Resistance punk agit pop forged during the dark days of apartheid ruled South Africa. An authentic blend of the bands varied, multi ethnic roots producing a trans-genre sound with a unique taste and "tang".

13 MP3 Songs in this album (57:54) !
Related styles: Rock: Punk, Reggae: Ska, Mood: Angry

People who are interested in Soul Makossa The Clash The Jam should consider this download.


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National Wake: the untold story of the 20th centuryâs most dissident music scene

âIt was life during war timeâ¦crossing borders and boundaries.â - Ivan Kadey

It was easy to stand out amidst the political insanity, social confusion and suburban tedium that characterized South African life in the late 1970s, simply by being different. But in terms of popular culture, nothing was ever going to present such a contrast to the established system as a politically engaged, multi-racial punk-reggae band who were equally at home in the rock underground and the township nightclub circuit. Miraculous as it may sound, such a band actually existed: National Wake, the result of a creative confrontation not just between the worlds of punk and new wave with those of reggae and African music but between the unique personalities of its founding members, Ivan Kadey and brothers Gary and Punka Khoza.

When first released in 1981, the self-titled album recorded by National Wake sold an estimated 700 copies before being withdrawn under government pressure, or âgazettedâ in the euphemism of the time. The band subsequently disintegrated, but their traces could still be found in the emerging fanzine and cassette trading underground then emerging in South Africa. Matt Temple of the reissue label and influential blog Matsuli Music recalled encountering the album for the first time on a cassette copy, calling it âuncompromising, frenetic and loudâ¦it struck an immediate chord with many people like me searching for any way out.â This clandestine medium eventually reached young conscript soldiers fighting South Africaâs illegal border wars. Among them was writer and journalist Deon Maas, who first heard National Wake while in the army and later described the effect of the band as âlike a vicious orgasm⦠itâs only history that has recognized the incredible groundwork they did, not just for punk but for the whole music scene that followed.â

Despite the groundbreaking nature of the band, during the chaos of the 1980s and the euphoria of the post-1994 democratic era, National Wake were almost totally forgotten. Memory of the band faded over time, to the extent that they were left out of most histories and accounts of South African rock music. It was only the emergence of specialized music blogs and a new evaluation of the role of the early South African punk scene in particular that eventually led to the band being rediscovered. Craig Duncan, a specialist in global alternative music at Czech State Radio, places this unsung legacy of the band today in an even more radical perspective, as âperhaps the most dissident music scene of the 20th century: a multi-racial punk-reggae band operating in a fascist police state.â

The musical and political crossroads central to the band was the search for a South African identity unburdened by the strict confines and artificial boundaries imposed by the inhuman laws of the apartheid system. Guitarist Ivan Kadey grew up as a disaffected Jewish orphan in the suburbs of Johannesburg feeling radically estranged from the daily reality of the country from a young age. As a student he engaged with protest-oriented folk music and the radical politics of the early 1970s, eventually moving into a commune in Johannesburgâs decaying, formerly wealthy neighborhood of Parktown. âIt started as typical white kids seeking a non-conformist communal padâ¦artists, musicians, dancers, Buddhists, students. Being non-conformist and racially open, we also had a few black people wandering in and out,â remembers Kadey. One of the regular fixtures at the commune was Mike Lebesi, a Sotho percussionist known as âOne-Eyed Mike.â Lebisi was from the traditional rural area of Thaba'nchu in the Orange Free State but spent his adolescence in Parktown, living in maidâs quarters with his grandmother and getting to know the Jewish family she worked for. According to Kadey, âHe had the Parktown culture down, and moved quite freely between the city, Soweto, and the countryside.â

The similarities in their backgrounds inspired a certain rapport between the two, and music became part of their connection. âI got my first electric guitar in 1974. The playing of Phillip Tabane and Malombo captured my imagination â the example of solo guitar with African drums alone. This led to my jamming with Mike Lebesi for hours on end.â During this intensive burst of activity, in the long, tense months after the Soweto Uprising of 1976, a certain sound came together during these Parktown sessions. The sound was edgy, dissonant, the result of the simple combination of distorted electric guitar with African hand drumming. Inspired by the distinctive South African marabi groove, it was also informed by the liberation cadences of reggae and the emerging rebel rock of London and New York.

In the international context, the âfirst Third World superstarâ of the time was Bob Marley, whose mid-70s albums made a strong impression on Ivan Kadey with their juxtaposition of bass culture and social commitment, adding to the musical ferment of the Parktown commune. It was also the dawning of the punk era, and both its DIY aesthetic and uncompromising integrity inspired Kadey further. When reggae-influenced punk bands like The Clash and The Specials appeared, their politically-charged music reverberated deeply within the increasingly tense situation in South Africa. From Kadeyâs point of view âthe apartheid state was becoming more repressive. There were reports of people dying in detention, âslipping on soapâ and âjumpingâ out of sixth story windowsâ¦I knew the nature of the struggle had entered a new phase, and the days of white rule were numbered.â

That rising anger soon found a perfect vehicle for unprecedented expression when Lebesi introduced two new memebers to the Parktown jam sessions - a rhythm section consisting of brothers Gary and Punka Khoza on bass and drums respectively. Kadey remembers that âone day he arrived with the Khoza brothers and we got into some really exciting music. I had been putting material together with another Joburg musician, Paul Giraud. We started jamming as a five-piece with Gary on bass guitar, Punka on drums, Paul on lead guitar, Mike on congas and cow-bell and myself on rhythm guitar. We worked up a set of songs with all of us contributing, and decided to stage a gig. Without any overt discussion we all knew what we were embarking on, and were totally charged up and ready to go.â

For Ivan Kadey, âthings came together to make the musical climate more conducive to the possibility of my contributing to the scene, from the tradition of protest I was rooted in.â Kadey already had the concept of a protest-oriented band called National Wake, the name derived from an ironic subversion of the South African political ideology of the time as espoused by the ruling National Party and the embodiment of the four elements within the word WAKE - water, air, krak (fire in the form of lightning, a common feature of the Highveld landscape around Johannesburg) and earth. The notion of âwakeâ also contained a dual meaning in the sense of signifying both funereal and uplifting.

From the beginning, the musical backgrounds of all the members came together to define the unique sound of National Wake: punk rock, protest song, reggae, funk and traditional African percussion. Kadey had a longstanding interest in folk music including Irish rebel songs, Afro-American freedom songs and calypso, as well as a keen awareness of the underground rock scene. Gary Khoza was a well-respected multi-instrumentalist on the Soweto Soul circuit, having been a child star at the age of twelve in the hit township act Flaming Souls and more recently playing with a funk band called The Monks. His younger brother Punka had a background in radical theatre, a potent cultural force in 1970s South Africa, also bringing to the band his growing spiritual connection to Rastafarianism. The early repertoire of the band reflected this musical diversity, and National Wake soon evolved into a deeply nuanced, hard-working live band with equal emphasis on fiery punk anthems like âBlack Punk Rockersâ and âInternational Newsâ and the sweaty tropical funk of songs like âWake of the Nationâ and âKalabashâ, all oriented heavily towards the dance floor.

The band saw themselves as harbingers of a new, optimistic South Africa, bringing together a multi-racial audience in an atmosphere of good times and positive energy while still conveying strong political content through their lyrics. Unable to perform legally in most traditional rock venues, the band forged their own eccentric touring circuit on the fringes of society, playing in the more liberal and open Johannesburg neighborhoods of Yeoville and Hillbrow as well as township nightclubs and rural homelands. Over time the band built a strong, dedicated following that stretched across the racial divide, at the same time linking up with kindred spirits on the nascent South African punk scene. In the summer of 1979-80, the band joined forces with punk bands Wild Youth and Housewivesâ Choice and new wave rockers Safari Suits for the ill-fated âRiot Rock Tourâ of the Western Cape. Kadey recalls that the band âarrived after a 1000 mile journey across basically enemy territory and were greeted by the promoter informing us that he had applied for permission for us to perform which had been denied. I told him to shove it, that we were playing whether he liked it or not. He braced himself through the three initial concerts, finally losing his nerve when we played the last one in the conservative enclave of Vishoek, where the actual contract governing the hall expressly forbade any mixed-race gathering. We stood our ground and took the stage despite his threats. After the first ten seconds he pulled the plug on us and closed the concert. Riot Rock indeed.â

Stung by the experience, National Wake refused to retreat and instead moved into total self-sufficiency. Already living together in their communal base in Parktown, the band assembled their own mobile sound system and formed their own production company, DMZ (for âdemilitarized zoneâ) as a means of circumventing the countryâs arcane racial legislation. Paul Giraud left the band and Mike Lebesi became an increasingly marginal figure, while the core members of the band continued gigging and writing new material as a three-piece outfit. Moving increasingly into reggae and African elements - with Punka contributing several songs in the Shangaan language - National Wake became more and more driven to take their music to a wider public. The more experimentally-minded Steve Moni (formerly of Cape Town-based Safari Suits & Popguns) was recruited in as replacement lead guitarist, bringing his mastery of slide guitar and new musical influences including Krautrock to the bandâs sound, and soon thereafter the township jazz saxophonist Kelly Petlane was added to the unit as well.

By now, National Wake was not only a tight, professional outfit with extreme dedication to the cause of their music, but had evolved a highly original hybrid of punk, reggae and township music to go along with their increasingly incendiary lyrics. Songs like âStratocasterâ and âBolinaâ reflected the tensions and paranoia surrounding the band, which by now sounded unlike any other rock outfit in South Africa. Their power as a live act attracted the attention of the local branch of WEA Records through the companyâs adventurous talent scout Benjy Mudie, who approached the band with an offer to record an album in early 1981. âThe band when I met them were already fully formed,â says Mudie. âA lot of that was the combination of those four guys - Gary and Punka were so skin tight, coming from a real African perspective. Steve Moni was a melodic guitarist with all these nice lines. And then Ivan had this frantic punk-folk guitar and vocal style. The combination made National Wake the defining band of the time.â

National Wake had already been considering the idea of capturing some of the more than 20 songs that made up their live set list at the time. Steve Moni recalls that âIvan and I were talking about doing a recording, to get the new songs down. We basically got sponsored for studio time by friends, and the sound engineer (Graham Handley) offered us a slot at a reduced rate after midnight in Satbel Studios in Commissioner Street, one of the leading 24 track studios. To save time and money, we put everything down at one time with very few overdubs and in just a couple of takes, which gives the recording its live feel. Kelly Petlane played all the horns. Some of the other guys around the band played ad hoc percussion, cowbells and shells and whistles, that sort of thing. Ivan then took the tapes to WEA. I went to watch the pressing of the vinyl. The record came out with some empty space where the unprintable lyrics should have beenâ¦â

Benjy Mudie explains further: âthe album was recorded and then mixed in two or three days. I then put it into production only to be met with a stern phone call from upstairs saying we couldnât put the record out, because of the lyrics. But I said we had to make a statement. We then got legal advice that the line in âInternational Newsâ about the choppers going into Angola, under the current censorship laws, was committing a crime. We changed the lyric sheet to have the lyrics blacked out but made it look deliberately stupid, then put it out anyway.â

The album was released in 1981 to what initially looked like encouraging signs. One song, âTime and Placeâ, began to receive limited airplay on local radio, and the band were booked to play a high-profile weeklong showcase at the Chelsea in Hillbrow. Plans were made for state broadcaster SABC to record a video of one of the shows. But then, just as success seemed within reach, things began to fall apart. The pressures of playing for what was essentially a segregated audience in front of the official media heightened underlying tensions within the band itself, bringing an overwrought Gary Khoza close to breakdown. As Steve Moni remembers the situation, âafter the record came out, we played for a week at the Chelsea. And as the week progressed, things deteriorated to the point that Gary wanted to leave and just be an ordinary citizen of Soweto. National Wake was not cohesive at that point, at least personally. It was a question of whether we could even last the week.â After Ivan Kadey made a dramatic daybreak visit to the Khoza family house in Soweto, Gary agreed to continue, but the end was approaching. Benjy Mudie received a threatening visit from the Special Branch of the police, and the record was essentially blacklisted from broadcast. Worst of all, the band were about to lose their safe haven in Parktown. âAfter the album release things got more intense,â Kadey recalls. âWe were dragged down to the Hillbrow police station to meet with some plainclothes officer who was obviously from some state security intelligence division. He advised us to leave the country immediately, expressing his considered opinion that if we re-named ourselves Exodus we'd probably make it big overseas. In the final days we were being visited about three times a day - cops simply walking through the house, looking in ashtrays, poking around, never saying anything, just coming and going at will.â

The record was released in the UK by WEAâs British subsidiary, but without promotion, financial support or even the remotest understanding of what the band actually represented, it sold poorly and disappeared almost without trace. However, among those who did hear the album were such luminaries as Ahmet Ertegun, the head of Atlantic Records, who sent a telegram expressing interest in the band, and BBC radio personality John Peel, who played âInternational Newsâ on his influential new music show. A meeting with a representative of Richard Bransonâs Virgin Records, the home of the eraâs defining UK reggae label Front Line, also produced a positive response but ultimately led to nothing.

In the end, all that remained were the songs that the band laid down in those frenetic few days in Commissioner Street. Seen from the perspective of thirty years later, these stand the test of time remarkably well and in several cases invite comparison with the very best of their post-punk contemporaries. âWake of the Nationâ brings the ragged, Clash-in-NYC street funk, occupying a place that is neither distinctly punk or reggae but which hints at and in many ways precedes the 1980s music sceneâs emerging identification with trans-Atlantic black dance music, incorporating experimental guitar, dub space and world-beat percussion. The tremendous âInternational Newsâ today seems hardly to have dated at all - despite referencing the Soweto Uprising and South Africaâs illegal war in Angola - with its clarion call of internationalism and urgency, bringing together angular punk-funk in the manner of The Clash or Gang of Four with African elements and preoccupations. âBolinaâ displays the reggae side of band, also incorporating the strong influence of the bandâs experiences touring neighboring Swaziland. It also reveals the role of Kelly Petlane in the making of the album, his playing showing the influence of traditional Southern African folk wind instruments. The drinking song âKalabashâ sounds like a funky township hybrid of Sandinista! and âSoul Makossaâ and displaying a rhythmic complexity far beyond that of punk rock or new wave. âStudent Lifeâ references Ivan Kadeyâs interest in calypso as well as New Wave in the style of The Jam or Blondie, fitting easily into the soul-mod side of punk and revealing National Wake as almost exact contemporaries of the English 2-Tone movement, rather then merely an African reflection of it. âSkangoâ with its Shangaan lyrics and haunting vocal by Punka Khoza, sets the template for his later band Dread Warriors, who predated Lucky Dube by several years as the first openly-identified reggae band in South Africa. Steve Moniâs role as the most consciously experimental member of the band is apparent in his original composition âMercenariesâ, where his setting of pulsating riffs against a background drone shares a close kinship with the post-punk sounds emerging at the same time from Manchester.

This re-release includes not only the complete South African issue of the original nine-song National Wake album (as well as âMercenariesâ which was included only on the UK pressing for political reasons) but also the ominous âStratocasterâ, which is perhaps the most overtly angry and provocative song of the recording and which has remained unreleased until now. With lyrics full of references to explosions the song represents an attempt to explore the mentality of the political terrorism of the era, mirrored by Steve Moniâs Stones-type slide guitar shifting into a full-on noisy punk freak-out at the songâs conclusion. Also included here are two additional bonus tracks that were not part of the original recording session but which seem to summarize between them much of the spirit of the band. âBlack Punk Rockersâ, as its title implies, is one of the bandâs most openly punk songs, a sex-drugs-rock ân roll tour-de-force featuring Mike Lebesi on cowbell. An early joint composition by the band featuring lyrics by the Khoza brothers which combine political concerns (âwho wants peace now, who wants war?â) with mentions of drug use and sexual desire, placing it firmly within the Sex Pistols-Malcolm McLaren school of sheer punk outrageousness. âWalk in Africaâ is perhaps the penultimate National Wake song, an epic re-visiting of the early colonial history of Southern Africa, or âhistory Wake styleâ as Punka Khoza used to say in introducing live performances of the song. Here the three main musical strands of the band - reggae, punk and traditional African elements - all come together seamlessly in what Ivan Kadey describes as the bandâs âunderlying belief in letting go and walking to the indigenous rhythm of the continent.â

After the release and subsequent failure of the album, National Wake effectively ground to a halt, a casualty of the mounting political and police pressure on the band and internal personal problems. The band imploded over the remaining months of 1981, and by the following year its members were all pursuing other movements and careers that would eventually carry them all over the world. Gary Khoza continued to work sporadically as a musician, traveling to the UK with the Malopoets and living briefly in London before returning for good and finally achieving his private goal of being an ordinary âcitizen of Sowetoâ who played at church functions and gave music lessons before tragically ending his own life after a long battle with severe depression and mental illness. Steve Moni relocated to Rome, where he set up a small recording studio and composed soundtracks for experimental films. He worked in journalism and the local film industry before returning to South Africa to produce a documentary about Italian prisoners of war during World War II and writing a screenplay for an abandoned project with noted activist poet Don Mattera before withdrawing from the film world and moving to the Czech Republic, where he resides today.

Punka Khoza went on to form the pioneering Dread Warriors as well as playing with Kenyan guitarist Simba Morri and numerous leading figures of the South African jazz world. Encountering a number of legal problems including a lengthy court case that ended in his acquittal for manslaughter, he finally found peace by relocating for a time to rural Ireland, eventually returning to become a relatively successful businessman running corporate drum seminars in Johannesburg with fellow percussionist Steve Newman. He died of AIDS-related causes in 2003. Ivan Kadey inherited the National Wake sound system and used the equipment to co-found the influential South African 1980s alternative music label Shifty Records with Lloyd Ross before suffering severe injury from a near-fatal electrocution and emigrating soon thereafter to California, where he lives in Los Angeles, working as an architect and specialist in acoustic architecture.

It has taken history a long time to finally catch up to the legacy and music of National Wake, but it becomes increasingly apparent that their importance transcends the South African context and is of truly international scope. Their album should be considered as not only a stellar musical accomplishment but also a significant moment in punk-derived global protest music. But Ivan Kadey summed up the bandâs legacy best:

âI don't know of any other band with quite this mix and sound that the album has. I know there are certain accidents of place, equipment etc., but I'm thinking of the âflavorâ, the âtasteâ, the âtangâ. I think the Wake had a sound that was trans-genre. And that sound was a unique, authentic blend of who we were and where we were, and it runs through all the various genres we present on the album. That is our mark.â

Liner Notes by Keith Jones
Co-Producer/Director of documentary movie and author of the book: "Punk in Africa" .