Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire

“Kwaito” Music Moves South African Youth
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
06 Jul 2020
🖨️ Print Article

Margaret Kimberley · “Kwaito” Music Moves South African Youth

Xavier Livermon, professor of African Diaspora Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, sees “many parallels” between the US-based Hip Hop phenomenon and the Kwaito music beloved by young South Africans. LIvermon is author of the book, “Kwaito Bodies: Remastering Space and Subjectivity in Post-Apartheid South Africa.” Livermon doesn’t see Kwaito as purely commercial and self-commodification. “South African youth play with and engage the system,” he said, “but also push back against it.”

South Africa

Related Podcasts

BAR Radio Logo
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Black Agenda Radio July 17, 2026
17 July 2026
In this week’s segment, we discuss the Supreme Court ruling that ends Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitian immigrants.
South Africa
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
The Anti-Immigration Movement in South Africa
17 July 2026
What is behind this South African movement that drives immigrants out of the country?
Global March to Gaza
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Nkosi Mandela on the Global March to Gaza
13 June 2025
Our guest is Nkosi Mandela. He is the tribal chief of the Mvezo Traditional Council and the grandson of Nelson Mandela.

More Stories


  • DNA and Our Twenty-First-Century Ancestors
    Duana Fullwiley
    DNA and Our Twenty-First-Century Ancestors
    17 Feb 2021
    Home DNA ancestry kits include no ancestors, instead comparing customers to other present-day people based on assumptions about race and ethnicity. 
  • Black Agenda Radio for Week of February 15, 2021
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Black Agenda Radio for Week of February 15, 2021
    15 Feb 2021
    Neoliberals Seek to Establish Their Own Brand of Fascism
  •  Christian Theology Still Useful to Black Movement
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Christian Theology Still Useful to Black Movement
    15 Feb 2021
    A progressive, liberationist theology can be useful to movements against both domestic politic repression and US imperial wars, said Dr Vincent Lloyd, professor of theology and Afr
  •  Anti-Police Activists are Doing Post-Slavery “Wake Work”
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Anti-Police Activists are Doing Post-Slavery “Wake Work”
    15 Feb 2021
    Today’s Black Americans are living in “the wake” of centuries of slavery, said Dr Corey Miles, a professor of sociology and anthropology at Morgan State University.
  • Neoliberals Seek to Establish Their Own Brand of Fascism
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Neoliberals Seek to Establish Their Own Brand of Fascism
    15 Feb 2021
    The US State “is using the so-called insurrection at the Capitol…to impose an ideological conformity that supports and sustains the neoliberal project” at home and abroad, said Ajamu Baraka
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us