Imagining Afrikaners musically: Reflections on the ‘African music’ of Stefans Grové

Abstract

For nearly two decades Stefans Grové has been composing music that absorbs the cultural “Other" of Africa in a manner that defies an easy classification of ‘‘indigenous’’ principles and “exotic” appropriation. His own conception of himself as an African who composes African music challenges the inhibition of “white” Afrikaner culture and revivifies Afrikaner culture as African culture. In so doing, Grové is consciously subverting the myth of a united Africa over against a monolithic "West” - and with it the legitimacy of an autochthonous echt African culture previously excluded by “whites" and Afrikaners. This article takes a closer look at the strategies and techniques involved in this fin de siècle musical imaginings of Afrikaner identity.