511- Vuvuzela

Episode Summary

Paragraph 1: In 2004, South Africa won the bid to host the 2010 FIFA World Cup. It was the first African nation to host the tournament. South Africans celebrated in the streets, eager to showcase their country after years of apartheid had banned them from international sports. A sound came to define their World Cup celebrations - the vuvuzela. The two-foot plastic horn plays one droning note and was relatively unknown globally prior to 2010. Paragraph 2: During the World Cup, the vuvuzela's constant hum drowned out fan chants and songs. It caused headaches for TV broadcasters and was blamed for communication issues on the field. Critics condemned it as an irritating new noisemaker, but supporters viewed it as an authentic instrument grown out of South Africa's rich football tradition. The debate sparked questions about the vuvuzela's origins and who had the right to claim it. Paragraph 3: One backstory connects the vuvuzela to Freddie "Saddam" Marquet, a passionate South African soccer fan. He claims to have invented a predecessor in the 1960s from a bicycle horn and coined the name vuvuzela in the 1990s. A plastics company later mass produced and marketed their own version. Both sides dispute who created and popularized the vuvuzela. Paragraph 4: The vuvuzela became entangled with marketing around Africa's World Cup. Despite mixed reactions, it was embraced by South Africans as representing their identity. The noisemaking also continued a working class tradition of repurposing items like mining helmets and alarms. The debates reveal the complexities around cultural heritage and the vuvuzela's contested origins.

Episode Show Notes

The history and significance and of the much maligned vuvuzela

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_10: to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Every kid learns differently, so it's really important that your children have the educational support that they need to help them keep up and excel. If your child needs homework help, check out iXl, the online learning platform for kids. iXl covers math, language arts, science, and social studies through interactive practice problems from pre-K to 12th grade. As kids practice, they get positive feedback and even awards. With the school year ramping up, now is the best time to get iXl. Our listeners can get an exclusive 20% off iXl membership when they sign up today at ixl.com slash invisible. That's the letters i-x-l dot com slash invisible. This is 99% invisible. I'm Roman Mars. In the spring of 2004, journalist Mark Gleason sat in the front row of a small conference room in Switzerland for a big announcement. SPEAKER_09: There was a dramatic buildup. There was a lot of tension. Everyone was on edge. The winning bid to host the 2010 FIFA World Cup SPEAKER_10: was about to be revealed, and South Africa was among the leading contenders. SPEAKER_09: I mean, they had all the top guns go to Zurich for that particular announcement. Mandela was there, Bishop Tutu was there, the former president of CLAC was there. SPEAKER_10: South Africa wanted to be the first African nation to host the World Cup. They also wanted the tournament to be the start of a new chapter. During apartheid, the country was banned from the international sporting community. Now they were on the precipice of hosting soccer's biggest event. South Africans gathered in the streets of Johannesburg, Cape Town, and Durban to await FIFA's decision. SPEAKER_08: I discover it with you. The 2010 FIFA World Cup will be organized in South Africa. SPEAKER_09: Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! You know, South Africa had come full circle in the sense of its horrible past and how it had moved on from being a pariah state and was now hosting the biggest event in world sport and very much part of the international family. SPEAKER_10: The celebrations that erupted that day in Zurich were full of cheers and whistles, but also one notorious sound that came to define South Africa's World Cup. What? What? What? The sound of the vuvuzela. SPEAKER_02: Back in 2004, nobody really talked about vuvuzelas. Even people in the soccer world didn't know what they were. Reporter James Parkinson. But six years later, by the time the first game of the tournament was underway, the vuvuzela was the hottest word in sports. SPEAKER_07: The 2010 FIFA World Cup is ready for kickoff. And to the sound of 80,000 vuvuzelas, the fun of a father. SPEAKER_10: The vuvuzela is a two foot long injection molded plastic horn. It plays only one note, a B flat, and it gradually became a regular feature of South African soccer. But prior to the 2010 World Cup, the rest of the world had never heard anything quite like it. SPEAKER_02: And a lot of people hated it. It's been likened to a giant swarm of angry hornets SPEAKER_09: or a herd of distraught elephants. So loud in the stadium with the vuvuzelas. It's ridiculous. It's not noisy. There's nothing irritating about it. There's nothing irritating. SPEAKER_10: For fans watching abroad, the constant drone of a vuvuzela wasn't what the beautiful game typically sounded like. European soccer games or football games are often characterized by songs and chants bellowed by the supporters. SPEAKER_02: ["Sé, c'est c'est un meilleur"] But the hum of 80,000 vuvuzelas drowned out that type of crowd noise. The sound caused actual headaches for television broadcasters. French network TF1 opted to change their commentators' microphones for a kind that would reject more background noise. Other networks chose to use special audio filters to try and eliminate the vuvuzela from their sound mix altogether. SPEAKER_10: The controversy surrounding the vuvuzela was hard to ignore. It drew attention away from the players on the field and placed the focus on the crowd in the stadiums. SPEAKER_02: It also sparked a debate about the history of the vuvuzela and its true origins. For critics, the vuvuzela was a relatively new mass-produced noisemaker. But for supporters, they tended to think of the vuvuzela as an instrument, a loud, attention-grabbing sound that grew out of South Africa's rich footballing tradition. In 1862, there's already documented matches SPEAKER_14: that took place in Cape Town and Port Elizabeth. SPEAKER_02: That's South African football historian Peter Allegi. And that is a year before the Football Association SPEAKER_14: was even founded in England and before the first rules of association football were codified. SPEAKER_02: Originally, the sport was introduced by British colonisers, seeking to impose their beliefs and values on the locals. But quickly, South Africans embraced football and made it their own. SPEAKER_14: It's an interesting story whereby a colonial game really was transformed into a pillar of black culture by the racially oppressed. SPEAKER_02: The game was both affordable and accessible, becoming the sport of the black working class. SPEAKER_14: And when I use the term black, I'm referring to people who either are self-identified or were later classified under apartheid as African, Indian or South Asian, and coloured or multiracial. SPEAKER_10: Football was not held in high regard by officials in the apartheid regime. Sports played predominantly by white South Africans like cricket and rugby were the ones that received political backing. SPEAKER_02: So as a way to help organise themselves, football teams formed supporters clubs. These were small but mighty organisations made up of fans from each city or town. Supporters clubs would hold fundraisers and hammer out travel logistics to away matches. And black supporters clubs in particular played a special role, giving black South Africans who had no say in their government, a voice to shape their community through the local team. SPEAKER_14: Members held elections for various positions in the supporters club and also through their formal organisation, they tried to influence the football clubs internal affairs. And so the ability to campaign for office, to achieve a kind of social honour and visibility by achieving these high offices was something that was highly valued, particularly in black communities. SPEAKER_10: By the 1960s, supporter clubs existed all across South Africa and they made their presence known to the noise they generated on game days at the stadium. SPEAKER_07: The crowd has gone wild. Just quietly has left the play. And it's chief two, it's university two. SPEAKER_14: Playing music at the grounds, chanting, singing, dancing, maybe insulting the opponents. This was something intensely pleasurable and entertaining. SPEAKER_02: During this time, political opponents of the apartheid regime were banned from gathering. It was one of the many ways the government tried to suppress the liberation movement, but football games and the noise and crowd that came with them made it harder to prevent black politicians from sitting together. SPEAKER_14: It provided cover in a way by allowing activists to have conversations and even organise particular subversive activities. And in doing so, kind of undermining the white state's surveillance and censorship. SPEAKER_10: The stadiums were a sort of sanctuary, a place where you could get rowdy and thumb your nose at the government, where you could fly the flag of the anti-apartheid movement while rooting for your favourite team. It was also the place where you could hear one charismatic fan pick up his horn and make a sound that would soon be heard around the world. SPEAKER_13: So myself, I'm an owner, I'm a founder, I'm a pioneer of the booboozella. It started by me. SPEAKER_02: This is Freddie Marquet. They call me Mr Booboozella when I walk around. SPEAKER_02: Freddie actually prefers to be called Saddam, an edgy nickname he received during the Gulf War because he used to set off huge firecrackers at football matches. People would say it sounded like the Iraq War on TV. Saddam Marquet is a soccer freak or a superfan, as they're known in South Africa, the most passionate of football supporters. He loves the South African national team and his local club, Kaiser Chiefs, from Johannesburg. He can be seen at games wearing oversized yellow glasses, a jersey and a mining helmet known as a marcarapa, painted in the team's colours. For Saddam, you might say football is life. SPEAKER_13: My first wife divorced me because of soccer. I said, Chiefs is my first wife. You're my second wife. Every day, every night, when I sleep, I sleep, Chiefs. I sleep soccer, eat soccer, talk soccer. I can't talk to you without talking about soccer. SPEAKER_02: In between all the soccer chat, I did manage to learn where Saddam grew up, the province of Limpopo, with his large family. His claim to the Booboozella dates back to his childhood and a gift he received for his birthday in 1965. My brother called Solomon Marquet. SPEAKER_13: He bought me a bicycle. And that bicycle used to have a hooter. SPEAKER_02: The hooter Saddam is referencing is a bicycle horn. That hooter, I've got it here. SPEAKER_13: HE PLAYS HORN That is a bicycle hooter. SPEAKER_02: He'd bring that horn to local football games to support his team, but instead of squeezing the little rubber bulb at the end, he'd take that off and blow into the horn. SPEAKER_13: HE PLAYS HORN I was doing that one to entertain the players, motivate them, encourage them to score, and they stayed with this one. 1965, when I arrived in Grand Speck. SPEAKER_10: Saddam liked the sound the detached bicycle horn made. He called it a palafala. When his local football club, the Kaiser Chiefs, was established in 1970, Saddam says he brought a number of other homemade horns to the game. SPEAKER_02: This included a large aluminium horn he called a boogie blast. The boogie blast was basically a long metal stick you could blow into. It was also a long metal stick you could beat someone up with, so stadiums eventually banned it. But by then, in 1989, Saddam says he met with a plastics manufacturer and asked him to make a plastic version of the boogie blast. This new instrument they created sounded similar. SPEAKER_05: HE PLAYS HORN SPEAKER_10: But it had a different name. SPEAKER_05: HE PLAYS HORN SPEAKER_13: I call it, this one, vuvuzela. SPEAKER_02: Vuvuzela is derived from Zulu. Vuvuzela mean welcome and unite. SPEAKER_13: Same thing, vuvuzela, welcome and unite. SPEAKER_02: Saddam says he coined the name vuvuzela back in 1992, a claim he supports, with photos of him blowing his many horns at football games in the 70s and 80s, and a vuvuzela in the 90s. He also recorded an album in 1999 titled Vuvuzela Cellular. HE PLAYS HORN HE PLAYS HORN HE PLAYS HORN HE PLAYS HORN Saddam tried selling some of these plastic horns at football matches, but it just never really gained traction. Even at Kaiser Chiefs games, he would often be one of the only supporters in the crowd blowing a vuvuzela. SPEAKER_10: However, that slowly started to change when a company in Cape Town started mass producing their own plastic horns, which they also called the vuvuzela. SPEAKER_06: The company's name is Masinkedani Sports. The click is important because the name of the company is from Isitgosa. This is Dwayne Jethro. SPEAKER_02: He studies South African culture and wrote about the history of the vuvuzela. Dwayne says that back in 2001, Neil van Skulkvik and his partner Bevel Bachman got funding to get their business off the ground. SPEAKER_06: He pitched this idea of injection moulding a horn to a certain size and a certain specification that would be easily used at football matches. SPEAKER_10: Around the same time this new company was getting started, Saddam Maki says he approached Neil van Skulkvik to tell him that he was the true inventor of the vuvuzela. Saddam says he tried to strike a business deal. Did you ever speak with Neil? SPEAKER_02: Neil van...? Yes, I speak to him. SPEAKER_13: He promised me, Is it a vuvuzela? I'm going to get a fire front out of Is it a vuvuzela? And I never get even a cent. But I didn't worry. I didn't complain. I said to myself, God is great. SPEAKER_02: We tried to track Neil van Skulkvik down for an interview, but were unsuccessful. According to media reports, he denied ever meeting with Saddam Maki in 2001. SPEAKER_10: In interviews, van Skulkvik didn't claim to be the inventor of the vuvuzela, but he and his company assert that they did popularise it. Their version of the horn was cheaper and safer and that you couldn't beat someone up with one. SPEAKER_02: Actually, Roman, you technically could beat someone up with it. Right. It just, it wouldn't hurt as bad. SPEAKER_00: Well, look, we were at the forefront of developing the first plastic version of a tin horn that used to be used in, you know, football here in South Africa. And because, you know, those horns were quite unsafe at the time, we saw the gap in the market to produce a plastic version of that horn. SPEAKER_10: Initially, van Skulkvik's company also struggled to sell their vuvuzelas, but that changed when they started to focus on the marketing. SPEAKER_02: The company handed out vuvuzelas for free at football matches and partnered with some local clubs to get more of them into South Africa stadiums. It wasn't long before there was more interest in the vuvuzela and sales started to grow. Soon, the instrument could be distinctly heard at games across the country. SPEAKER_01: Yeah, thanks very much, Rob. Indeed, the second half about to get underway. Stanton Fredericks on for Jose Marcomo. So that's the change the Chiefs have made. SPEAKER_10: The vuvuzela effectively being a generic horn meant that van Skulkvik wasn't able to patent the design. But the word vuvuzela was unique, so his company got a trademark for the name. SPEAKER_02: And as South Africa prepared their bid to host the 2010 World Cup, van Skulkvik and his company were ready to capitalise on the event. The company's efforts were designed to position the vuvuzela as authentic, including its official slogan, the original sound of South Africa. SPEAKER_06: They recognised that there was a marketing opportunity in having the vuvuzela in the hands of important South African footballing officials, but also politicians that were trying to drum up support both locally and internationally for South Africa's bid. So what you saw was things like the gifting of vuvuzelas as diplomatic gifts on local stages. Politicians were handed vuvuzelas, et cetera. SPEAKER_10: When FIFA announced South Africa's winning bid to host the tournament, the joyful celebrations included these plastic vuvuzelas. SPEAKER_02: The aggressive marketing worked. In the lead-up to the World Cup, the sound of South African football was inextricably linked to the vuvuzela. The instrument even appeared in national marketing campaigns, fronted by prominent rugby players. It had been called in to promote the 2009 Confederations Cup, a sort of test-run tournament for the World Cup. SPEAKER_05: BAND PLAYS BAND PLAYS We're behind the FIFA Confederations Cup. SPEAKER_12: Kia naku. SPEAKER_02: The Confederations Cup was the first time a global TV audience had been exposed to the vuvuzela. Not long after the first game, the international debate started taking off. SPEAKER_12: One thing that I found... I don't know if I'm the only person I found excruciating was this constant droning that was going on. They were blowing these trumpet-looking horns. I don't know how they have enough air in their lungs. And it never ends. Yeah, yeah. And it is just like you are being attacked by a swarm of locusts for 90 consecutive minutes. I know exactly what you're talking about. How can they constantly do that? I don't know. I don't know if they take turns, but it is... SPEAKER_10: BAND PLAYS Media reports were quick to raise concerns about the vuvuzela's potential impact on the World Cup. SPEAKER_02: Seth Blatter, the beloved and totally non-controversial FIFA president, was asked if the vuvuzela was going to be banned at the upcoming World Cup. To the surprise of many, he came out in support of the instrument, saying, it is African culture, we are in Africa, and we have to allow them to practise their culture as much as they want to. Here's journalist Mark Gleeson again. It struck me at that point that that was the turning moment, SPEAKER_09: because I do think it was a bit of an issue for FIFA, whether the vuvuzela was going to be part of the 2010 World Cup or not. It's a moment I remember very distinctly, and thinking to myself, this is the vuvuzela now. We will have the vuvuzela in 2010. SPEAKER_10: From the moment the World Cup kicked off, the vuvuzela was a constant and persistent presence. From the atmosphere in the stadiums to the jokes on late-night TV, it was inescapable. SPEAKER_02: While broadcasters were trying to mitigate the noise on their end, DIY solutions were making their way around the internet. One of them involved riding your TV's audio through your computer and using software to remove the particular frequencies of the vuvuzela. SPEAKER_10: And as the tournament continued, players on the field cited the vuvuzela for causing communication problems. Lionel Messi, regarded by many as the best player in the world, even went so far as to blame the noise for his team conceding a goal. SPEAKER_02: The complaints were even enough to inspire a study from the South African Medical Journal. It measured the vuvuzela's sound levels, which peaked at 131 decibels. That's as loud as a jackhammer or a jet engine. It concluded that prolonged or regular exposure could cause noise-induced hearing loss. SPEAKER_10: There was no middle ground with the vuvuzela. You either loved it or hated it. SPEAKER_02: Most of the vuvuzela outrage came from a very Eurocentric perspective. It was an argument about what was considered appropriate in football fan culture, which Duane Jethro says was an attack on the idea of Africaness. It raises old, old ideas of Africa as a dark continent, SPEAKER_06: cultural forms from Africa as being primitive or outdated, etc. And I think that's how the outrage was received in South Africa. And it was in that space that not only the South African Football Association, but also South African fans started to speak back and speak out and to say that this is how we represent ourselves in our sporting traditions and sporting fan culture. SPEAKER_02: While the vuvuzela was condemned by international audiences, it's also true that many visitors to South Africa embraced it. For comedian Trevor Noah and plenty of other South Africans, the appropriation was the problem. SPEAKER_04: In South Africa we should have a thing where you have to have a license to blow a vuvuzela. You can't just come here not knowing vuvuzela etiquette, blowing it randomly. The English fans, the Spanish fans, middle of the day, there they are, 9am. Mmmmmm. What are you doing? It's so much fun. It's wrong! It's the wrong people. SPEAKER_03: You know who should be blowing vuvuzelas? Qualified, skilled practitioners. Chiefs and pirate supporters. That you should be blowing vuvuzelas. SPEAKER_10: There's no doubt that for thousands of South Africans, the vuvuzela was an expression of national identity. But as the first African nation to host the World Cup, the instrument came to represent more than just South Africa. SPEAKER_02: For viewers watching around the world, it represented the sound of an entire continent, and that was by design. FIFA and South Africa's organising committee marketed the tournament as Africa's World Cup. The slogan was, celebrate Africa's humanity. Even the official song of the tournament, which you'll surely remember, proclaims, this time is for Africa. SONG PLAYS SPEAKER_05: This time for Africa. SONG PLAYS SPEAKER_02: And because the vuvuzela became such a huge focal point of the event, Peter Allegi says the instrument got wrapped up in all the iconography of the tournament too. SPEAKER_14: The government was keen on using it because it saw it as a symbol of, you know, African-ness. But there were also other African visitors who hated it, who said, you know, we have no tradition of horn-blowing where I come from, so how is this supposed to represent Pan-Africanism? SPEAKER_02: The Disneyfication of the tournament made the vuvuzela feel cheap, like the rest of the marketing around it. And with that cheapness came a certain scepticism about its authenticity. SPEAKER_10: Despite the instrument being so criticised, people still wanted to claim credit for its existence. The disputes over its history and origin played out side by side with the tournament. SPEAKER_02: One story the press picked up connected the vuvuzela to the horn of the kudu, a species of antelope. SPEAKER_05: SONG PLAYS SONG PLAYS SONG PLAYS SPEAKER_02: Historically, animal horns have been used in South African culture, but the theory linking the kudu horn to the vuvuzela was likely inspired by one supporter of the team Mammulodi Sundowns, who was known to bring the horn to football games. Here's researcher Dwayne Jethro again. While it is absolutely true SPEAKER_06: that we have Indigenous traditions of horn blowing in South Africa, whether and how we can trace the genealogy of the vuvuzela all the way back to those Indigenous traditions, that's open to argument and debate. Another claim came from the Nazareth Baptist Church, SPEAKER_02: also known as the Xianbei, who have a horn of their own. The Xianbei Church operates in the Kuzulu-Natal area. SPEAKER_06: They have an annual pilgrimage, and during this annual pilgrimage, they use a horn called the isi-bomu. SONG PLAYS SONG PLAYS SONG PLAYS SONG PLAYS When football fans were blowing the vuvuzela, they felt that the holy spirit that was generated by their horn had been appropriated in this context of football atmosphere. SPEAKER_02: The Xianbei first accused Saddam Ma'kei of appropriating the isi-bomu. They said he visited the church in the 90s and fashioned his own version in plastic when he wasn't allowed to bring the metal horn into stadiums. Saddam denies these accusations. The church threatened legal action initially against FIFA and World Cup organisers before going after Neil van Schalkwyk and his company. According to media reports at the time, the two parties eventually came to a settlement. SPEAKER_10: SONG PLAYS All these claims regarding the origin of the vuvuzela are compelling in their own way, but it was the heightened context of the World Cup tournament that raised the stakes in the ownership debate. In all cultural heritage debates, SPEAKER_06: origins and ownership are really important elements and strands of being able to claim a certain heritage tradition. You cannot claim a heritage tradition until you can claim ownership and a valid persuasive tradition. It's a very divisive origin story. SPEAKER_02: Despite the lack of a straightforward origin story, the vuvuzela is still considered cultural heritage, at least in the eyes of some institutions. The United Kingdom's National Football Museum and the British Museum both have vuvuzelas in their collections. SPEAKER_06: So, if we use the collecting principles of these heritage institutions as a guideline for how heritage is staked and made, then you see the vuvuzela entering into that heritage narrative. SPEAKER_02: I mean, the British Museum is no stranger to stealing credit for cultural artefacts, but if you look up the vuvuzela's listing on their website, there is only one origin story they recognise. SPEAKER_13: For me, to talk about this vuvuzela, you make my day. SPEAKER_02: They attribute the invention to none other than Freddy Saddam Marquet. SPEAKER_13: You make my dream come true. I'm feeling grateful because vuvuzela is my baby. SPEAKER_02: Saddam's story is the closest thing the vuvuzela has to an actual origin story. And unlike the noise that surrounded the vuvuzela in 2010, his story at its core is simple. He loved his team and he wanted to show his support for them as loud as possible. SPEAKER_10: To date, vuvuzelas aren't nearly as prominent as they were back in 2010. A few years after the South African World Cup ended, FIFA turned around and banned them from all major tournaments. And several other major sports leagues have as well. But for Duane Jethro, that comes with a silver lining. SPEAKER_06: I'm very glad that no future World Cup tournament will be blessed with the beautiful sound of the vuvuzela. That the sound will always remain South African. Just a few months ago, the South African women's football team SPEAKER_02: won their first ever Africa Cup of Nations. When the team arrived at the airport, they were greeted by fans expressing their national pride through songs and chants. Saddam Marquet was there too, blowing his vuvuzela. There were no complaints about the noise. The fans just celebrated the way they wanted to celebrate. USA for UNHCR, the United Nations Refugee Agency, SPEAKER_10: responds to emergencies and provides long-term solutions for refugees in places like Ukraine, Syria, Afghanistan, Sudan, and many more. UNHCR supports people forced to flee from war, violence, and persecution at their greatest moment of need. 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Everything that appears in your screen is for your eyes only. Visit 3mscreens.com slash brighter to get your new 3M Bright Screen Privacy Filter today and work like no one is watching. 3mscreens.com slash brighter. So I'm back with James Parkinson and you've got another story about football culture in South Africa for us. SPEAKER_02: Yes, so a few other interesting details came up while I was working on this story and it has to do with that culture of noise making in the stadiums. And I'm dropping you a picture now so you can see what I'm talking about. So this must be Saddam Maki who we heard from in the piece who has a SPEAKER_10: really great voice and a really great look to go with it. SPEAKER_02: Yes, this is Saddam of Viva Salah fame and in this picture he's decked out in all this gear screaming his lungs out at a football match. He's wearing really large comically yellow glasses and SPEAKER_10: a helmet with all the different like logos on it and icy stickers of Kaiser Chiefs and even Orlando Pirates on it. Yes, so what I want to talk about is that helmet the Makarapa because that was SPEAKER_02: another item like the Viva Salah that gained popularity during the World Cup. So the word Makarapa actually means scrapers and scrapers is a reference to the migrant workers who used to move into cities like Johannesburg to work in the mines. People would say they scrape for a living and so the story goes that a Kaiser Chiefs fan, not Saddam this time, went to a particularly rowdy game back in the 70s where he saw someone get hit in the head with a bottle. So naturally for the next game he thought you know I just... He was like well I should I should wear that helmet. Yeah exactly. Of all these people wearing helmets I should wear a helmet. Yeah, so this fan started painting these helmets in the team's colours and selling them at games and it became a thing. But this isn't the only connection between the mines of South Africa and noise making in the stadiums. Duane Jethro told me there's also this sound. It's a kind of alarm. It's a wind-up alarm. It goes SPEAKER_02: Like an old air raid siren. Exactly yeah and these alarms used to have this very specific use. It was the sound miners would hear for their shift change at work. So fans would you know bring these handheld sirens to make noise at the games and they were pretty popular in the 90s. SPEAKER_10: Yeah because these are working class fans so they're bringing what they have on them. They're bringing their helmets, they're bringing their sirens that they use in everyday life. Yeah they're picking up their helmets and you know these alarms and sort of repurposing them SPEAKER_02: to reflect their lives as miners in the culture of South African football. Oh I love that. I love that. Yeah and one of my favourite examples of this is that they repurposed a work song they would sing in the mines that fans would then sing you know loudly at games and it's called Xoxolosa. SPEAKER_06: And you sing it, it goes something like Xoxolosa. I don't know the words properly but that's how the rolling beat goes. It's the kind of song that you sing when you really want to arouse up the crowd and South Africans across the board know this song and it speaks to migrants moving from different parts of southern Africa to come and work on the mines. So Xoxolosa, this traditional miner song actually became quite popular in the 90s. People refer to SPEAKER_02: it as South Africa's second national anthem. It was sung in a call and response style by the workers to kind of you know generate a rhythm and also to alleviate stress from working long hard days underground. Xoxolosa means go forward or make the way for the next man and famously Nelson Mandela spoke about how he would sing this song while he was imprisoned on Robben Island off the coast of Cape Town along with you know many other political prisoners and the ways in which the song reflected the struggle during apartheid. I mean it reminds me of something SPEAKER_10: that you mentioned in the piece that you know these games and the noise that you know surrounds them I mean yes it's about you know sports and a game and about leisure and fun but it's also like a certain amount of political resistance just built into the fact that there's people singing along loudly in a stadium they're playing instruments and there's this way to make noise for your team but also you know let the powers that be know that you know we're all here and there's a bunch of us and we're all here. Yeah we're here and you know we're really loud and SPEAKER_02: we're gonna we're gonna let you know. Well thank you again James I mean this was such a cool SPEAKER_10: fascinating history and I'm so glad that you shared it with us. Thanks Herman anytime. SPEAKER_10: 99% Invisible was produced this week by James Parkinson, edited by Jason De Leon, sound mix by Martine Gonzalez, music by our director of sound, Swan Riel, with additional music provided by Freddie Saddam Mackey, fact checking by Graham Haysha, Delaney Hall is our senior editor, Kurt Colstead is the digital director, Olivia Green is our intern, the rest of the team includes Vivian Lay, Lasha Madon, Chris Berube, Emmett Fitzgerald, Christopher Johnson, Jacob Multanata Medina, Kelly Prime, Joe Rosenberg, Sophia Klatsker, and me Roman Mars. Special thanks to Duane Jethro he's the author of Heritage, Formation, and the Senses in Post-Apartheid South Africa which includes a chapter called Vuvuzela Magic. Peter Leggi is also the author of several books including Laduma Soccer Politics and Society in South Africa and thanks to Peter Drewy who we also spoke with for the story. We are part of the Stitcher and Sirius XM podcast family now headquartered six blocks north in the Pandora building and beautiful uptown Oakland, California. You can find the show and join discussions about the show on Facebook you can tweet at me at Roman Mars and the show at 99pi.org or on Instagram, Reddit, and now TikTok too. You can find links to other Stitcher shows I love as well as every past episode of 99pi at 99pi.org. SPEAKER_05: Great sleep can be hard to come by these days and finding the right mattress feels totally SPEAKER_10: overwhelming. Serta's new and improved Perfect Sleeper is a simple solution designed to support all sleep positions. With zoned comfort, memory foam, and a cool to the touch cover, the Serta Perfect Sleeper means more restful nights and more rested days. 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