecting upon the experience and struggles of generations of migrant workers, isicathamiya performers molded these diverse idioms into a unique expression of Zulu working class identity. The evidence available on vintage records, in present-day performance styles as well as in performers' oral testimony indicates that the first isicathamiya performers drew on a complex mix of both traditional and modern styles that were themselves the products of long processes of urbanization, rural-urban interaction and labor migration; processes much older in any case than the 1890s. What the Ilanga critic did however realize correctly, is the fact that performance styles do not simply spring up out of nowhere. The historian searching for the origins of syncretic African performance styles in South Africa in particular, often finds himself confronted with the musical residues of the early phases of European colonization.

The "pre history" of isicathamiya starts in the second half of the 19th century when American minstrel shows had become by far the most popular form of stage entertainment in the urban centers. Although a Durban based group, the Ethiopian Serenaders, performed minstrel acts as early as 1858, it was only until 1862 that the world famous Christy Minstrels toured South Africa, followed by other illustrious troupes and a plethora of local companies.

Despite the crude caricatures of Blacks in minstrel shows, the repertoire, performance style and musical instruments of the minstrel stage were enthusiastically received by the growing black urban population of the late 19th century. As early as 1880, at least one black minstrel troupe, the Kafir Christy Minstrels, was operating in Durban, which the Durban newspaper Natal Mercury paternalistically described as "a troupe of eight genuine natives, bones and all, complete who really get through their songs very well."

For black audiences, however, no visiting minstrel troupe created a deeper impression than Orpheus McAdoo's Minstrel, Vaudeville and Concert Company. Between 1890 and 1898, McAdoo, one of the first Afro-Americans of note to visit South Africa, made two phenomenally successful tours of the country that lasted more than five years, and visited Durban and Natal no less than six times. Black audiences praised McAdoo as their "music hero", and at least two choirs, the South African Choir and the Zulu Choir, were formed in imitation of McAdoo's company. McAdoo's visits became so deeply ingrained in popular consciousness as a turning point in black musical history in South Africa that the Ilanga critic saw the history of isicathamiya beginning in 1890, and

[page 5]

that Thembinkosi Pewa, member of the legendary Evening Birds under Solomon Linda declared: "Our oldest brothers, the first to sing isicathamiya, were the Jubilee Brothers. That was in 1891." (Interview Pewa) By the turn of the century, minstrelsy had reached even remote rural areas with a fairly intact traditional performance culture. Mission school graduates formed minstrel troupes modeled on either McAdoo's company or on the numerous white blackface troupes, and adopted names such as AmaNigel Coons, Pirate Coons, Brave Natalian Coons, or Yellow Coons. As late as 1918, scenes like the following, reported from Umzumbe rural mission night school in Natal, were not uncommon:

One of the items was a march across the platform of all the urchins with a bone clapper, at the head of the line...and to the astonishment of all, one of the most heathenish boys stood up and sang "TiRerary", keeping time to his singing by the twirling of an invisible mustache. By at least the 1930s, traditional weddings songs, one of the stylistic sources of isicathamiya became known as boloha or umboloho.

Doke and Vilakazi found the term to be etymologically related to Xhosa or Afrikaans for "polka" and defined it as a "dance with boots on (as on farms on festive occasions, N--ger* minstrels, etc.)" and as a "rough concert or night carnival party" (Doke, Vilakazi 1948:43). As late as 1934, Percival Kirby was able to document the widespread use of bone clappers called amathambo among rural Zulu (Kirby 1968:10-11), and octogenarian Eva Mbambo, member of the renowned Ohhlange Choir, recalls performing on the bones as late as 1928. Among the most influential troupes that popularized "coon", ragtime songs and other minstrel material throughout South Africa, was the Ohlange Choir of Ohlange Institute near Durban, founded by African National Congress president John Dube. The choir was led by Reuben T.Caluza, South Africa's most popular and innovative composer between World War I and the early 1930s. Mission educated performers such as Caluza were responsible for the emergence of precursor styles of isicathamiya, in bridging between elements of American minstrelsy and ragtime songs suited to predominantly urban tastes, and semi-traditional styles. Taking the Ohlange Choir on annual fund raising tours of the Transvaal mining towns and compounds, Caluza brought migrant workers in touch with the most polished forms of dance and topical song of the time. "In the compounds," choir member Selina Kuzwayo recalls, Caluza's show attracted "bigger crowds than anywhere." (Interview Kuzwayo) Not only were compound residents impressed by Caluza's skillful combination of dance, action, and topical lyrics, but the slick entertainment reflected positive, African images of the ideal urbanite, the "coon". Not without its own ambivalence, the figure of the sophisticated, self conscious "coon" had not only been a central tool of intra

[page 6]

communal criticism used by early Afro-American stage entertainers, but it ultimately helped to restore racial confidence (Oliver 1984:108). In the minds of South African migrant workers, the image and its corresponding musical style, soon merged into isikhunzi (coons), the earliest prototype of isicathamiya. The 1920s, at the height of Caluza's popularity and the "ragtime craze" among black South Africans, were a period of explosive industrialization that had profound effects on the lives of millions of black people."... 

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