‘I might seem out of place here’: Exploring Whiteness and Belonging in Hog Hoggidy Hog’s Oink!

Abstract

Hog Hoggidy Hog were a band from Cape Town, who integrated punk, ska, metal, rock, jazz and ghoema into music they aimed to be ‘visceral’, and to ‘transcend genre’ – a music they named ‘Pork Rock’. During the band’s career, which spanned two decades, they performed across South Africa and internationally, and released four full-length studio albums and three EP’s. The band’s tenure as a leading force in South African underground music ended with the death of their singer George Bacon in 2015. Their penultimate studio album, Oink!, released in 2004, saw Hog Hoggidy Hog exploring themes such as drug addiction, their move from underground to mainstream, self-loathing and South African post-apartheid racial tension. Musically Oink! features greater integration of musical styles and genres as well as a slicker production than in previous albums, factors which culminate in the band’s cover of Johnny Clegg’s ‘Great Heart’.
This paper takes the arguments made by Samantha Vice in her 2010 article, ‘How Do I Live in This Strange Place?’, as a theoretical framework to investigate Hog Hoggidy Hog’s expression of racial discomfort. Through discussions of punk’s political history, lyrical content and the musical hybridity of Oink!, I argue that this album represents the positioning of white South Africans as that of simultaneous belonging and not belonging.