Popular music among the youths

My post is a foray into the cultural similarities and differences between the youths of South Africa and Singapore, specifically in terms of music, a field noted for its general popularity among the youths. The following findings are heavily based on information drawn out of Facebook, a social-utility web page cum Internet liaison to facilitate communication between teams from the two countries.

Generally, music is loved among the youths of both nations. Since the most notable commonality that South Africa and Singapore share may be that of cultural diversity, the Singaporean and South African youths, who have long been dipped into such culturally diverse milieu, enjoy a wide spectrum of musical genres, presumably no less diverse than the popular musical genres themselves: house, hip-hop, jazz, rock, pop, RnB, rap, trance, rave… not to mention the various sub-genres of the above-mentioned.

It is also very important to note that youngsters, especially those who breathe the urban air and enjoy relative economic comfort, are eager enthusiasts of Western musical trends. This may be explained by the process of Westernization/Americanization. In the case of South Africa, in which huge gap between the rich and the poor is still present, cultural traditions actually, and interestingly, survive most strongly among rural habitants who lead impoverished lives. The young generations of blacks are continuously Westernized, sharing more and more interests in the Western musical themes, much like their Singaporean counterparts.

A ghetto site in South Africa

In the case of Singapore, since stark economic disparities are not apparent, the youths possess a more "unified" image: all is able to rejoice in the country's tremendous economic success, and under the substantial influences of Westernization, their taste of music are closely in conjunction with that of the Western trends. To make it clearer, both the youths of the two countries follow Western trends of music. If any elucidation is to be furnished on such commonality of music taste, it perhaps comes from the fact that urban youths enjoy the availability of various advanced communication technologies which render them able to plug-and-play and stay tuned to the up-tempo trends of global musical themes.

However certain economic and cultural dissimilarities entail differences between South African and Singaporean youths' music taste which is explained in later part of this post.

Marina Bay Panorama – Singapore

Music also has its influences over fashion. The primary information that we have from Facebook is basically observations by the youths themselves, and it reveals that fashion styles are often found coherent with genres of music consumed. This is evident in both nations.

For instance, emo rock fanatics have their distinctive dress code of tight jeans and tight t-shirts; black-dyed and straightened hair with long bangs brushed sideways; old, beat-up shoes or sneakers; and studded belts... whilst hip-hop styles stand out with baggy and sagging jeans; gold or platinum chains; large-size t-shirts; dreadlocks and wristbands... Such influences are found among large portions of the youngsters, not solely the keen followers of fashion.

Since fashion is often linked to self-expression or self-image, it indicates that through music and indirectly fashion we can actually identify certain common themes or likings that the youths of both countries share.

Emo-rock dressing style in comparison with hip-hop style

Music is also an important element in the youths' social gatherings. At weekends, the youths' get-togethers are often held at clubs, bars/pubs... where a wide range of musical genres can be found. In these settings, amplified music is often involved as well as the heavy consumption of alcoholic drinks. Such activities are very common among the youths: several similar answers (which contain descriptions of such get-togethers) to questions about weekend activities reverberate among different teams.

Braais (pronounced similarly to "bry", an equivalent Afrikaans word for barbecue) is widely regarded as a social custom in South Africa and its popularity spreads not only among the youths to also to a larger population of society. During weekends and holidays the youths would hold trips "to the parks with big dams and lot of tree to chill, eat, braai (herein interpreted as "to grill") beef, play, swim, and dance to loud music" or "those who decide not to go out to the parks, they will choose one of their friends' house, each will bring some amount of money, join cash until it makes up a large amount, then they will hire a nice little tent, chairs, place them on open space with grass, DJ, buy a lot of booze and food. They will dance till the morning comes..." Similar activities of 'braais ' are common among Singaporeans youths, like the informal potluck parties, yet different in manners. Perhaps owing to the lack of natural settings like those of South Africa, barbecues are organized in someone's home more often, in comparison to the South African contexts, and not necessarily involve the music scene with dancing. In fact, according to our own observations and interpretations, dance plays a role no less significant than music in South African youths' culture. Many youths practice dance routinely.

Another notable difference in such social gatherings is the pre-organized manners of the barbecues sections: Singaporean youths often hold their barbecues sections upon pre-agreed date, time and venue, whilst South African youths seemingly like to improvise along a poppep-up idea: someone gives another a call, the news spreads and people bring their own contribution (food, camping equipments, speakers...) to the get-together whose venue and time can also be decided upon conversation.

Music, albeit the continuous process of increasing globalization, is actually a channel and facilitator of the local elements of culture. More than often we can observe musical trends/genres in a certain culture that not only possess the global elements, but reflect the addition of features from the local cultures as well. In the case of South African music, this particular "blending phenomenon" is very apparent. Among the various musical genres, Kwaito, a distinctive derivative of the global house and hip-hop music blended with indigenous African culture, has gathered much popularity among youths. Kwaito has its origin in Johannesburg city in the early 1990s, and is based on house music beats but with a slower tempo. Artists of Kwaito are generally males, and they shout or chant their lyrics, which can be in English or local vernacular (not only one but a variety of local languages can be adopted) rather than sing or rap. In the meantime Kwaito is being transformed as well, most notably the addition of the hip-hop genre's elements, like rapping, or sped-up tempo and reduction of chanting and shouting lyrics. Another characteristic that makes Kwaito distinctive is its unique dance moves. A typical Kwaito clip would portray groups of people dancing joyously and energetically:

The following video clip demonstrates the typical and distinctive Kwaito dance moves:

We are specifically looking at Kwaito here since it appears to have gained the most popularity among South African youths currently, but it is important to also acknowledge many different genres which are more peculiar to particular languages/ethnic groups, in other words, certain sub-cultures yet are gaining popularity as well. For example, Umbacanga as Zulu music.

This characteristic of the diversity of musical genres bring us back to the topic of music's influences over fashion, which has now appeared in a clear sight. A quote from a South African individual reveals to how diversity of music entail various fashion themes: "There are Kwaito, House, HipHop, Jazz, CoolMusic, AfroPop, Umbacanga (Zulu music) and others. Ethnic groups of different languages have their own kind of music. People get dressed up according to the occasion/event and music they are going to enjoy at that place e.g. Kwaito (Casual clothes), House (Casual clothes), HipHop, Jazz (smart casual or formal), CoolMusic (smart casual or formal), AfroPop (Traditional design kind of clothes mix with smart casual), for the Cultural music like Umbacanga (Zulu music) they dress up in their own traditional clothes" Music and fashion are indeed two effective channels of self-expression of the youths.

In the case of Singapore we also attempted to identify a genre that can be considered a counterpart of Kwaito, but only achieve a rather elusive result. As we tried to find a particular musical genre that can be a representative of Singapore, our secondary research of academic resources reveal xinyao (an abbreviation form of Xin-jia-po ge yao, meaning "Singapore songs") as a genre distinctively Singapore. Basically xinyao is performed by a group of people singing and harmonizing together in clean acoustics (performance accompanied solely by the acoustic guitar). Its topics centralize stories of life in the small Singapore island. However, for our primary research's findings xinyao does not really enjoy the popularity it used to have, and it is taking new forms. A wide variety of musical instruments is incorporated in the genre in stead of , as well as its topics: any aspect of life can be portrayed in xinyao. The name itself is interpreted differently from the initial: xinyao can be understood as "new songs" (xin: new and yao: song) and it is noted that a rising number of young Singaporeans are getting involved in xinyao bands/clubs, who perform composed songs of their own. The most prominent characteristic of xinyao and its artists which makes it stand out from other genres may be that of the intermingling of English and Mandarin (songs can also be entirely in Mandarin), which appears to be very similar to Kwaito in terms of blending of global and local musical elements. The following song is credited to Weiliat, a friend of mine who is also a member of a xinyao band.

Throughout our observational research and interpretation of findings we have actually come to a conclusion that when studying culture in general and an aspect of culture as music in particular it is impossible to ignore the impact the youths impose on the culture of their own. They, indeed, consume, influence, facilitate and even create what is regarded as popular culture. Thus it is crucial in the study of culture to examine not only culture per se but the people of that culture. Eventually it boils down to the ultimate goal of studying culture is to understand people. In the context of communication being able to understand people is equivalent to having great advantages to effectively communicate with them. When trying to examine music as our subject of interest we actually realize that despite immense geographical distance Singaporean and South African youths share many commonalities, and through the identified similarities and differences we gain a certain degree of understanding into each other's culture: we know ourselves better by looking at things that we usually take for granted, and we know others better by acknowledging things which, at first glance, appear peculiar to us. And through that we improve the effectiveness of our communication.