POP A CAP ON IT
Jack Parow’s new album urges right wing Afrikaners to lighten up and open the cooler box. By Sbu Mjikeliso
‘I’m not over Cooler As Ekke, even though I’ve sung it a zillion times’
JACK Parow makes the kind of music that you feel you need to listen to with a beer in your hand, and perhaps a pair of braai tongs too. But his new album, Nag Van Die Lang Pette, asks you to sober up a little.
It’s an odd turn for a fellow who lives the life most of us yearn for.
In one song’s hook, he urges: “Ons moet hard partytjie hou” — a task I’d sign up for right away, were it not for the small matter of work keeping me busy in midweek.
Even more strangely, there is a low-key political message to the album — his fourth offering after Cooler As Ekke, Jack Parow and Eksie Ou.
The album title — “The Night of the Long Caps”, in English — is a parody on “Die Nag van die Lang Messe ”, the catch-phrase for a paranoid right-wing belief that a violent attack on white South Africans would follow Nelson Mandela’s death.
And in the Bloubek music video, Jack’s rumbling in a fight club with a Steve Hofmeyr lookalike clad in a pink bunny suit.
I meet Parow in Durban before his album-launch gig at the Suncoast Towers around 9am — an appointment that appears at least three hours too early for the rapper.
“I’ve always thought you slept with your long cap on,” I remark, to break the ice, to which he giggles and moves swiftly to the coffee machine for a strong black one. I decide to have the same.
Saturday-morning Parow is indistinguishable from his stage and video persona. He’s always the same oke.
He sports his eternal wife-beater, three-quarter shorts, Vans and, of course, his lang pette — which arrives from his hotel room at our photographer’s request.
He’s recovering from a 10-day hangover, so a can of Red Bull arrives with the cap. I get the feeling he’d prefer a beer, but is holding back a little for the sake of the interview.
With him are his backing band — Jade Neebe, Rufio Vegas and Loki Rothman — who display none of the snooty attitude that often comes standard with a star’s entourage.
Not even close: these guys are as cool as they come, taking selfies and hiding evidence of their nocturnal adventures behind pairs of kif sunglasses.
Parow opened for Eminem in SA, so he’s feeling good about life at the moment. Slim Shady is one of his boyhood rap idols. “That was v***en amazing,” he beams.
Is he ditching the party music in favour of political rhetoric?
“The name (of the album) obviously comes from the prophecy from the old Boere-oorlog days and Siener van Rensburg’s prophecy of doom,” he says.
“He said the day Nelson Mandela died all the black people would mos get up and kill every white person, which was obviously v***en ridiculous.
“It is less about politics but more about telling people not to take themselves too seriously.
“Have a good time instead of sitting at home with your Voortrekker kappie.”
Parow is clearly fed up with the swart gevaar movement. The album seems to say: Mandela has been dead for over 100 days and the promised machete massacre is not happening — so let’s all grab our cooler boxes and camp chairs and have a good time.
“The album is a play on that old versus new, bad versus good and the new way of thinking triumphing over the conservative way. That’s why I made acoustic and electric sides.
“I play on that in the music video for Bloubek, with the fighting theme, because I think South Africa, especially the Afrikaans group, is on the cusp of big change.
“But the album is still ‘Party, party, party’ and there is no heavy political message. We don’t have to send political messages in SA because we are bombarded with the stuff anyway.”
He says he’s moving past being synonymous with his first hit Cooler As Ekke, which launched his career through YouTube, Justin Bieber-style.
“I’m not over Cooler As Ekke, even though I’ve sung it a million, zillion times.
“It’s a special song to me and closest to my heart because of what it did for my career.
“People used to come up to me and say ‘Hey Jack, jy dink jy’s cooler as ekke’, but that is happening less and less. It obviously means less people still think of that song when they see me.”
He’s still cooler than most, though.