The singer’s melodies continue to pioneer Afrikaans rock music but, for some, his conservative inclinations may blur their beauty, writes Chris Roper.
When I start the recording app on my iPhone, it shows the date of the last interview I did with a musician. Almost two years ago, on November 1 2012, with blues/rock legend Piet Botha. I have in effect come out of quasi-retirement for the chance to interview Chris Chameleon, and I’m not sure why.
He himself expresses some surprise — he tells me he expected that I’d send one of our regular music journalists. It’s not that I’m overwhelmed by his new album, Posduif, and feel the need to testify to that, although it is a lovely collection of songs that I’m finding strangely compelling. It has something to do with Chris Chameleon as a symbol, a symbol of change, resilience, and the triumph of a peculiar art.
And with Chameleon as a musician who has managed to remain true to a unique essence, while at the same time firmly inserting himself within the adult contemporary Afrikaans market.
It’s also a desire to understand the trajectory of Chameleon’s life. This is a man who started off in 1997 singing in dresses with self-described “monki punk” band Boo, and has ended up as one half of an airbrushed duo, defending the singing of Die Stem and rhapsodising about gun ownership.
It strikes me, belatedly, that it was a similar impulse that drove me to interview Piet Botha.
For full interview by Chris Roper go to the Mail & Guardian
Photo Credit: Delwyn Verasamy/M&G
