Atiyyah Khan - Protest and Resistance Music in Apartheid South Africa

During Apartheid in South Africa, music was a battlefront for the Black liberation movement against the white supremacist settler colony. Jazz had been around in South Africa since the 1920’s, and local vernaculars soon began to develop during concert and dance nights. The music flourished in racially-mixed areas, and local talent flourished. Segregation put an end to mixed audiences, and in the early 60s, the architects of Apartheid clamped down on all forms of cultural expression. The jazz scene persisted, and became an important part of the sonic resistance struggles. South African jazz artists were musical pioneers, just based on the way they molded the jazz impulses of the time in their image – they also became symbols. Despite great odds, Black musicians rose to the challenge of creating music to empower the oppressed and went beyond what the state controlled.  

Atiyyah Khan is a journalist, researcher, selector, crate-digger, event organiser and archivist from Johannesburg, based in Cape Town. She currently freelances as an arts journalist, documenting visual arts, theatre, music, film and other forms of culture in South Africa. As part of the Sonic Lecture series in the new listening space at Becco, she will explain how music has been a battlefront for Apartheid South Africa and the Black liberation movement against the white supremacist settler colony. Later in the evening, after her talk, Khan will also DJ at Becco.