Stylizing the self: The Y generation in Rosebank, Johannesburg

Public Culture

Volumn 16, Issue 3, 2004, Pages 430-452

  Nuttall, Sarah ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF THE WITWATERSRAND   (South Africa)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 8744252462     PISSN: 08992363     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1215/08992363-16-3-430     Document Type: Review

References (61)

1. Darrel Bristow-Bovey, "Sign o' the Times," SL, October 1999, 100.
2. See Jean Comaroff and John L. Comaroff, "Millennial Capitalism: First Thoughts on a Second Coming," in Millennial Capitalism and the Culture of Neoliberalism, ed. Jean Comaroff and John L. Comaroff (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2001).
3. Paul Gilroy, Between Camps: Nations, Cultures and the Allure of Race (London: Penguin, 2000).
4. Dilip Parameshwar Gaonkar and Elizabeth A. Povinelli, "Technologies of Public Forms: Circulation, Transfiguration, Recognition," Public Culture 15 (2003): 385-97.
5. Bulelwa Mtsali, "Street Couture," Y, May 2000, 61.
6. Mtsali, "Street Couture," 62.
7. Tanya Farber, "Loaded with Labels: The Meanings of Clothing amongst Urban Black Youth in Rosebank, Johannesburg" (MA thesis, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2002), 73.
8. I am grateful to Lindsay Bremner for her discussions with me on this point.
9. Farber, "Loaded with Labels," 87.
10. A "township boy" would usually (as in this case) be somebody who grew up in a "black" township, the latter often associated with poverty, crime, overcrowding, and lack of resources (although the term has now acquired so many connotations that it can stand alone to imply a certain way of life; see Achille Mbembe, Nsizwa Dlamini, and Grace Khunou, "Soweto Now," in this issue). The term Model C kid plays off the fact that when South African schools were first integrated, privileged schools in white suburbs that opened their doors to black students were classified as "Model C" schools (though the term is no longer used in this sense). Over time, "Model C" has come to refer to black students who have taken on the styles of their white classmates.
11. Mpolokeng Bogatsu, "'Loxion Kulcha': Cultural Hybridism and Appropriation in Contemporary Black Youth Popular Culture (South Africa)" (Honors research paper, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2003).
12. Farber, "Loaded with Labels" 11-16.
13. Nadine Dolby, Constructing Race (New York: State University of New York Press, 2000).
14. Lewis Nkosi, Home and Exile and Other Selections (London: Longman, 1983), 8. Rob Nixon quotes an unnamed African man in conversation with the incoming editor of Drum in Johannesburg in 1951: "Ag, why do you dish out that's tuff man? ... Tribal music! Tribal history! Chiefs! We don't care about chiefs! Give us jazz and film stars, man! We want Duke Ellington, Satchmo, and hot dames! Yes, brother, anything American." Homelands, Harlem and Hollywood: South African Culture and the World Beyond (London: Routledge, 1994), 11.
15. Lewis Nkosi, Home and Exile and Other Selections (London: Longman, 1983), 8. Rob Nixon quotes an unnamed African man in conversation with the incoming editor of Drum in Johannesburg in 1951: "Ag, why do you dish out that's tuff man? ... Tribal music! Tribal history! Chiefs! We don't care about chiefs! Give us jazz and film stars, man! We want Duke Ellington, Satchmo, and hot dames! Yes, brother, anything American." Homelands, Harlem and Hollywood: South African Culture and the World Beyond (London: Routledge, 1994), 11.
16. Nthabiseng Motsemme, "YFreedom-Nthabiseng Motsemme on Blackness in Post-Apartheid South Africa," WISER in Brief, Newsletter of the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research 1, no. 2 (2002).
17. Bogatsu, "Loxion Kulcha," 14.
18. Bogatsu, "Loxion Kulcha," 21.
19. Judith Butler, Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of "Sex" (New York: Routledge, 1993) and Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York: Routledge, 1999).
20. Judith Butler, Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of "Sex" (New York: Routledge, 1993) and Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York: Routledge, 1999).
21. Michel Foucault, Hermeneutique du sujet (Paris: Gallimard, 2001).
22. Y, October-November 2002.
23. Y, June-July 2002, 12.
24. Farber, "Loaded with Labels," 28.
25. Timothy Burke, Lifebuoy Men, Lux Women: Commodification, Consumption and Cleanliness in Modern Zimbabwe (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1996), 12.
26. Comaroff and Comaroff, "Millennial Capitalism."
27. For an interesting discussion of translatability see Emily Apter, "On Translation in a Global Market," Public Culture 13 (2001): 1-12.
28. Y, August-September 2002.
29. Y, June 2000. Vat en sit (take and live with) is a colloquial Afrikaans expression first used by migrant workers who would meet and live with women in the city despite having a wife in the rural area or town they came from-a practice that both women involved were often aware of.
30. Y, June-July 2000; Y, February 2000.
31. Y, June-July 2000; Y, February 2000.
32. Nappy Head, "Into Yam, Bongo Maffin," Y, October-November 1998.
33. By alternating between English and the Zulu/Xhosa/Swati sector (which can be grouped as a unit due to linguistic similarities), Y magazine would be less likely to appeal to the Sotho/Tswana/Pedi group of black youth (the Shangaan/Venda sector tends to be left out). "99" (pronounced "nine, nine") is a popular township phrase meaning straight up, bluntly, or simply-depending on the tone and context. The colloquial term is used side by side with "deep" Setswana. The review writer is likely to be a Motswana but, like most black South Africans, familiar with many vernaculars.
34. The way postapartheid South African youth engage with the world has been shaped by often violent histories of international connection (through migration from elsewhere in Africa and the diffusion of British and American culture) and by the fact of apartheid South Africa's international isolation (as the grotesque in the colonial historical narrative and the international sanctions and boycotts that cut it off from the rest of the African continent).
35. Achille Mbembe, "On the Power of the False," Public Culture 14 (2002): 629-41.
36. Bulelwa Mstali, Thami Masemola, and Tshepang Gule, "Manga Manga," Y, June-July 2000, 19.
37. Thami Masemola, "Dlala Mapantsula," Y, June-July 2000, 47.
38. The choice of the Boondocks comic strip by Aaron McGruder, an irregular but consistent feature in the 1999-2000 issues of Y magazine, over the locally produced Madam and Eve can be read as less an Americanization of Y image and identity than an appeal to a particular age and persona (including humor and language) that the Y reader can relate to. Whereas Madam and Eve parodies relationships between white women and their domestic servants in the suburbs, Boondocks deal with issues like hair politics ("Afro-denial") and the underrepresentation of blacks in television and film ("We're fighting the Hollywood white-out!"; "Storm from the X-Men is supposed to be black right? ... I'm going to create a black superhero team with a token white woman and give her a big ol' nappy 'fro-see how they like it!"). Y, August 2000, 52.
39. Bulelwa Mtsali, Thami Masemola, and Tshepang Gule, "War of the Worlds," Y, April-May 2000, 10.
40. Nol'thando Buhendwa, review of Beloved, by Toni Morrison, Y, October 1999, 88.
41. Goodenough Mashego, "You Can Call Me Kaffir," Y, April 2000, 21.
42. Patrick Neate, "South Africa: The New Face of Kulcha," The Face, October 2003; 56-74. The context for this rather telling outburst against Ja Rule includes both his on- and off-stage antics: his insistence, after a show, that all local performers be chased out of the backstage area; his minders smashing a Durban DJ's vinyl after he played a song by Ja Rule's rival 50 Cent; his drinking and spraying of expensive beer onstage; and his response to a local journalist who asked him at a Johannesburg press conference if she could take him to Soweto to show him a part of the city other than his five-star hotel: "I'm cool coming with you. Where's that at? Is it a club?"
43. SL originally stood for "student life"; the magazine is now known simply as SL.
44. John Owen, "Y Boosts Youth Magazine Market," 1998, www.yfm.co.za.
45. However, in Y, the white equivalent of the "coconut" is regarded as an honorary member of black cool. Musicians like Lekgoa, DJs like The Admiral and Cristos, and other "in" white youth public figures are often featured in and contribute to the magazine's content. Bogatsu remarks: "It is interesting to note that the attitude to these 'cool whites' has moved beyond regarding them as a freak of nature. Although it is understood that they veer from expected social/racial norms, they have been culturally absorbed into the Y(outh) sub-culture. The article 'The Colour of Music: Whiteys and Kwaito' (June 2000) suggests that this phenomenon is worthy of remark. The article not only explores the notion of whites in a dominantly black music genre but also serves to 'give props' (show respect for) these 'cool whiteys.'" Bogatsu, "Loxion Kulcha," 10.
46. David Sorfa, "Brenda Fassie, Memeza," SL, February 1999, 95.
47. Charl Blignaut, "Jacques the Ripper," SL, July 2001, 34.
48. All issues of SL magazine are themed; the "conspiracy" issue is a particularly good example of this. The introduction to one article describes its author, Jacques Pauw, as "the journalist who screwed the apartheid whore, talks to Charl Blignaut about death squads, fear and the future." Ferdi Barnard is profiled in the following terms: Of the entire dodgy cast of apartheid's death squad operatives ... Barnard is the exception. Eugene de Kock, Dirk Coetsee, Joe Mamasela, Arnold Nofomela and Craig Williamson did it for volk en vaderland. They were what happened when normal, diligent apartheid cops get given too much power. But Barnard was a career criminal. The kind of help you hire when someone is muscling in on your coke turf. He'd blow up the odd car and fire a couple of rounds over the garden fence before heading back to his brothel to unwind with a dozen crack cocain rocks and a bottle-blond prostitute. In particular, it is Barnard's crack dealing that distinguishes him from the other apartheid assassins. Drug worlds, as we have seen, are a major preoccupation and style (or antistyle) feature of the SL universe. One article, for example, carries a "dos and don'ts" column: General: never share needles; mixing drugs increases the risk factor; know your limits when it comes to quantity; beware of what you're buying and from whom; maintain a balanced diet; take vitamin supplements; get enough sleep. Heroin: be careful of overdosing - mixing heroin with other drugs increases this risk. Cocaine: resist the impulse to use more; it's extremely addictive (and expensive). Blignaut, "Jacques the Ripper," 34. And so on.
49. Andy Davis, review of Magnum Chic, by Hagen Engler, SL, November 2000, 130.
50. Phindi Gule, review of Yesterday I Cried, by Iyanla Vazant, Y, October 2000, 89.
51. Ross Campbell, review of Thievery Corporation by Thievery Corporation, SL, February 1999, 105.
52. This kind of media crossover is typical among all genres in the reviews section. The visual dimensions of the magazine's pages fundamentally shape the semiotic environment of the reviews. A book review may be embedded and legible only within a wide range of graphical signs, so that images of book covers appear next to advertisements for Smirnoff vodka or Benson and Hedges cigarettes.
53. Inderessa Naidoo, review of Cuba Libre, by Elmore Leonard, Y, April 1999, 83.
54. Brendon Cooper, review of Salif Keita by Salif Keita, SL, November 2000, 118.
55. Phaswane Mpe, "Great South African Reads," Y, June-July 2002, 117.
56. D. N. Rodowick, Reading the Figural, or, Philosophy after the New Media (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2001).
57. Gaonkar and Povinelli, "Technologies of Public Forms," 388, 394, 386.
58. Stefan Helgesson, "'Minor disorders': Ivan Vladislavić and the Devolution of South African English," Journal of Southern African Studies (forthcoming).
59. Gaonkar and Povinelli, "Technologies of Public Forms," 388.
60. Gilroy, Between Camps, 243, 250, 251.
61. Gilroy, Between Camps, 255.