The first time I heard the word “township” was in the context of South African apartheid policy. Soweto, as I learned, is not an exotic word from an African language but stands for South Western Township. I’ve been to Soweto when it wasn’t officially allowed – it would have never ocurred to me to take photos at the time.
PJ Powers and Hotline was the first really successful “crossover” band in South Africa, crossover referencing the fact that they had white and black fans (and coloureds, too – yes, in South Africa there used to be a difference, the powers that were believed in “divide and conquer”, and there were actually many more distinctions referreing to “race” – ignoring the fact that there are no different human races).
One of their hits was “Jabulani” (a Zulu word for rejoicing and a fairly common male first name, incidentally the name of our oldest son). Another one is “See you in Soweto”, if you’ve never heard it enjoy it here on youtube.
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pictures imperfect blog 