‘Passionate, curiously-coloured things’: Chameleon sexuality in Ek herhaal jou

Abstract

In 2005 Chris Chameleon, one of South Africa’s most popular and prolific Afrikaans musicians, released the album, Ek herhaal jou. The album is a popular music song-cycle in which 16 Ingrid Jonker poems are set to music. In the past Chameleon has proven to be an ambiguous persona in the realms of gender and sexuality, and I have therefore chosen to focus on these realms in terms of an investigation into Chameleon’s transgenderist performance on the album. The article aims to illustrate that (a) it is the ability of this ‘curiously coloured’ Chameleon to adapt his performance persona within various contexts that allows him to possess ‘chameleon sexuality’, that is a sexuality which is able to transcend normative, binary sexual conceptualisations and is most visible in Chameleon’s performative use of transgenderism, and that (b) it is his ability to create a malleable musical lexicon that allows this ‘chameleon sexuality’ to permeate the music on Ek herhaal jou.

Journal of the Musical Arts in Africa Volume 5 2008, 75–87