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South Africa can safely say it has its own, unique, self-made and flourishing comedy industry in live stand-up and recorded TV.
Though it started out copying British formats, the late 70s saw the popularity of Biltong andamp; Potroast, South Africa’s first roast, which underscored a clash of cultures between the Afrikaners and English. White men made jokes about one another and a judge rated them.
But it was shows such as Phat Joe and the Pure Monate Show (which cleverly abbreviated to PMS) that created the strong urban line of comedy we see today. And it is no doubt that we owe a great deal of this to actor and comic Kagiso Lediga.
Whether it was appearing in early Blacks Only events, producing PMS or co-creating Late Nite News (LNN) with Loyiso Gola, Lediga has had a hand in several core moments of local urban comedy.
This past week, I was on the set of what might very well be the continuation of that strong legacy. It is Lediga’s latest show, The Bantu Hour, which he tells me is “the funniest show you’ll ever see in your life”.
But although The Bantu Hour – which will feature music icon Hugh Masekela as co-host – takes its name from the apartheid-era half-hour radio sessions dedicated to black listeners, it will not be a “blacks only” programme.
“‘Bantu’ means people,” Lediga tells me at the show’s downtown-Joburg studios. “So this show is for all Bantu: gay Bantu, Afrikaans Bantu ... If you watch the first episode, you’ll see that’s how it’s set up.”
The Bantu Hour is different from the on-again, off-again LNN in that it will be social – rather than political – satire, and will be the type of sketch and variety format that viewers will remember from PMS.
“It’s the next level of Pure Monate, a more grown-up version. Every South African comedian worth his or her salt is on the show as a guest or in a sketch, or somewhere,” says Lediga.
That’s no lie. Wandering around, I pass Conrad Koch, who is waiting to go on with his (now white) puppet, Chester Missing.
“It’s controversial. I don’t wanna talk about it,” Koch tells me conspiratorially when I ask about the race switch. “I don’t know what Chester is gonna do; he’s gone crazy. He says he’s got this video that he’s threatening to expose me with.”
“Expose what?” I ask.
“Chester was initially white; I mean, everyone knew because um, I’m white,” says Koch.
“So was Chester blackface?”
“Well, in that way, absolutely. He’s black, and I’m white. But blackface implies that, then, who’s my boss? Kagiso [Lediga]. The reason he stayed brown is because Kagiso wanted him to be brown. But now he’s white and people ask: ‘Are you now taking the piss out of black people?’ No, I’m not. Now I’m exploring whiteness [with Chester].”
Koch takes Chester into the glaring lights of the set and the studio audience roars with appreciation as he belts out: “Leon Schuster spent so much time pretending to be black he could be Helen Zille’s life coach.”
Word has got around that celebrated US hip-hop artist Yasiin Bey, known as Mos Def to most, is on set.
Being a fan, I leer around the doorway of the control room, watching Bey laughing appreciatively at the recording. There are rumours he will make an appearance on The Bantu Hour, but that it will only happen next year.
Meanwhile, Bra Hugh has finished his musical segment with band Swing City, and I bother him for an interview at the exact moment he is thwarting off a photo request from two young studio audience members. One is, of course, wearing a weave, and Masekela tells them he is “boycotting this”.
He is, as always, keen to speak about why he is against black women wearing weaves. He even published a full-page thinkpiece on it in City Press.
“Africans and Europeans internationally have a major psychological problem with hair. And it comes from Africans being told their heritage is backward, primitive and savage. And then they were urbanised and religionised and ended up where they looked down on their own heritage. And it’s been lost to a point where, in many urban homes, mothers don’t speak their mother tongue.”
Masekela apparently conceived the idea for The Bantu Hour after his business partner, Themba Vilakazi, kept telling him his social commentary was being wasted and he was perfect for TV. But could his iconic status and the fact that we have a nostalgic soft spot for him blind us to the fact that his social commentary might be out of touch? Take the weave thing. Most women I speak to say he has no right to dictate how they live their lives.
Gola – who earlier in the week told me that, apart from continuing with LNN, he would be involved in The Bantu Hour on an on-off basis – was in the firing line earlier in the week for tweeting about the expensive shoes of a Wits student-fee protester.
It made me wonder whether those working on the show were still truly on the cutting edge in terms of social commentary.
The Bantu Hour’s writing cast features at least two women – LNN head writer and Lediga’s sister, Karabo, and stand-up comedian Nina Hastie – but the bulk of the show is a clear reflection of South Africa’s comedy space: distinctly male.
Even though the show wants to steer away from being political, The Bantu Hour is going to have to be hypercritical of itself to ensure it doesn’t pander too hard to Masekela’s old-time beliefs, and that it keeps in touch with the social climate of the day.
The first episode of The Bantu Hour premieres on on SABC2 on November 7 at 9pm
