Hawk - Africa She Too Can Cry
SKU
FRESH137
The year is 1973 and in South Africa, the stranglehold of apartheid and the oppression of its opponents is increasing all the time, the noose growing ever tighter. These were strange and scary times, when the law forbade marriages across the colour bar, legislation enforced the separation of the different races and having friends of different races could land you in trouble with the authorities. It was also a time of a huge surge in original local music, an era when South Africa produced some of its finest bands. And leading the charge was Hawk, who going against the trend, turned their backs on the music coming out of Europe and America and turned to their African musical roots. Buoyed by the success of their first album, African Day a thinly disguised commentary of South Africa and its insane politics - in 1971, followed by the seminal Africa She Too Can Cry, in 1972, Hawk had already established itself as one of the country's premier rock outfits. Explains Braam Malherbe, a member of the original Hawk line-up: It (African Day) was political, you know. I mean there's the elephant destroying things left, right and centre driving people from their land. We were making a huge comparison if anyone had analysed the words then, they would have realised what we were all about." Like its predecessor, Africa She Too Can Cry, was a concept album, a social commentary on the madness that was South Africa in the 1970s. "I remember playing at the Klerksdorp Civic Centre. It was surreal: the black members of Hawk were not allowed to appear on stage with their white brothers. But a special concession was made and the black members were allowed to play as long as they were hidden behind a curtain on the stage..."-South African Rock Encyclopedia [Fresh]