99% Invisible - 511- Vuvuzela

Episode Date: October 12, 2022

The vuvuzela is a two foot long injection-molded plastic horn. It only plays one note: a B flat. And it gradually became a regular feature of South African soccer. But prior to the 2010 World Cup, the rest of the world had never heard anything quite like it.  Even people in the soccer world didn’t know what they were. But by the time the first game of the tournament was underway, vuvuzelas were all over. For critics, the vuvuzela was a relatively new, mass produced noisemaker. But supporters ended to think of the vuvuzela as an instrument, producing a loud, attention grabbing sound that grew out of South Africa's rich footballing tradition.Vuvuzela

This is 99% Invisible. I'm Roman Mars. In the spring of 2004, journalist Mark Gleason sat in the front row of a small conference room in Switzerland for a big announcement. There was a dramatic buildup, there was a lot of tension, everyone was on edge. The winning bid to host the 2010 FIFA World Cup was about to be revealed, and South Africa was among the leading contenders.

I mean, they had all the top guns go to Zurich for that particular announcement. Mandela was there, Bishop Tutu was there, the former president of Clack was there. South Africa wanted to be the first African nation to host the World Cup. They also wanted the tournament to be the start of a new chapter. During apartheid, the country was banned from the international sporting community. Now they were on the precipice of hosting soccer's biggest event. South Africans gathered in the streets of Johannesburg,

Cape Town, and Durban to await FIFA's decision. I discovered with you, the 2010 FIFA World Cup will be organized in South Africa. You know, South Africa had come full circle in the sense of it's horrible past and how it had moved on from being a pariah state and was now, you know, hosting the biggest event in world sport and very much part of the international family. The celebrations that erupted that day in Zurich were full of cheers and whistles, but also one notorious sound that came to define South Africa's World Cup. The sound of the Vuvuzella. Back in 2004, nobody really talked about Vuvuzella's.

Even people in the soccer world didn't know what they were. Reporter James Parkinson. But six years later, by the time the first game of the tournament was underway, the Vuvuzella was the hottest word in sports. The 2010 FIFA World Cup is ready for kickoff into the sound of 18,000 Vuvuzellas. The fun of a fun of… The Vuvuzella is a two-foot long injection molded plastic horn. It plays only one note, a B-flat, and it gradually became a regular feature of South African

Soccer. But prior to the 2010 World Cup, the rest of the world had never heard anything quite like it. And a lot of people hiked it. It's been likened to a giant swarm of angry hornets or a herd of destroyed elephants. So loud, the stating with the booze, zealous. It's ridiculous, it's not noisy, there's nothing irritating about it. For fans watching abroad, the constant drone of a vuvuzella wasn't what the beautiful game typically sounds like.

European soccer games, or football games, are often characterized by songs and chants bellowed by the supporters. But the harm of 80,000 vizillas drowned out that type of crowd noise. The sound caused actual headaches for television broadcasters. French network TF1 opted to change their commentators' microphones for a kind that would eject more background noise. Other networks chose to use special audio filters to try and eliminate the vivicella from their sound mix altogether. The controversy surrounding the vivicella was hard to ignore.

It drew attention away from the players on the field and placed the focus on the crowd in the stadiums. It also sparked a debate about the history of the vivicella and its true origins. For critics, the vivicella was a relatively new mass-produced noise maker, but for supporters, they tended to think of the vivicella as an instrument, a loud, attention-graping sound that grew out of South Africa's rich football

in tradition. In 1862, there's already documented matches that took place in Cape Town in Port Elizabeth. That's South African football, historian, Peter Allegi. And that is a year before the Football Association was even founded in England and before the first rules of the Association football were codified. Originally the sport was introduced by British colonizers, seeking to impose their beliefs and values on the locals, but quickly South Africans embraced football and made it their own.

It's an interesting story whereby a colonial game really was transformed into a pillar of black culture by the racially oppressed. The game was both affordable and accessible, becoming the sport of the black working class. And when I use the term black, I'm referring to people who either are self-identified or were later classified under apartheid as African, Indian or South Asian and Colored or Multiracial. Football was not held in high regard by officials in the apartheid regime. Sports played predominantly by white South Africans like Cricket and Rugby were the ones that received political backing. So as way to help organize themselves football teams formed supporters clubs.

These were small but muddy organizations made up of fans from each city or town. Supporters clubs would hold fun raises and hammer out travel logistics to away matches. And Black supporters clubs in particular played a special role, giving Black South Africans who had no say in their government a voice to shape their community through the local team. Members held elections for various positions in the supporters club, and also through their formal organization, they tried to influence the football clubs' internal affairs. And so the ability to campaign for office to achieve a kind of social honor and visibility by achieving these high offices

was something that was highly valued, particularly in black communities. By the 1960s, supporter clubs existed all across South Africa and they made their presence known to the noise they generated on game days at the stadium. The crowd have flown wild. Just gravity's left to play, and it's G2, which university's two. Playing music at the grounds, chanting, singing, dancing,

maybe insulting the opponents, this was something intensely pleasurable and entertaining. During this time, political opponents of the apartheid regime were banned from gathering. It was one of the many ways the government tried to suppress the liberation movement, but football games and the noise and crowd that came with them made it harder to prevent black politicians from sitting together. It provided cover, in a way, by allowing activists to have conversations and even organized particular subversive activities, and in doing so, kind of undermining the white state's

surveillance and censorship. The stadiums were a sort of sanctuary, a place where you could get rowdy and thumb your nose at the government, where you could fly the flag of the anti-apartheid movement while rooting for your favorite team. It was also the place where you could hear one charismatic fan pick up his horn and make a sound that would soon be heard around the world. So myself, I'm an owner, I'm a founder, I'm the pioneer of the Bupacera. It's started by me.

This is Freddie Marquet. They call me Mr Bupacera when I walk around. Freddie actually prefers to be called Saddam, an edgy nickname he received during the Gulf War because he used to set off huge firecrackers at football matches. People would say it sounded like the Iraq War on TV. Saddam Marke is a soccer freak or a superfan as they're known in South Africa, the most passionate football supporters. It loves the South Africa national team and his local club Kaiser

Chips from Johannesburg. He can be seen at games wearing oversized yellow glasses, a jersey and a mining helmet known as a marker wrapper, painted it in the team's colours. For Saddam, you might say football is life. My first wife divorced me because of a soccer. I said, chips is my first wife. You're my second wife. Every day, every night, when I sleep, I sleep chips.

I sleep soccer, eat soccer, I talk soccer. I can't talk to you without talking about soka. In between all the soka chat I did manage to learn where Saddam grew up, the province of Limpoppa with his large family. His claim to the vivicella dates back to his childhood and a gift he received to his birthday in 1965. The hooter, Saddamer's referencing, is a bicycle horn.

He'd bring that horn to local football games to support his team, but instead of squeezing the little rubber bowl with the end, he'd take that off and blow into the horn. I was doing that one to entertain the players, motivate them, encourage them to score and just say them with this one. 1965, when I arrived in Grand Speck. Saddam liked the sound that attached bicycle horn made. He called it a paulafala. When his local football club, the Kaiser Chiefs, was established in 1970, Saddam says he brought a number of other homemade horns to the game.

This included a large aluminium horn, he called a burgui blast. The burgui blast was basically a long metal stick you could blow into. It was also a long metal stick you could beat someone up with, so stadiums eventually banded. But by then, in 1989, Sardam says he met with a plastic-smanu factor, and asked him to make a plastic version of the burgui blast. This new instrument they created, Sanat Simla. But it had a different name. I call it this one, Vuvuzela. Vuvuzela is derived from Zulu.

Vuvuzela means welcome and unite. Same thing, Vuvuzela, welcome and unite. Saddam says he coined the name Vuvuzela back in 1992, a claim he supports, with photos of him blowing his many horns at football games in the 70s and 80s and a Vuvuzela in the 90s. He also recorded an album in 1999 titled Vuvuzela Cellula. So now I'm trying to sell some of these plastic horns at football matches, but it just never really gained traction. Even at cars of Chafes games, it would often be one of the only supporters in the crowd, blowing a vuvuzella. However, that slowly started to change when a company in Cape Town started mass producing

their own plastic warrants, which they also called the vuvuzella. The company's name is Massin Fedani Sports. The click is important because the name of the company is from Iskosa. This is Duane Jethro. He studies South African culture and wrote about the history of the vivisower. Duane says that back in 2001, Neil Vanskogvik and his partner, Bevel Bachmann, got funding to get their business off the ground. He pitched this idea of injection molding a horn to a certain size and a certain specification

that would be easily used at foot pro matches. Around the same time this new company was getting started Saddam Make says he approached Neil van Skolkvik to tell him that he was the true inventor of the vuvuzella. Saddam says he tried to strike a business deal. Did you ever speak with Neil? Neil Van... Yes, I speak to you. I speak to you and he promised me, each move is Ella. I'm going to get a fight right out of each move is Ella. And I never get even a cent, but I didn't worry. I didn't complain, I said to myself, God is great.

We tried to track Neil Van's Skulkvik down for an interview, but run successful. According to media reports, he denied ever meeting with Saddam Makhay in 2001. In interviews, Van Skullcvik didn't claim to be the inventor of the Vibuzella, but he and his company assert that they did popularize it. Their version of the horn was cheaper and safer, and that you couldn't beat someone up with one. Actually, Raymond, you technically could beat someone up with it. Right. It wouldn't hurt as bad.

Well, look, you know, we were at the forefront of developing the first plastic version of a turn-horn that used to be used in, you know, football, the Ainsard Africa. And because, you know, those horns were quite unsafe at the time, we saw the gap in the market to produce a plastic version of that one. Initially, Vince Goldfix Company also struggled to sell their Vuvozele's, but that changed when they started to focus on the marketing. The company had that Vuvozele's for free at football matches and partnered with some local clubs to get more of them into South Africa's stadiums.

It wasn't long before there was more interest in the Vuvuzella and sales started to grow. Soon, the instrument could be distinctly heard at games across the country. about to get on a waste and on the fabrics on the floor and just their macabre. So that's the change and chiefs it made. The Vuvuzella effectively being Agent Eric Horn meant that Vince Gulkvik wasn't able to patent the design. But the word Vuvuzella was unique, so his company got a trademark for the name. And as South Africa prepared, they bid to host the 2010 World Cup. Vince Gulkvik and his company were ready to capitalize on the event. the 2010 World Cup, fans Goldwick and his company were rated to capitalize on the event. The company's efforts were designed to position the vivisower as authentic, including its official slogan, the original sound of South Africa.

They recognized that there was a marketing opportunity in having the vuvuzella in the hands of important South African footballing officials, but also politicians that were trying to drum up support both locally and internationally for South Africa's. So what you saw was things like the gifting of vuvuzelas as diplomatic gifts on local stages, politicians were handed, vuvuzelas, etc. When FIFA announced South Africa's winning bid to host the tournament, the joyful celebrations included these plastic vuvuzillas. The aggressive marketing worked, and the lead up to the World Cup, the sound of South African football was inextricably linked to the vuvuzella.

The instrument even appeared in national marketing campaigns, fronted by prominent rugby players who'd been called in to promote the 2009 Confederations Cup, a sort of test run tournament for the World Cup. The Confederations Cup was the first time a global TV audience had been exposed to the Vuvazela. Not long after the first game, the international debate started taking off. One thing that I found, I don't know if I'm the only person I found excruciating was this constant droning. Oh yeah. It was going on. They're growing. These are trumpet looking I don't know how they have enough air in their lungs and it never ends. Yeah. And it is

just a, it is like you are, you are being attacked by a swarm of locusts for 90 consecutive minutes. I know exactly what you're talking about. How can they constantly do that? I don't know. I don't know if they take turns, but it is. Media reports were quick to raise concerns about the Vuvuzela's potential impact on the World Cup.

Set Blatter, the beloved and totally non-controversial FIFA president, was asked if the Viva Zalla was going to be banned at the upcoming World Cup. To the surprise of many, he came out in support of the instrument, saying it is African culture. We are in Africa, and we have to allow them to practice their culture as much as they want to. He's journalist Mark Gleason again. It struck me at that point that that was the turning moment because I do think it was a bit of an issue for FIFA, whether the Vuvuzela was going to be part of the 2010 World Cup or not.

It's a moment I remember very distinctly and thinking to myself, this is the Vuvuzela now. We will have the Vuvuzela in 2010. From the moment the World Cup kicked off, the Wu-Wu Zelda was a constant and persistent presence. From the atmosphere and the stadiums to the jokes on late-night TV, it was inescapable. While broadcasters were trying to mitigate the noise on their end, DIY solutions were making their way around the internet. One of them involved writing your TV's audio through your computer and using software to

remove the particular frequencies of the Vivicella. And as the tournament continued, players on the field cited the Vivicella for causing communication problems. Lino Messi, regarded by many as the best player in the world, even went so far as to blame the noise for his team conceding a goal. The complaints were even enough to inspire a study from the South African medical journal. It measured the vivicella's sound levels, which peaked at 131 decibels. That's as loud as a jackhammer or a jet engine.

It concluded that prolonged or regular exposure could cause noise-induced hearing loss. There was no middle ground with the vivicella. You either loved it or hated it. Most of the Vuvozala outrage came from a very Eurocentric perspective. It was an argument about what was considered appropriate in football fan culture, which Duane Jethroy says was an attack on the idea of African-ness. It raises old, old ideas of Africa's dark continent, cultural forms from Africa as being primitive or outdated, etc. And I think that's how the outrage was received in South Africa. And it was in that space that not only the South African Football Association,

but also South African fans started to speak back and speak out and to say that this is how we represent ourselves in our sporting traditions and sporting fan culture. While the Vivi Zoa was condemned by international audiences, it's also true that many visitors to South Africa embraced it. For comedian Trevor Noah and plenty of other South Africans, the appropriation was the problem. In South Africa, we should have a thing where you have to have a license to blow a Vousela.

You can't just come here, not knowing voo-vousela etiquette, blowing it randomly. The English fans, the Spanish fans should be blowing the vizelas. There's no doubt that for thousands of South Africans, the vuvuzella was an expression of national identity. But as the first African nation to host the World Cup, the instrument came to represent more than just South Africa. For viewers watching around the world, it represented the sound of an entire continent. That was by design. FIFA and South Africa's organizing committee marketed the tournament as Africa's World Cup.

The slogan was, celebrate Africa's humanity. Even the official song of the tournament, which you'll surely remember, proclaims this time is for Africa. And because the Vivicella became such a huge focal point of the event, Petyr Lege says the instrument got wrapped up in all the arcanography of the tournament, too. The government was keen on using it because it's side as a symbol of, you know, African-ness. But there are also other African visitors who hated it, who said, you know, we have no tradition of horn blowing where I come from.

So how is this supposed to represent pan-Africanism? The disneyification of the tournament made the Vizella fill cheap, like the rest of the marketing around it. And with that cheapness, came a certain skepticism about its authenticity. Despite the instrument being so criticized, people still wanted to claim credit for its existence. The disputes over its history and origin played out side by side with the tournament. One story the press picked up connected the vivicella to the horn of the kudu, a species

of antelope. Historicly, animal horns have been used in South African culture, but the theory linking the kudo horn to the vivazewa was likely inspired by one supporter of the team Mamolody Sundowns, who was known to bring the horn to football games. He is researcher Dwayne Jethro again. While it is absolutely true that we have indigenous traditions of horn blowing in South Africa, whether and how we can trace a genealogy of the vuvuzela all the way back to those indigenous traditions, that's open to argument and debate.

Another claim came from the Nazareth Baptist Church, also known as the Shembae, who have a horn of their own. The Shembae Church operates in the Kuzalunatal area. They have an annual pilgrimage and during this annual pilgrimage they use a horn called the Izibomu. When football fans were blowing the fulfusela they felt that the Holy spudded was generated

by their own had been appropriated in this context of a football atmosphere. The Shembe first accused Saddam Maki of appropriating the Isambomu. They said he visited the church in the 90s and fashioned his own version in plastic when he wasn't allowed to bring the metal horn into stadiums. Saddam denies these accusations. The church threatened the legal action initially against FIFA and World Cup organizers before going after Neil van Skolkvik and his company. According to media reports at the time, the two parties eventually came to a settlement. All these claims regarding the origin of the Fuvuzella are compelling in their own way,

but it was the heightened context of the World Cup tournament that raised the stakes in the ownership debate. In all cultural heritage debates, origins and ownership are really important elements and strands of being able to claim a certain heritage tradition. You cannot claim a heritage tradition until you can claim ownership and a valid persuasive origin story. Despite the lack of a straightforward origin story, the vivazella is still considered cultural heritage, at least in the eyes of some institutions. The United Kingdom's National Football Museum and the British Museum both have vizellas

in their collections. So if we use the collecting principles of these heritage institutions as a guideline for how heritage is staked and made, then you see the vovuzella entering into that heritage narrative. I mean, the British Museum is no stranger to stealing credit for cultural artifacts. But if you look up the Vivicella's listing on their website, there is only one origin

story they recognize. For me to talk about this Wusella, you make my day. I attribute the invention to none other than Freddie Saddam Marquet. Saddam's story is the closest thing the Vivazela has to an actual origin story. And unlike the noise that surrounded the Vivazela in 2010, his story at its core is simple. He loved his team and he wanted to show his support for them as loud as possible. Today, we Vizela's aren't nearly as prominent as they were back in 2010. A few years after the South African World Cup ended, FIFA turned around and banned them

from all major tournaments, and several other major sports leagues have as well. But for Dwayne Jethro, that comes with his overlining. I'm very glad that no future World Cup tournament will be blessed with a beautiful sound of the Vuvuzella, that the sound will always remain South African. Just a few months ago, the South African women's football team won their first ever Africa Cup of Nations. When the team arrived at the airport, they were greeted by fans expressing their national pride through songs and chants. Saddam Marquet was there too, blowing his Vivizzella.

They were no complaints about the noise. The fans just celebrated the way they wanted to celebrate. So I'm back with James Parkinson and you've got another story about football culture in South Africa for us. Yes, so if you have interesting details, came up while I was working on this story and it has to do with that culture of noise making in the stadiums and I'm dropping you a picture now so you can see what I'm talking about. So this must be Saddam Make who we we heard from in the piece, who has a really great voice and a really great look to go with it. Yes, this is Saddam of Vivice Alaphayne. And in this picture,

he's decked out in all this gear, screaming his lungs out at a football match. He's wearing really large, comically yellow glasses and a helmet with all the different logos on it and AC stickers of Kaiser Chiefs and even Orlando Pirates on it. Yes, so what I want to talk about is that helmet, the Macarapa, because that was another item like the Vizella that gained popularity during the World Cup.

So the word Macarapa actually means scrapers. And scrapers is a reference to the migrant workers. He used to move into cities like Johannesburg to work in the mines. People would say they scrape for a living. And so the story goes that Kaiser Chiefs fan, not Saddam this time, went to a particularly rarity game back in the 70s, where he saw someone

get hit in the head with a bottle. So naturally for the next game, he thought, you know, I'd just... I was like, well, I should wear that helmet. Yeah, exactly. All these people wearing helmets, I should wear helmet. Yeah. So this fan started painting these helmets in the Tim's colors and selling them at

games and it became a thing. But this isn't the only connection between the minds of South Africa and noise making in the stadiums. Do I, and Jethro told me there's also this sound. It's a kind of alarm. It's a kind of alarm, it's a wind up alarm, it goes, ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo the games, and they're pretty popular in the 90s. Yeah. Because these are working class fans, so they're bringing what they have on them. They're bringing their helmets, they're bringing their sirens that they use in everyday

life. Yeah, they'll picking up their helmets and, you know, these alarms and sort of repurposing them to reflect their lives as miners in the culture of South African football. Oh, I love that. I love that. Yeah, and one of my favorite examples of this is that they repurbished a work song they would sing in the minds that fans would then sing, you know,

Lately, it games and it's called Shoshu Loza. And you sing it, it goes something like Shosholoza, Muzhez, Uta-Bast, Tumela, Sumela, Deh-ma-le, na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na you sing when you really want to arouse up the crowd and South Africans across the board know the song. And it speaks to migrants moving from different parts of Southern Africa to come and work on their minds. So, Joshua Walser, this traditional minor song

actually became quite popular in the 90s. People refer to it as South Africa's second national anthem. It was sung in a call and response style by the workers to kind of generate a rhythm and also to alleviate stress from working long hard days underground. Shoshalwaza means go forward or make the way for the next man. And famously Nelson Mandela spoke about how he would sing this song while he was in prisons on Robin Ireland off the coast of Cape Town, along with, you know, many political prisoners, and the ways in which the song reflected

the struggle during apartheid. Hmm, I mean, it reminds me of something that you mentioned in the piece that these games and the noise that surrounds them. I mean, yes, it's about sports and a game and about leisure and fun, but it's also like a certain amount of political resistance just built into the fact that there's people singing along loudly in a stadium,

they're playing instruments, and this is way to make noise for your team, but also, you know, let the powers of B know that, you know, we're all here, and there's a bunch of us, and we're all here. Yeah, we're here, let you know. 99% Invisible Was Produced This Week by James Parkinson, edited by Jason D'Alione, sound mixed by Martin Gonzales, music bar director of sound, Swan Rio. With additional music provided by Freddie Saddam Make, fact checking by Graham Haysha, Delini Hall is our senior editor at Kirk Coleset is the digital director. Levy Green is our intern. The resident includes Vivian Leigh, Loshamadon, Chris Barouba, Emmett Fitzgerald, Christopher

Johnson, Jacob Multanada Medina, Kelly Prime, Joe Rosenberg, Sophia Klassker, and me Roman Mars. Special thanks to Dwayne Jathro, he's the author of Heritage, Formation, and the Census and Post-Apartade South Africa, which includes a chapter called Vuvuzela Magic. Peter Allegi is also the author of several books, including LaDouma Soccer, Politics and Society in South Africa, and thanks to Peter Druie, who we also spoke with for the story. We are part of the Citrus and Sirius XM podcast family. Now headquartered six blocks north in the Pandora building.

And beautiful. Uptown. Oakland, California. You can find the show and join discussions about the show on Facebook. You can tweet at me at Roman Mars and the show at 999 PI orc. Well on Instagram, read it and now tick-tock too. You can find links to other stitch art shows I love,

as well as every past episode of 99PO at 99p P.O.D. Say, be my child, come on you, you're too much, oh, when my child, say, do not you dare, say, be my child,