Ibokwe's a lovely album; what has been the biggest challenge making it?
I think the challenge for me doing this album was that I decided to produce it myself in the beginning and so it was really hard trying to coordinate everything with everybody and that’s probably why it took me so long because it was the first time I decided that I was going to do everything on my album. So that was the hardest thing but it wasn’t really such a bad thing. It was difficult but interesting.
‘Ingoma’, the first single, is quite evocative.
No, I decided to write a love song for the first time. I’ve never written a love song so this is probably my first love song, and, I don’t know what you mean by evocative. I mean for me I wrote about love and I put everything that I believe about love in the song. It’s about longing for love; it’s about having it and losing it. It’s about desire, you know. So it’s everything that love encompasses for me.
Is the song biographical somehow?
It’s definitely about my own personal experiences with love. I mean that’s also one of the reasons why the song ends the way that it does because if you listen to ‘Ingoma’ it ends abruptly. And the reason why I did that it’s because I felt that, although love can be such a beautiful kind of euphoric experience; when it ends, it can end very abruptly and it can cut.
So it’s about the pain and the joys of love. It’s all of it in that song.
But it couldn’t have been about sex or anything like that?
No, like I said, it’s about all the experiences of love. And love is also about desire, it’s about longing; so there’s a lot of that experience in it. There’s also the experience of losing love, there’s the experience of wanting love and looking for love.
So everything that love encompasses for a grownup, that’s what the song’s about. And of course love has certain sexuality to it the older you get. And I’m a grown up now; I’m 34 years old now and so my love definitely has a sexual expression too.
Who inspired the song?
That I don’t reveal because as a musician when I write my music I put everything that I want to reveal in the song and everything else is kept for myself. And so, as a person who listens to the song I don’t expect you to try and find out who I wrote the song for; I expect you to try and see who you want to dedicate the song for.
Are you seeing someone, though?
Yes!
What’s his name?
Nameless! Gama lakhe ngu nameless. He remains nameless.
Do you ever think about marriage, the white picket fence and what have you?
I think about it, but it’s also one of those things that haven’t been easy for me.
Have you always been vocal about love?
I’ve never written a love song before. My music has always been a lot more kind of intellectual, looking at issues of history, issues of lineage and issues of freedom and oppression. That’s what my music has been about. But I think as a human being and as a woman I ultimately have to sing about love.
Apparently you have qualms singing the national anthem as is.
The short answer is; both Die Stem and Nkosi Sikelela represent two different ideologies and my issue was that it’s antithetical having the two of them together in one anthem. It’s antithetical having to sing Nkosi Sikelela and then move on to Die Stem. And so I felt that the two could not coexist.
What are those ideologies?
Growing up- I mean I grew up in the70s and the 80’s- and singing Nkosi Sikelela Africa, the song represented the struggle for our freedom as the oppressed people of this country. We would sing Nkosi Sikelela to represent that struggle and to represent our hopes that one day we will be free. And as a young person Die Stem represented the nationalism of those who oppressed us. That’s what Die Stem represented; it represented that nationalism- the nationalism of apartheid was represented by that song.
So I felt that I couldn’t move from singing Nkosi Sikelela and then move so effortlessly into singing Die Stem. It was not effortless for me as a South African who grew up in the 70’s and in the 80’s.
Shall we just scrap Die Stem then?
I feel that the two ideologies, in my mind, clash so I would like us to create something new, and something that we can all identify with, and identify it as a song that represents our freedom. I think- as it stands - these two songs represent things that go way deep in our history for us to pretend that suddenly they represent our new unity.
Don’t we perhaps need, like, a new arrangement altogether?
Perhaps just a brand new song! Maybe Caiphus Semenya can write us a song.
I like Caiphus, he does great chord changes whenever the fancy takes him.
Yes, he’s very good. There’s a lot of great musicians in this country I’m sure we could find somebody. Or we could put a whole bunch of people together, a nice multicultural group together and create a national anthem that we can all be proud of.
Or we could simply translate Die Stem into English?
But then what happens to those people who speak that language and want their language in the national anthem? I mean I don’t know. I don’t know how we came to this point, and I don’t know how we move beyond it. I was just kind of voicing my frustrations with always being reminded of those apartheid years and that’s what the song, Die Stem, does for me; it reminds me, it takes me back, it doesn’t take me forward.
Anyway, it’s is not an anti- Afrikaans venting or an onslaught against Afrikaans but against the principle the song Die Stem represents.
People talk about the “sunset” clauses, that somehow non Caucasians were too keen on the reconciliation. Do you think that was the case with the anthem as well?
Look I don’t want to downplay the role that the fathers of our freedom have played. I think that when former president Nelson Mandela and tata u Bishop Tutu said down and negotiated this freedom they knew what they were talking about. But our responsibilities as this generation now in our time is to make sure that as we move ahead in history, we are able to hold on to our dignity and hold on to things that are important to our history ,and we are able to truly build the South Africa that will be for all.
My idea of a better national anthem is…
A national anthem that doesn’t have spaces where some people sit down and some people stand up and some people stop singing and some people don’t, you know; it’s a national anthem that we can all sing with pride and hold each other’s hands and reach out and touch and wave our hands in the air and be this rainbow nation. But at the moment I know that people do not sing the whole national anthem.