South Africa’s First It Girls: Dolly Rathebe, Miriam Makeba and Dorothy Masuka

Welcome to South Africa in the 1950s: jazz music, prohibition, short skirts and a dangerous feminine mystique. The Drum Decade would see the rise of South Africa's first stars: Dolly Rather, Miriam Makeba and Dorothy Masuka. Singers, models, beauty queens, actresses and trendsetters - each of these women had a star power, mass appeal and legacy that's not only shaped Black South African culture in the 20th century, serve as resistance to the apartheid government and white Afrikaans nationalism, but they would go on to influence later stars like Brenda Fassie and Lebo Mathosa, perform before world leaders and presidents, champion the anti-apartheid movement, and, of course, do it all with a unique African Glamour.

In this video, I give a brief history of each remarkable women and how they were covered in South Africa's first Black lifestyle magazine, DRUM. DRUM, notably, shaped urban and township life in the 50s - 60s, making a little Hollywood out of Sophiatown.

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Reading:
Beauty... A Black Perspective, Nakedi Ribane, 2006 (from the Sandton library)
Dolly Rathebe, South African History, n.d (https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/dolly-rathebe)
Dolly Rathebe: South Africa's Original Black Superstar, Mail & Guardian, 2022 (https://mg.co.za/friday/2022-01-07-dolly-rathebe-south-africas-original-black-superstar/)
Obituary: Dolly Rathebe, The Guardian, 2004 (https://www.theguardian.com/news/2004/sep/28/guardianobituaries.artsobituaries)
The magic and meaning Dolly Rathebe, New Frame, 2020 (https://www.newframe.com/the-magic-and-meaning-of-dolly-rathebe/)
Miriam Makeba, South African History, n.d (https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/miriam-makeba)
The Legacy of Iconic Singer Miriam Makeba, The Conversation, 2019 (https://theconversation.com/the-legacy-of-iconic-singer-miriam-makeba-and-her-art-of-activism-178230)
Pata Pata: the world's most defiantly joyful song, BBC, 2019(https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20190911-pata-pata-the-worlds-most-defiantly-joyful-song)
Miriam Makeba: and the fight goes one, Pan African Music, 2019 (https://pan-african-music.com/en/miriam-makeba-and-the-fight-goes-on/)
Dorothy Masuka: a rare gift from our ancestors, Mail & Guardian, 2019 (https://mg.co.za/article/2019-03-01-00-dorothy-masuka-a-rare-gift-from-our-ancestors/)
Obituary: Dorothy Masuka, The New York Times, 2019 (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/27/obituaries/dorothy-masuka-dead.html)
Africa has lost a singer, composer and a hero of the struggle, The Conversation, 2019 (https://theconversation.com/dorothy-masuku-africa-has-lost-a-singer-composer-and-a-hero-of-the-struggle-112425)
The urban palimpsest: re-presenting Sophiatown, 2008 (https://www.academia.edu/15837298/The_urban_palimpsest_re_presenting_Sophiatow)
Drum (1951-9) and the spatial configurations of gender by Dorothy Driver, 1996

Видео South Africa’s First It Girls: Dolly Rathebe, Miriam Makeba and Dorothy Masuka канала Khensani Mohlatlole