South African Music in the History of Epidemics

South Africa is currently considered the epicenter of the global HIV/AIDS pandemic, but it has also witnessed several other disease epidemics in the past, such as smallpox, which plagued the region for nearly two centuries between 1713 and the late nineteenth century, and the 1918 influenza outbreak. This article, which is based on archival and ethnographic study, is a historiography of music in times of epidemics in South Africa. It offers a perspective on how persistent sociocultural conditions can account for regularities in people’s responses to disease. In juxtaposing case studies of musical responses to historical smallpox and influenza epidemics with the current use of music in the context of HIV/AIDS, this article explores the meanings that people make of their experiences of diseases. By positing a close reading of the song examples, it suggests that sociocultural factors such as race and ethnicity, economics and spirituality, comprise important frameworks for constructing meanings around the issue of health and in the context of epidemics.