Far from the old Kalahari, a new generation of Afrikaners are fitting three-liter V6 engines into the ox-wagons of Afrikaans musical culture. And they aren’t taking their stukkies to the drive-in either. Instead, they are trekking over the Rubicon to see whether there is more to life than ‘will you love me, baby’.

Driven by the specter of smug suburbia, they have come together at Shifty Records and recorded a compilation album of Afrikaans songs, and judging by the response to Die Eerste Alternatiewe Afrikaans Konsert, it’s really going to stir things up.

This album is not another feeble, self-conscious attempt at emulating overseas Top 20 hits with affected accents. Neither does it consist of trite themes told through banal lyrics.

It is the ‘hot Karoo soul’ Khaki Monitor, Die Gereformeerde Blues Band’s bluesy, fifties ‘rock”n roll; it is ‘muurmusiek” (as distinguished from “kamermu……iek”) by Koos; it is the Cape flats goema of the Genuines; The Kerels “potjiekos pop”; it is Randy Rambo en die Rough Riders; Bernoldus Niemand, Pieter van der Lugt and Andre Letoit.

Its new, it’s contemporary, it’s Afrikaans. The existing Afrikaans music,” says Randy Rambo, “caters for people over forty. This music is much more in touch with the times.