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Witness History

Drum: Africa’s revolutionary magazine

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.41.6K Ratings

🗓️ 17 January 2025

⏱️ 11 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Drum was considered to be the first African lifestyle magazine with a readership of 40,000 in its 1950s heyday. It was first printed in South Africa in 1951 and became a voice of resistance during Apartheid.

Drum hit newsstands in 12 countries across the continent after former World War Two pilot Jim Bailey bought the publication after the first two editions flopped. Jim changed the focus by telling African stories by African writers and shining a spotlight on music, culture and life in the illegal drinking joints known as shebeens.

Black writers including Henry Nxumalo, known as Mr Drum, were credited with revolutionising journalism and literature in South Africa. Reena Stanton-Sharma speaks to Jim's son Prospero Bailey.

Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there. For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more.

Recent episodes explore everything from football in Brazil, the history of the ‘Indian Titanic’ and the invention of air fryers, to Public Enemy’s Fight The Power, subway art and the political crisis in Georgia. We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: visionary architect Antoni Gaudi and the design of the Sagrada Familia; Michael Jordan and his bespoke Nike trainers; Princess Diana at the Taj Mahal; and Görel Hanser, manager of legendary Swedish pop band Abba on the influence they’ve had on the music industry. You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, such as the time an Iraqi journalist hurled his shoes at the President of the United States in protest of America’s occupation of Iraq; the creation of the Hollywood commercial that changed advertising forever; and the ascent of the first Aboriginal MP.

(Photo: The Drum Office in 1954. Credit: Jurgen Schadeberg from The Schadeberg Collection)

Transcript

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0:00.0

The Traitors is back, and so is that mysterious cloaked figure with the familiar fringe.

0:06.6

Yeah, it's me.

0:07.8

And when you've watched Claudia in the castle, join me, Ed Gamble, for the official visualised companion podcast.

0:13.6

And remember, I'll be listening.

0:15.8

Okay?

0:16.6

No, seriously, I love it.

0:18.4

What a faithful.

0:19.7

We'll unpack betrayals and spill scandalous secrets with celebrity guests, traitors' legends,

0:25.0

and murdered and banished players.

0:27.0

The Traitors Uncloaked.

0:28.3

Watch on EyePlayer, listen for more on BBC Sounds.

0:36.2

Hello and welcome to the Witness History podcast from the BBC World Service with me, Rina Stanton Sharma.

0:43.9

Today I'm taking you to Johannesburg in South Africa in 1951, to the birth of what's considered to be the first African lifestyle magazine.

0:54.0

It would hit newsstands in 12 countries

0:56.7

across the continent. I've been speaking to Prospero Bailey, the son of Jim Bailey who bought the

1:03.4

African drum, as it was then known after the first two editions flopped.

1:15.3

The drum parties were legendary and they took place on my father's farm, which is about an hour from the city, because the security policeman couldn't find the farm.

1:19.9

So the drum office would decamp there on a weekend and take with them musicians like

1:25.9

Miriam McCabeber and sportsmen

1:28.3

and a sort of who's who of the world that Drum was reporting on.

1:31.9

And it was in a little shack on the edge of a river.

1:35.0

But the guests were very glamorous, very drunk most of the time.

...

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