Speaking for themselves

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary

4.3 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 13 July 2023

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Kaaps is a language widely spoken in the bleak townships of Cape Town, South Africa. It’s often denigrated as a lesser form of Afrikaans – the language that was used as a tool of white supremacy during the apartheid era. Spoken predominately by working class people on the Cape Flats, Kaaps is associated with negative stereotypes – its speakers denigrated as uneducated, "ghetto" layabouts involved in gang culture.

But a new, burgeoning movement led by hip-hop artists, academics, writers and film makers is actively changing that perception. They want to reclaim Afrikaaps to restore the linguistic, cultural and racial dignity of a formerly disenfranchised people. The writer Lindsay Johns travels to Cape Town to meet the activists determined to assert the worth and pride of the people who speak Afrikaaps.

Presenter: Lindsay Johns Producers: Audrey Brown and Tim Mansel Mixed by Neil Churchill Production coordinator: Helena Warwick-Cross Series Editor: Penny Murphy

(Image: Children in Lavender Hill, a township on the Cape Flats in Cape Town, South Africa. Credit: Brenton Geach/Gallo Images via Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Who is your pick for the all-time greatest African Miffilda?
0:03.6	He's the most naturally talented player that I've played with.
0:05.8	See if your choice made the list on match of the day
0:08.0	Africa Top 10 from the BBC World Service.
0:10.6	Find it wherever you get your BBC podcast.
0:20.0	Welcome to the documentary from the BBC World Service.
0:23.0	I'm Lindsay Johns and I'm on the Ked Flats for assignment.
0:31.0	The Cape Flats is one of the most impoverished, gang-widden and dangerous areas in South Africa.
0:36.0	Littered with dilapidated tenement housing blocks and corrugated shanty shacks.
0:40.0	It's a vast, sprawling and often lawless place.
0:44.0	I'm meeting in Neil Jansen, a titan of the country.
0:47.0	I'm a great singer.
0:49.0	I'm a great singer.
0:51.0	I'm a great singer.
0:53.0	I'm a great singer.
0:55.0	I'm a great singer.
0:57.0	I'm meeting in Neil Jansen, a titan of the Cape Town hip-hop scene.
1:01.0	He styles himself Emil YX and has been performing since the late 1980s.
1:06.0	He's now made a name for himself worldwide as a politically and racially conscious hip-hop artist and activist.
1:12.0	Emil grew up here on the Cape Flats.
1:15.0	We're meeting in the garage of his parents' home,
1:18.0	which also serves as the headquarters of Heel the Hood.
	...

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