Drum magazine stands as a historically important publication that emerged during a turbulent time in South Africa, serving as an instrument to challenge the apartheid regime. In honor of Freedom Day, this article highlights, commemorates, and applauds Drum magazine, a publication that came into existence during a politically charged period in the country and played a significant role in dismantling apartheid.
Drum magazine becomes an online-only magazine this month, almost 70 years after it was first launched as an African print publication. The magazine is now a celebrity-focused human interest magazine. But it played a very different role in the 1950s and 1960s, when it is widely considered to have created new possibilities for identity for black South Africans.
Drum, June 1957.
Origins and Early Years
The African Drum was launched in 1951. The magazine was initially known as African Drum and was established in 1951 by Robert James Crisp- a former cricketer-turned-broadcaster and journalist and James R.A. Bailey- an Anglo-South African writer and ex-Royal Air force pilot who provided the financial backing for its publication before taking full-control.
Under Crisp’s editorship, African Drum reportedly featured paternalistic and tribal representations of Africans and readership essentially dropped. The magazine was initially known as “African Drum”, with its aim being one intended to depict Black South Africans as ‘noble savages’, and this under the editorship of Bob Crisp. The sales for the magazine were low and the readers who reside in the townships could not implement the agricultural tips suggested. Copies were said to have been sent by the South African government abroad, this serving as evidence over their success in managing the ‘Bantu’.
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After a lacklustre three months, the owner, Jim Bailey, brought a friend out from England, Anthony Sampson, to edit the magazine. After Crisp was replaced by British writer and Editor Anthony Sampson, the magazine experienced a large shift and began to place emphasis on the reality of Black urban township life. Bailey implemented a few changes in the management as well as the content which mainly concerned articles that relate to the ecology and agriculture as well as documenting music from the African tribal genre. The editor team was changed to include journalist such as Henry Nxumalo and Anthony Sampson worked together to revamp the design, aesthetics and content to fit in with the demands of the market.
The magazine set its headquarters in Johannesburg (the hub and chief magnet with its mines, shebeens, dancehalls and snappy dressers) and was renamed Drum. One of the changes that followed the magazine was to emulate an American culture, which was seen as being more contemporary, the decision was in support of the African advisory board to assist with the transition.
In the initial years the publication was only in circulation in South Africa, where the major focus was on Johannesburg, and then moved to include covering the rest of the African continent.
The "Drum Boys" and Their Impact
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“The Drum boys”, a group of young writers employed by the magazine in its early years, served an emerging urban black readership in the first decade of apartheid, which came into force in 1948. Writers came from diverse backgrounds. Todd Matshikiza was a musician (and went on to compose the musical King Kong). Can Themba, a teacher, won a fiction contest held by the magazine in 1952. Arthur Maimane was a schoolboy from St Peter’s Secondary School in Sophiatown with a passion for American crime writing.
A young German, Jürgen Schadeberg, took the pictures, later joined by Bob Gosani and Peter Magubane. The main photographer and artistic director was Jürgen Schadeberg who arrived in South Africa in 1950 after leaving a war ravaged Berlin. He became one of the rare European photographers to photograph the daily lives of Black people. He trained a generation of rising black photographers, including Ernest Cole, Bob Gosani and later Peter Magubane.
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Mostly without journalism training, the Drum writers began experimenting with tales of everyday life in the black townships. Their lively chronicles of urban adventures made them popular characters, as well as contributing to Drum’s commercial success. Matshikiza developed a lively style to write about jazz, which was dubbed “Matshikese”. Maimane wrote serialised fiction in the mode of American hard-boiled detective stories. In their stories, they used the styles of fiction writing more than news reporting, as many of the Drum writers also wrote short stories and novels.
Drum also encouraged fiction. Es'kia Mphahlele (the fiction editor from 1955 to 1957) encouraged and guided this. During that time over 90 short stories were published by such authors as Todd Matshikiza, Bloke Modisane, Henry Nxumalo, Casey Motsisi, Arthur Maimane (alias Mogale), Lewis Nkosi, Nat Nakasa, Can Themba and others. These stories described the people of the street; jazz musicians, gangsters, shebeen queens and con men and were written in a uniquely Sophiatown-influenced blend of English and Tsotsitaal.
Investigative Journalism and Rising Popularity
At first, circulation was slow to pick up. Then Nxumalo pitched a story about the abuse of labourers on the farms of Bethal. Drum published its first major story in March 1952, entitled ‘Bethal Today’. It was an eight page, investigative article on a farm in Bethal were labourers encountered gross abuse. One of the Drum journalists Henry Nxumalo “Mr Drum” went undercover, posing as one of the labourers on the farm, this done to uncover needed information and material for the story. His story, which uncovered the harsh and abusive conditions at the farm was accompanied by undeniable proof from pictures taken by his fellow work mate Schandeburg.
Nxumalo and photographer Schadeberg posed as a visiting journalist and his servant to gain access to the farms. The magazine published an eight-page article outlining the abuses, bylined “Mr Drum”. After this, Drum carried regular investigations, mostly driven by Nxumalo. He got himself arrested so that he could write about prison conditions and took a job at a farm where a worker had been killed. Drum sales hit 73,657 in 1955, making it the largest circulation magazine in Africa in any language. The magazine grew to be the largest circulation publication for black readers in South Africa, and expanded to include East and West African editions.
The backbone of the magazine was crime, investigative reporting, sex (especially if across the colour line) and sport. The formula worked and made for compulsive reading. Each issue of DRUM was read by up to 9 people, passed from hand to hand on the streets, in the clubs or on the trains.
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Drum's Content and Focus
Drum was a South Africa magazine that is targeted mainly at Black readers. It contains within it feature articles, entertainment and market news. In 2005 Drum was described as "the first black lifestyle magazine in Africa", but it is noted chiefly for its early 1950s and 1960s reportage of township life under apartheid.
The magazine may have highlighted the injustices that Black people experienced during apartheid, but it also highlighted the everyday lives of Black people. The magazine profiled the closest thing to normalcy that Black people experience in townships. The magazine covered the entirety of the Black experience.
Drum described the world of the urban Black; the culture, the colour, dreams, ambitions, hopes and struggles. Also documented by Drum was, multiracial affairs and integrated communities which were never shown in other publications. The "Drum era" of the 1950s has been romanticised as “the fabulous decade” through posters, photographs, film and exhibitions.
Challenges and Repression
The devil-may-care spirit of the Drum writers, however, was difficult to sustain as the apartheid structures bore down on them. In an effort to depict the true realities of African lives, the publication faced clashes with the state as it enforced “efforts to censor the press escalated from the middle of the 1950s and in 1956 for instance ( Clowes 2008:181).
In December 1956, Nxumalo was stabbed to death while out on an investigation. During its peak, one of its most notable and celebrated editors was Henry 'Mr Drum' Nxumalo, who was brutally murdered, which cut his illustrious career short. The increasing repression of the 1960s destroyed the journalists of the “Drum school”. Most went into exile.
Between the years 1965 and 1968 the publication faced major troubles as it was banned by the state. By May 1965 DRUM had faded and became simply a fortnightly supplement magazine. It was revived in 1968.
Legacy and Revival
In the 1980s, many of the early Drum writers were unbanned, releasing their writing back into South Africa’s public domain. Mike Nicol, who wrote a book on 1950s Drum, describes the impact of this moment as history shifting beneath one’s feet, revealing a “lost country”. There was surge of interest by literature scholars.
The title was eventually revived, and sold in 1984 to Nasionale Pers, an Afrikaans media company with close ties to the apartheid government. Even after decades, such publications are important and relevant. Wherever there are wars, oppression and injustices are inevitable. Drum and similar publications such as Staffrider will never cease to be necessary.
The Importance of Drum Magazine Today
As surreal as it sounds, people did experience sporadic feelings of happiness which Drum highlighted. Even in times of turmoil, people should be allowed to celebrate their accomplishments and proudly flaunt things that bring them joy, no matter how frivolous they may seem to others. This is the case with beauty pageants.
Drum was a platform to highlight influential Black people who served as an inspiration for young Black people. The magazine often profiled Black, beautiful and boisterous divas, namely Miriam Makeba, Letta Mbulu, Dorothy Masuku and Dolly Rathebe to name a few.
The magazine played an integral part in emboldening the voices of Black people and gave them a public platform to freely engage ideas with other like-minded thought leaders. Drum amplified the names of Black South African writers, journalists, anti-apartheid freedom fighters, beauty queens, gangsters and musicians.
Drum becomes an online-only magazine this month, almost 70 years after it was first launched as an African print publication.
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