The Fong Kong Bantu Sound System (FKBSS) had its beginnings when a some of Cape Town's oldest underground DJs pooled their resources and formed a sound system which ranges from African hip-hop to Latin soul, playing rare grooves like Hugh Masekela's lost afro-funk b-sides to Kabelo's latest kwaito anthem or classics by Brenda Fassie and Damian Marley.
Why the Fong Kong Bantu? Whether in the spazas of Soweto or the bazaars of Grey Street, we see fake consumer goods flooding our world and our minds. All those goods are " fong kong" - fake stuff. And Bantu is our word for people, used against our people by the apartheid bureaucrats as a derogatory term. In the "New" South Africa, we are all fake people, whether sitting in our concrete ghettoes or behind our suburban security gates: our identities manufactured, played over and over on MTV and Channel O. The FKBSS wants to sell you black market identities, the kind of consciousness you can't get on hi-rotation music TV.
