Making Sure Locals Get A Kick

Organisers of this summer’s World Cup soccer finals in South Africa look to have bowed to government pressure to include more national acts on the bill for the Kick-Off Concert that opens the competition.

The ministry of arts and culture is believed to have turned the screw after it felt the local organising committee and U.S.-based Control Room, which is run by Emmy Award-winning producer Kevin Wall, hadn’t made the concert more of a platform for South African talent.

Last month world soccer governing body FIFA announced that Alicia Keys, Shakira, Black Eyed Peas and John Legend would headline the World Cup concert at Soweto’s Orlando Stadium June 10.

The outcry from the South African music industry caused culture minister Lulu Xingwana to sit down and discuss the matter with chief organizer Danny Jordaan and Mabutho Sithole from the Creative Workers Union.

The upshot of their two-hour meeting was a joint statement saying all three parties “agreed on the need for the inclusion of additional South African artists in the line-up.”

The organisers and Control Room will now be taking note of the ministry and the CWU’s input.

So far, the only local acts on the bill are folk singer Vusi Mahlasela and rock acts BLK JKS and The Parlotones. FIFA seems to have taken the view that it’s the international acts that will make the event a global spectacle.

“It has to be a concert with international singers, and that’s what we will do,” FIFA general secretary Jerome Valcke said.

That position led to Xingwana’s government department releasing a statement saying the lineup was “unacceptable” and it meant South African artists were being “marginalized in their own motherland.”

Xingwana is reportedly satisfied with the outcome, but its immediate effect can’t be gauged because no further names will be announced until after the artist contracts have been signed.