Penny Penny

Shaka Bundu

This is a song that I have loved for a long time, with a story to match it. It comes from South Africa and from Penny Penny, the ‘Shangaan Disco King’: youngest of 68 children, ex-janitor, and ex-ANC politician who remains a legend of the South African scene (even though he disappeared for a few years). No-one explains the appeal of this song/music better than Penny Penny himself - “people like my music because of the rhythm 100%, the voice 100%, the style 100%.”

At a time when contemporary South African music like Amapiano is playing into the global surge in popularity of African music genres, it’s interesting to look back to some trailblazers like Penny Penny. Born in Limpopo in 1962, Eric Kulani Giyani Nkovani got the nickname Penny Penny due to his break-dancing abilities. Having worked in a gold mine, Penny decided to leave his region in search of better working conditions. He worked numerous jobs in Johannesburg, spending time as a janitor and a cook and winded up meeting Joseph Shirimani, a Tsonga disco music producer. They decided to record an album together, banging out Shaka Bundu in one week.

The album was a somewhat surprising smash hit. The surprise was that the album’s lyrics are in Penny’s regional Xihlanganu, one of the least-heard languages in South Africa. This was a conscious choice, however, as Penny wanted to bring his language to the world. He got his wish. The album sold widely, the mix of slowed-down European house beats, Penny’s gruff lyrics, and call-and-response backing singers proving irresistible to many. The song Shaka Bundu takes the form of a character assassination of a friend who is trying to pick up Penny’s wife, a scene played out in the above music video. Penny capitalised on his success, touring across the country and releasing subsequent hit albums yet eventually decided to retire. Musicians in South Africa were forced into gruelling tour schedules if they wanted to make any money because music piracy made it hard to gain royalties from songs. So, Penny left music and entered politics as a council member in the African National Congress in an aim to “give back” to the people who had supported his music.

Musical tastes moved, and that could have been it for Penny had it not been for American ethnomusicologist and DJ Brian Shimkovitz. Shimkovitz had discovered Penny’s music and had been filling the dance-floors of LA clubs with his rhythmic tunes. When he started his own label, Awesome Tapes From Africa, he tried to track Penny down to get him on board. This took rather a long time as Shimkovitz focused his efforts on the music world rather than South African national politics. Eventually he managed to reach Penny and they agreed to re-release some of his music. This revived Penny’s career, igniting a world tour that took in the Sydney Opera House. Penny is continuing to record music, moving away from his old Shagaan genre towards a style that he calls “heavy gum” while also dabbling in some South African reality TV. His latest releases come even closer to current red-hot genres like gqom and amapiano. Always a man to move with the times, his music and outlook remain cheerful: “I'm 52. I have a lot of children. I don't have a lot of wives like my father – my father had 25 wives, you know. I only have the one! Haha,” he laughs. “Things have changed.”