The Gendered Sound of South Africa: Karen Zoid and the Performance of Nationalism in the New South Africa

Hammond, Nicol, Yearbook for Traditional Music

Introduction: How Karen Zoid became the voice of a generation

In 2002, less than a year after releasing her first album, Afrikaans rocker Karen Zoid gained a level of notoriety then unheard of among Afrikaans female musicians. She achieved this when she enacted the overtly masculine rock ritual that Aerosmith's Joe Perry has labelled "the ultimate statement of anarchy" (Perry, quoted in Christensen 2004): she smashed her guitar. While frequently interpreted as an attention-getting strategy (which it undeniably was), Karen Zoid's performance was also an act of political positioning, locating her within the already passé tropes of international rock, but also on the margins of the …

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Publication information: Article title: The Gendered Sound of South Africa: Karen Zoid and the Performance of Nationalism in the New South Africa. Contributors: Hammond, Nicol - Author. Journal title: Yearbook for Traditional Music. Volume: 42. Publication date: January 1, 2010. Page number: 1+. © International Council for Traditional Music 2007. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All Rights Reserved.

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