Afrocentric analysis of music in political advertisements of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF)

Abstract

In 2009, South Africa saw another landmark with the introduction of political advertisements on television. Literature is littered with studies of political advertisements on television. In these studies, 1) background music is merely an accompaniment to advertisement voiceover and images, rather than an argument itself. Little is known about 2) the discursive role of background political music as a means of conveying political messages in political television advertisements, 3) the underlying ideology and 4) Afrocentric rhetoric in political music used in political television advertisements. Considering the above, this paper interrogates the Afrocentric perspective underlying the rhetoric of background music in the political television advertisements of the South African opposition political party, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) from 2014 to 2021. This study employs the decolonial thought of the Afrocentric perspective as a theory and a research method to interrogate underlying rhetoric in political music. Findings of the paper revealed that the EFF background music is highly political, Afrocentric and inherently rhetorical.