The Nostalgia of Stokvel Parties – A Plea to Regenerate the Nation’s Soul

I was 11 years old when i fell in love with Zonke Dikana, it was the second day of my sleepover with my then best friend. I don’t recall much of the whole day but I remember a quick road trip around 6pm to one of her mom’s friend’s house in Pretoria North. This was a normal occurance to her, not the late-night driving to one of her aunt’s houses, but the occassion we were going to attend. A few of my own family members participated in this ocassion but not my parents so this was the first time I’d get to experience it myself.

The glorious event that is a stokvel/society party. I couldn’t believe I was finally attending a “societe”. A stokvel, to those who are unfamiliar, is a crowd saving model born out of the townships of South Africa where older women in groups of 10-20 would agree on a monthly premium that they pay to the stokvel & each month the sum of all the premiums went to a member of the society as a savings cashout. This would grow in the late 2000s and early 2010s into a well adopted crowd saving model enjoyed by all young adults and the elderly, regardless of gender. Most banks have evolved to offer savings products to stokvels all over South Africa, so a really solid concept if you ask me.

Each month when one of the members got a cashout, there would be a little gathering to celebrate them, something of a party – with a little bit of food, some drinks & a looot of music. It’s really the music that got me. Zonke’s song ‘Feelings’ was playing on the music player when we arrived, i remember feeling like my heart was leaping out of my chest a little as i listened to this sound that was tickling the soul of my eardrums. All the adults around us, singing their hearts out to what would be one of the biggest songs of 2013. A timeless piece.

The following songs after that one were also Zonke’s, they had Viva The Legend lined up right after Jikizinto and i could not believe that music could feel this good. I’d had really powerful encounters with music before but that night was so different – I was sure my life had changed, I was inspired, I was a new person who had been touched by the beauty of Zonke’s music. Yes, all at 11 years of age. In those times, a young girl like me would also not have had access to Spotify or Apple Music. All I could do was pray that I get to hear it on the radio on my way to or from school.

This is the magic of music when it is attached to a memory. Like me, most South Africans at the time would have been exposed to new music at a Stokvel Party, eating a good piece of braaid boerewors, carrying an aunt’s baby while an uncle danced around them with children playing freely with loud laughter in the background. This is the type of beauty our country once carried, a nation with an alive sense of collaborative community & neighbourly love.

The reviving of stokvels as a core communal pillar in the nation is important not only for it’s social cohesion impact but also for carrying a music culture forward. An individual streaming music digitally for 3 hours a day is really valuable to an artist far more than a stokvel party can be, commercially.. but the trainings of a music palate (taste & guardianship of quality) happens in community, when music lives with the people where different generations gather. The difference betwen this & the status quo where young people enjoy ‘young people music’ in spaces made only for them is that the generational connection & the recipes of timeless music only thrive when music is enjoyed in an inter-generational environment.

There’s a lot of academic thought out there that suggests that economic recessions change cultures even down to the fashion, artistic expression and even the consumption of music within that culture. It’s safe to say stokvel parties aren’t as fun anymore/ don’t happen with as much fervor as they did before due to the economic conditions of the times. Nothing is cute anymore and it shows.

I have a few ideas of how we can regenerate stokvels with a modern twist to reflect changing tastes & communal needs especially from the point of view of Gen-Z, but I’ll only be sharing these with serious takers only. In the meantime, let me introduce you to the music of a timeless queen if you were unfamiliar with Zonke, i hope you play this song at the next gathering you host or go to. 🙂