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Bok van Blerk - Afrikanerhart

"Super Schalk" is worth a chuckle, but Wicus van der Merwe is funnier. "Brandewyn Het Nie Brieke Nie" is vintage boere pop, but Kurt Darren's "Kaptein" will outlast it by years.

Bok's latest record, Afrikanerhart, tries its best to flesh out the musician behind the manifesto, but in the end, what we really want to hear is his thoughts on Afrikaners, past and present.

Like Madonna, Bok’s popularity is something people love to draw conclusions from. They say: "this is where the country is heading" or "the youth have so-and-so on their mind", usually in tones of desperation. Unlike Madonna, Bok seems to take his negative press very much to heart.

Open up Afrikanerhart and you’ll see a little disclaimer in capital letters:

"Afrikanerhart is nie ‘n lied wat roep na enige vorm van revolusie of opstand nie. Die lied kom uit die musiekspel ‘Ons Vir Jou’ en al wat ons probeer sê is dat die Afrikaner ook gebloei het om Suid-Afrika te bou. Met respek vir alle kulture en hulle geskiedenis kan ons die land saam selfs nog sterker maak."

That's Bok himself deflecting criticism that he’s a right wing, Rainbow Nation-hating opportunist who is selling Afrikaners a dated dream of cultural supremacy. With this release, he must have imagined scores of lefty journalists waiting in the wings, ready to pounce on him at any moment and plaster him from kop tot toon with stickers proclaiming: "Racist!"

He'd be right. A lot of people would love to see him fail. And suddenly you’re smack bang in the middle of the Bok van Blerk world: the world of adversity. Like "De La Rey", Bok's most powerful songs on Afrikanerhart tackle the challenges, imagined or not, of being white and Afrikaans in post-millennium Mzansi.

It is hard to listen to a track like "Die Kleur Van My Vel" and not be violently transported from the middle ground between disgust and admiration. That’s a job well done in the music business, as Madonna knows, and for everyone who will spit at his likeness on the pages of Rapport, Bok can be sure of another volkstrotse fan buying his record wherever they can.

It's not good pop, but it's good politics, and that will always be worth talking about.
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