King Kong: South Africa's first all-black musical

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 11 March 2025

⏱️ 11 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In 1959, Todd Matshikiza composed the score for King Kong, it was South Africa’s first musical with an all-black cast and it opened to critical acclaim.

About the rise and fall of the heavyweight boxer Ezekiel Dlamini, it defied apartheid with the collaboration between black and white artists.

Starring Miriam Makebe, it launched the singer's international career and went on to tour, arriving in London’s West End in February 1961. Todd’s daughter Marian was eight when the family moved to London for the run. She speaks to Reena Stanton-Sharma about her father’s music and what King Kong meant to him.

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: Todd Matshikiza. Credit: Jurgen Schadeberg via The Schadeberg Collection)

Transcript

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0:00.0	He tells her that she will be sent to France as a secret agent, and if she's got, she's
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0:33.5	on BBC Sounds.
0:46.8	Hello and welcome to the Witness History podcast from the BBC World Service, with me, Rina Stanton Shama.
0:56.5	Today, I'm going to tell you the story about the man behind the score of the first South African musical with an all-black cast, opening to critical acclaim in 1959.
1:00.0	Oh yes, I saw King Kong.
1:03.9	Before it went to London, I went to it and I enjoyed it very much.
1:09.5	Music was everything for Dad.
1:11.3	He'd wake up in the morning, throughout the day,
1:13.2	have a song on his lips.
1:14.4	When he walked, you know,
1:15.3	you'd walk hand in hand with him down the street,
1:17.7	and he'd be hopping and singing, you know, melodically to rhythm,
1:21.6	and it would have teach us how to walk in rhythm.
1:28.0	You can hear Todd in this recording. You can hear Todd in this recording.
1:34.5	Music was everywhere.
1:36.2	He would sometimes see birds on a telephone wire and then take out a pen and a piece of paper
	...

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