Notes on the Real and the Fake in South African Popular Music

Abstract

In South Africa, as well as in many other places around the world, popular music has a strong and obvious relationship with brands. Of what does this relationship consist? This chapter argues that an adequate answer to this question is only possible with a rigorous theorization of the logic of brands qua economic objects. It develops this theorization through contemporary Marxist thought and goes on to suggest that the logic of brands forms an antagonistic relationship with the logic of Black popular music. The chapter is grounded in fieldwork with electronic musicians in Soweto. It observes that these musicians deploy a form of mimesis that functions not in terms of copy and original, but rather in terms of process and becoming. Finally, it suggests that a geopolitical reorientation away from Euro-America toward China may in fact bolster the creative processes of Black South African musicians.