5 legendary Afrikaans musicians to watch online

Showmax is bopping, grooving and moving to the sounds of Afrikaans tunes. From doccies, to album launches and international tours, you can stream them all with a handful of button clicks!

Famed musician, visual arts performer and ex-journalist Johannes Kerkorrel is revered for his work 20+ years after he committed suicide in the 2016 documentary Johnny Is Nie Dood Nie.

He was more than just an artist – and the celebrities interviewed in this doccie remember him as a friend, a brother, a father and a fellow music lover. To see the way they talk about him, the way he impacted them as professionals and humans is humbling. And he was pretty good with his music, which grabbed headlines across the world as he took on the oppressive apartheid government both locally and on foreign soil. This doccie is available on Showmax until 2 February 2021.

Another title to watch if you’re feeling nostalgic for everything Kerkorrel did for music in the country is Die Heuwels Fantasties’s Eet Kreef Herleef, which brings his 1989 album firmly into the present.

Rock queen Karen Zoid doesn’t just play music on her talk show, Die Republiek van Zoid Afrika – she invites celeb guests across the arts to visit, discuss the world we live in and the Afrikaans art and performance scene. Everyone from iconic news anchor Riaan Cruywagen and comedian Casper de Vries, to actress Anna Mart van der Merwe and late music great Johnny Clegg stop by for a visit. There’s singing, there’s dancing, there’s debate and more – and each episode ends with a music performance.

For more Zoid magic, check out her visual album, Op Die Oomblik and her collaboration with Francois van Coke, Toe Vind Ek Jou.

The Cape Town-based fun-loving rockers have two shows for you. Live In Lockdown 2021 is 84 minutes of the five guys playing all 20 of their newest songs from their album 2021, which was written, recorded and mastered during the 2020 Covid-19 lockdown. Expect fun-filled lyrics, catchy riffs and loads of spinning around the “stage”.

And in Eet Kreef Herleef, the guys put a spin on music by iconic Afrikaans singer Johannes Kerkorrel, revamping his 1989 album Eet Kreef and giving it a more up-to-date sound, which doing the music justice at the same time.

Afrikaans’s greatest-ever rapper Jack Parow’s rise to fame has been phenomenal. And it’s something he always wanted, having chosen his future as a young boy named Zander Tyler growing up in the impoverished Cape Town suburb of Durbanville.

With his ridiculously long-billed peak cap, he has carved more than his own notch on the music scene – he’s taken Afrikaans and his performances international, and the doccie Parow to Parowfest not only follows his career tale, it also goes with Jack on his tour to the Netherlands where he sold out stadiums across the European country.

By day, Francois is the frontman of rock bands Fokofpolisiekar and Van Coke Kartel and a respected solo artist. By night (technically daytime too, if that’s when you’re streaming) he’s a Showmax superstar with three, count them, three music doccies to stream.

In Francois & Tasche, he performs 102 minutes of music opposite Tasche Burger, who Francois mentored to victory in The Voice South Africa in 2019. For Francois Van Coke: Stories Agter Die Tunes, the singer-song-writer-musician explores some of his favourite songs and the personal stories that influenced their creation and his career. It’s an intimate setting and more musos should do this – especially during lockdown. And in Toe Vind Ek Jou, Francois joins rocker Karen Zoid and they perform loads of their own music, covers and an impossibly pretty duet version of Karen’s love ballad Toe Vind Ek Jou. Ag jinne, dis verskriklik mooi!