Dance and Performance in Political Songs: A Critical Analysis of Jacob Zuma’s Singing of “Umshini Wami” (My Machine Gun)

This study analyses “Umshini wami” (My machine gun), an anti-apartheid struggle song, popularised in post-apartheid South Africa by Jacob Zuma, a former state president who led the country from 2009 to 2017. The song, a musical dramatisation of the struggle of Black South Africans under apartheid, carries various political interpretations, especially in view of condemnations by various progressive bodies. Its leitmotiv is the resilience of the human spirit in the face of racial oppression and injustice under apartheid. Studies on political songs in post-apartheid South Africa dealt with, among other aspects, their role in the history of liberation; their relevance (or lack thereof) in post-independence settings; and their rhetorical use of language in various contexts. This article analyses Zuma’s dance and performance of the song “Umshini wami” in his live appearances in public spaces (as well as in the YouTube videos that capture his performances on stage) in order to establish whether the combination of the song, Zuma’s dance and performance could all work together to influence human behaviour. The findings of the article reveal how the tripartite performative mediums of the song, Zuma’s dance and his performance actions, all of which constitute his moving body on stage, tend to influence human behaviour when there are causative factors and conditions created for this to happen.