Like our country, many of us in South Africa have complicated histories. Our ancestral backgrounds are almost always a mix contradicting the simple apartheid era classifications of Indian, black, white and colored. For many of us, these classifications are simply not enough, we need to know where we’re coming from, so we’re able to move on. In this story, Candice Nolan tries to find the answers she is looking for by looking in an old bible. This episode was written and arranged by Candice Nolan and produced by Danny Booysen.
On a summer morning in 1997, a man was arrested with a plastic bag full of party drugs in a park in Pretoria. The man was Wouter Basson, also known as Dr. Death.
Basson was the head of the apartheid-era chemical and biological warfare program Project Coast. Today he works as a cardiologist in a private practice in Durbanville outside Cape Town.
In this Sound Africa episode we re-visit the story of Wouter Basson. We try to find out who keeps him in the medical business, why they do it, and ask Basson what he believes his legacy is.
The first ever heart transplant in the world was performed in South Africa in 1967. It was an international triumph, and the surgeon in charge, Dr. Christiaan Barnard became an over night celebrity. But did Christiaan Barnard deserve all the credit?
In this Sound Africa podcast we investigate the persistent rumor that a black man named Hamilton Naki played a much bigger role in the surgery than he has been given credit for. Some even claim that Naki personally performed the operation and it was kept secret because of apartheid’s discriminatory laws. What is the truth, and why does it matter?
The story of Hamilton Naki is a re-broadcast of our episode “The Heart Problem”. It was first released in December 2017, on the 50th anniversary of the first ever heart transplant.
This Sound Africa Podcast is a story of a man and his mother. While it is set in the transition years between the old and the new South Africa, the story is a deeply personal narrative of how the past never goes away, but always travels with us. It is a story of grief and how a son tries to escape his own.
In 1985, South African music legend Ray Phiri collaborated with a number of other South African artists on Paul Simon’s legendary Graceland album. From the beginning, the recording of the album was mired in controversy. But, it was not until almost 30 years later that Ray Phiri revealed he felt had been cheated of his royalties and composer rights by Paul Simon and that there was bad blood between them.
Bowie The Poet
In this episode we meet Anthero Bowie, a former gang member who is out of prison and trying to reinvent himself as a poet. But is it possible for Bowie to reinvent himself? The entire episode plays out in his neighbourhood, Belhar Extension 13 in Cape Flats. A neighborhood that produces young men like Anthero everyday, and now refuses to see him in a new light.
Brother, This is Cape Town
Bongani Dyalivana is a 29-year-old man from Cape Town. He has been out of jail for just over two years after serving a 10-year sentence. In this Sound Africa podcast we hear Bongani’s story. It is a story of loss, of growing up in a gang and then in jail. Of finding oneself and trying to break a new path.
Bongani shares the outline of his story with many other South African men. And we hear about these young men often. But while we hear about them, we usually never hear from them. In this podcast Bongani Dyalivana speaks for himself.
The Ghost
Sometimes taking a detour can show you an entire world you did not know existed. That is what happens to reporter Lars Overland, who drives into a Karoo ghost town on his way to somewhere else and ends up chasing ghosts through a sleepless night.
This story is about the small town of Matjiesfontein in the Karoo. It is a story where the desert wind blows, and the lines between the past and the present, reality and dream are blurred.
Freedom for Sale
When apartheid ended, the big companies that helped the regime buy weapons continued to do business with the new government. Until today, these companies have never been held accountable for helping the apartheid government to buy weapons illeagally. This was the subject of the first People’s Tribunal on Economic Crime held in February this year.
In this episode, producer Neroli Price takes us to the Tribunal and delves into the three corruption cases presented there from apartheid to state capture. Economic crime contines to cast a long shadow over South Africa, but luckily there are those prepared to dig up the past.
This episode is made in collaboration with Open Secrets
Auntie Patty’s Garden
When the coloured population of Simon’s Town was forcibly removed, Aunty Patty’s family remained. They were forgotten by the authorities for years. Her nephew Jackie, on the other hand, was moved to the township of Ocean View, and he clearly remembers the day he loaded his belongings onto a truck and left the town of his childhood behind. He has not forgiven the people responsible.
Today Auntie Patty has made her family home into a museum. In this Sound Africa podcast, producer Rasmus Bitsch visits the museum and walks down memory lane with Auntie Patty and Jackie. Even after several decades, the past casts a shadow that the beauty of Simon’s Town cannot expel.
This is the first episode in the Sound Africa series “Re-visits.” In this series Sound Africa take another look at stories from the past that may only linger in the back of our minds, but continue to affect our lives.
The Heart Problem
Its fifty years since the world’s first heart transplant was performed at Groote Schuur hospital in Cape Town. But, there remains a persistent rumour that a black man called Hamilton Naki played a much bigger role than he has been given credit for. In this podcast SOUND AFRICA investigates and asks why this question still lingers all these years later.
Nuclear SA: Countdown
What will the future of South Africa’s energy sector look like? This is the guiding question that leads Sound Africa’s newest producer, Neroli Price, to paint three possible future scenarios. Speaking to a range of experts, activists and those trying out innovative alternatives, she takes the listener on a journey from paradise to hell, and ending up somewhere in the middle. Where we end up depends on the choices that we make now and who we include on the proverbial lifeboat to the future.
Nuclear SA: Uranium Rush
In this third instalment of Sound Africa’s Nuclear SA mini-series, Dhashen Moodley takes a look at the potential consequences of uranium mining in the Karoo. We speak to a Khoi-San activist who, drawing parallels with recent protests at Standing Rock in the USA, worries about the threat uranium mining poses to water supplies in this arid land. Meanwhile local farmers voice their concerns, politicians are enticed with promises of job creation, and mining companies continue to chase profit margins. Uranium mining in the Karoo is a potentially explosive story, with enormous social and economic consequences, yet it has largely been overlooked.
Nuclear SA: Enrichment
South Africans would already be familiar with headlines warning of the likelihood of enormous corruption in the nuclear procurement programme. Is this just hysteria, or is there reason to fear that we’re headed towards something like the “arms deal on steroids”? To help answer this question, we situate the nuclear deal in its international context, finding out what went wrong with a current nuclear programme in Finland, and getting a better sense of the Russian state-owned company involved in both the Finnish and South African deals.
Nuclear SA: The Laager
In 1993 South Africa became the only country to voluntarily dismantle its nuclear arsenal. But behind this widely-praised move was a shadowy history of a secret apartheid nuclear programme. In this episode, we delve into this hidden chapter of our nuclear past.
This is the first of a four-part Sound Africa series exploring the tangled web of South Africa’s nuclear past, present and future.
Reporter Rasmus Bitsch begins this story at an art gallery in Johannesburg’s stylish suburb of Maboneng, where artist Vincent Bezuidenhout is shining a spotlight on South Africa’s secret nuclear history through his exhibition Fail Deadly. From there, we connect the dots between the struggle against apartheid, the Cold War, and South Africa’s development of nuclear weapons.
How important was the nuclear programme in the close-knit defensive position, or laager, adopted by the Afrikaner nationalist government? And did the bomb contribute to the state’s siege mentality? What history shows is that the nuclear programme fostered secrecy and paranoia, and it arguably still casts a shadow over South African politics today.
*We regret an error in the recording of this episode in which we incorrectly state that Che Guevara led troops into the war in Angola.*
Episode 7: SPECIAL – African Space The Live Documentary
African Space – The Live Documentary is a live recording of a collaboration between Sound Africa and Encounters South African International Documentary Festival.
It is a poetic journey featuring internationally renowned astronomers and townspeople of the Karoo. What they all share is a proximity to the biggest science project in the world: a giant radio telescope called The Square Kilometer Array (SKA) under construction. Sometimes the journey is intergalactic other times dusty and local, but it always takes place somewhere between technology and dream.
Episode 6: Hilton Schilder’s Catheter Symphony
Hilton Schilder’s Catheter Symphony is a jazzy journey through the mother city and the hypercreative mind of pianist and composer Hilton Schilder. We get a musician’s-eye view of what it was like growing up in the Cape Flats under apartheid, and an intimate glimpse into Schilder’s current struggle with cancer. Hospital bed compositions and irreverent humour help this colourful and quintessentially Capetonian artist get through the hard times.”
Episode 5: The Wait is Almost Over Part 2
Episode 4: The Wait is Almost Over Part 1
Episode 3: The Devil In Joburg
A reporter investigates the high number of reported occult crimes in South Africa. Among others he meets an archbishop, a passionate academic and a man they call Gods Detective.
Episode 2: The Boy Who Didn’t Die
Mdalaga Mrisho shares his incredible story of fleeing war in Burundi, escaping an army and traveling through the deep Congo forest and half the continent alone as a child. This is both an extraordinary tale and a much too common story today, where an estimated 6000 children from Burundi are alone on the run.
Episode 1: African Space
The Afronaut: An introduction to a largely forgotten space program in Zambia in the 1960s. Did the leader of this wildly ambitious project, Edward Nkoloso, have a plan or was he just the delusional eccentric he was later made out to be?
The Telescope: A small town in the Karoo Desert of Northern South Africa has finally found its place in the world with the establishment of one of the biggest international science projects of our time. As the Square Kilometer Array (SKA) begins to take shape, we look at the telescope network that will likely transform the way we understand the universe and our place in it.
Founded in 2015, SOUND AFRICA is a podcast that aims to capture some of the dizzying complexity of South Africa and the continent.
It is the brainchild of a group of dedicated journalists who saw a need for innovative, informed, and in-depth coverage of the world’s second most populous continent, told in ways that are creative and accessible, and through a rapidly expanding new medium.
Podcasting is a new frontier in journalism, and as more and more people are connected to the internet across Africa there is growing potential for podcasts to transform the media landscape.
Huge gaps are waiting to be filled in the way Africa’s stories are told across the continent and abroad, and Sound Africa is playing its part in filling these gaps. We’re a homegrown media organisation producing original content that is able to upend the weary old clichés we’ve become accustomed to in the coverage of Africa. We seek out the untold and obscure, go beyond surface-level coverage of big events, and shed light on matters of public interest without losing sight of the human interest. In doing so we aim to amplify African voices through the power of digital audio and the internet.
Podcasting enables us to do a lot with a little, to tell powerful and compelling stories that reach international audiences. We’re at the forefront of the podcast medium in South Africa, and we aim to foster a greater appreciation for podcasts. Which is why we not only produce high quality content but are also the creators of South Africa’s first Radio Cinema.
We’ve also begun a training programme for storytellers and aspiring journalists, which we plan to expand through regular training workshops. Meanwhile our network of contributors and media partners continues to spread. We’re always on the lookout for talented journalists from different parts of Africa who share a deep interest in the continent and its diaspora, and we’re open to new ideas, so if you fit the mould then get in touch with us! Send us an email: info@soundafrica.org.
Sound Africa is supported by Hindenburg Systems
