Not often does one hear the phrases "scouring the flatware" and "booty poppin'" in the same sentence, but in this precise moment that is exactly what I am doing. Simultaneously, but not well on either end.
I wasn't feeling too great about getting out of my duvet nest this morning to wash every dish that we own. Because as I have tried to explain, I have never been a fan of keeping up with the cleaning past putting all the dirty items into a haphazard pile and collapsing onto the floor in exhaustion.
Sometimes I wish I had just a touch more obsessiveness to my personality.
So I turned the TV to the channel TRACE, which plays exclusively music videos and is thus exceedingly superior to the disgrace that is now MTV.
Beyoncé is on. Hey, girl.
It is a well known fact that work always goes faster when there is music to dance to. It practically does itself. Or rather I am too busy shaking it in an impressively bad way to notice how many plates I have already cleaned.
I soon tire of being Drunk In Love and switch to music on a USB drive that is plugged into a sound playing device, which is the preferred method of music storage in Namibia, and is in this case plugged into the TV.
This particular drive has electro-trance-dance-house music on it. I have no idea what the difference between those 4 kinds of music is, but apparently strung out millennials in neon clothes can tell the difference.
I, however, just want to dance my pants off. Or pants on, rather, as I am clad only in well-worn athletic shorts from 8 years ago.
Which brings us to the topic of this blog post, which is popular music in Namibia. Not old shorts. Took me long enough to get there, but we've finally arrived at the point.
Like anywhere in the world, Namibia has different genres of music. Pop is big. In some places, you can even tune in to Ryan Seacrest counting down US chart toppers. South African music also has a big presence in Namibia, and is full of talented pop and rap musicians, like AKA, Mi Casa, and Goldfish. Of course, SA has a rich and diverse music scene that I know little about, but I'm just talking about pop artists here.
One Million Views-Goldfish
Namibian pop artists, though, are a very different breed. Whereas big time South African artists usually sound more polished, like what you would hear in the Western world, the sparsely populated country of Namibia has a more undeveloped music scene, being that there are no official record labels. Some of the more popular hip-hop groups are PDK, Sunny Boy, Gazza, and The Dogg. But a lot of what I hear in the Kunene region and beyond was music called Oviritje. All of which songs are heavy on the synthesizer, utilize the same tempo for every song, and share a similar backbeat that sounds like one of the 5 that are preloaded onto mid grade Yamaha keyboard. Music videos are usually full of dancing people in random public places and goats mulling about in the background.
For instance...
But the kind of dancing Oviritje produces is always fun to watch. It causes a normal man to turn into a bouncing African Gumby and produce quite bewildering dance moves.
You also get a lot of a capella gospel music here, this being a very Christian country and all. You know, some gospel is nice, serene, peaceful. But some sounds like the air being squeezed out of a badly broken bagpipe. I can appreciate it for what it is, but it's really not my thing. Not blasting through my walls at 6 in the morning, not any time.
And then there is Afrikaans music, which is a bit like pop country music with much less twang and much more...boer. If you don't know what I mean by that, then I do apologize, but I cannot describe it any other way. But it is widely appreciated by the white population, and after a few double brandy and cokes causes people to go utterly ape shit with the singing and the drunken swaying.
However, in the younger Afrikaans crowd, you often find an innate love of trance music. Or dance music. Or whatever the hell you want to call it. Hence why the TV in my bachelor flat is now pumping out music that should be in venue full of ginormous speakers and lots of light shows and DJs and...sweaty people. And stuff.
It really gets you excited about housework, though. I, myself, am going fairly ape shit with these plates.
Obviously I don't entirely know what I'm talking about anymore, but I did manage to finish the dishes with only once slicing my finger on a cheese grater.
So, right. There's that.
I encourage you to search YouTube for Oviritje and Namibian music videos. It will be entertaining, I promise.
Cheers.
I wasn't feeling too great about getting out of my duvet nest this morning to wash every dish that we own. Because as I have tried to explain, I have never been a fan of keeping up with the cleaning past putting all the dirty items into a haphazard pile and collapsing onto the floor in exhaustion.
Sometimes I wish I had just a touch more obsessiveness to my personality.
So I turned the TV to the channel TRACE, which plays exclusively music videos and is thus exceedingly superior to the disgrace that is now MTV.
Beyoncé is on. Hey, girl.
It is a well known fact that work always goes faster when there is music to dance to. It practically does itself. Or rather I am too busy shaking it in an impressively bad way to notice how many plates I have already cleaned.
I soon tire of being Drunk In Love and switch to music on a USB drive that is plugged into a sound playing device, which is the preferred method of music storage in Namibia, and is in this case plugged into the TV.
This particular drive has electro-trance-dance-house music on it. I have no idea what the difference between those 4 kinds of music is, but apparently strung out millennials in neon clothes can tell the difference.
I, however, just want to dance my pants off. Or pants on, rather, as I am clad only in well-worn athletic shorts from 8 years ago.
Which brings us to the topic of this blog post, which is popular music in Namibia. Not old shorts. Took me long enough to get there, but we've finally arrived at the point.
Like anywhere in the world, Namibia has different genres of music. Pop is big. In some places, you can even tune in to Ryan Seacrest counting down US chart toppers. South African music also has a big presence in Namibia, and is full of talented pop and rap musicians, like AKA, Mi Casa, and Goldfish. Of course, SA has a rich and diverse music scene that I know little about, but I'm just talking about pop artists here.
One Million Views-Goldfish
Namibian pop artists, though, are a very different breed. Whereas big time South African artists usually sound more polished, like what you would hear in the Western world, the sparsely populated country of Namibia has a more undeveloped music scene, being that there are no official record labels. Some of the more popular hip-hop groups are PDK, Sunny Boy, Gazza, and The Dogg. But a lot of what I hear in the Kunene region and beyond was music called Oviritje. All of which songs are heavy on the synthesizer, utilize the same tempo for every song, and share a similar backbeat that sounds like one of the 5 that are preloaded onto mid grade Yamaha keyboard. Music videos are usually full of dancing people in random public places and goats mulling about in the background.
For instance...
But the kind of dancing Oviritje produces is always fun to watch. It causes a normal man to turn into a bouncing African Gumby and produce quite bewildering dance moves.
You also get a lot of a capella gospel music here, this being a very Christian country and all. You know, some gospel is nice, serene, peaceful. But some sounds like the air being squeezed out of a badly broken bagpipe. I can appreciate it for what it is, but it's really not my thing. Not blasting through my walls at 6 in the morning, not any time.
And then there is Afrikaans music, which is a bit like pop country music with much less twang and much more...boer. If you don't know what I mean by that, then I do apologize, but I cannot describe it any other way. But it is widely appreciated by the white population, and after a few double brandy and cokes causes people to go utterly ape shit with the singing and the drunken swaying.
However, in the younger Afrikaans crowd, you often find an innate love of trance music. Or dance music. Or whatever the hell you want to call it. Hence why the TV in my bachelor flat is now pumping out music that should be in venue full of ginormous speakers and lots of light shows and DJs and...sweaty people. And stuff.
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| Can you spell MDMA? |
It really gets you excited about housework, though. I, myself, am going fairly ape shit with these plates.
Obviously I don't entirely know what I'm talking about anymore, but I did manage to finish the dishes with only once slicing my finger on a cheese grater.
So, right. There's that.
I encourage you to search YouTube for Oviritje and Namibian music videos. It will be entertaining, I promise.
Cheers.
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