‘Guilty Pleasures’, ‘Forbidden Fruits’ and ‘Brave Confusion’: Queer Love in the Music and Videos of South African Singers Toya Delazy and Nakhane Touré

Abstract

Guided by socio-musicological perspectives, this article contends that Toya Delazy and Nakhane Touré grapple with issues pertaining to love and sexuality in their music. This is against the background of South Africa being hailed as a progressive country, especially relating to its constitution that acquiescently protects the rights of sexual minorities. Notwithstanding such constitutional protections, lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgenders (LGBT) continue to be victimised particularly in the impoverished townships of this country. Although they celebrate same-sex love, this article contends that such celebration is based on guilt and shame. Singing against such guilt and shame is a significant element in the construction of their sexual identity and acceptation of their same-sex love. The article concludes that Toya Delazy and Nakhane Touré’s songs are pioneering in South Africa for their open depiction of queer love in a socio-cultural milieu that considers such identities and modes of self-expression as unnatural, deviant and taboo. This music can thus be considered as a transgressive space that seeks to rehabilitate the manner in which same-sex love is perceived.