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Africa's Media Empire: Drum's Expansion to Nigeria

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 May 2014

Tyler Fleming  and
Toyin Falola
Tyler Fleming
Affiliation:
University of Texas–Austin
Toyin Falola
Affiliation:
University of Texas–Austin
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Extract

Publishing in Africa remains so difficult an enterprise that many publishers have collapsed, their dreams disappearing with them. This is especially true of the print media, particularly newspapers and magazines. During the past century, many magazines and newspapers failed to establish a loyal readership, keep costs down, insure wide circulation, or turn a huge profit. Consequently, not many African magazines can be viewed as “successful.” Drum magazine, however, remains an exception.

In 1951 Drum, a magazine written for and by Africans, was established in South Africa. Drum enjoyed a great deal of success and is now widely recognized as having been a driving force in black South African culture and life throughout the 1950s and 1960s. In the South African historiography Drum has been thoroughly researched. The magazine's impact on South African journalism, literature, gender configurations, African resistance, and urban South African culture has been documented and often lauded by various scholars. Many former members of the South African edition's payroll, both editors and staff alike, have gone on to become successes in literature, journalism, and photography. Often such staff members credit Drum for directly shaping their careers and directly state this in their writings. Consequently, Drum is often associated only with South Africa. While Drum greatly influenced South Africa, its satel¬lite projects throughout Africa were no less important. These satellite projects cemented Drum's reputation as the leading magazine newspaper in Africa and each edition became fixtures in west African and east African societies.

Type
Research Article
Information
History in Africa , Volume 32 , 2005 , pp. 133 - 164
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 2005

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References

1 See, e.g., Asante, Clement E., The Press in Ghana: Problems and Prospects (Lanham, 1996)Google Scholar; Duyile, Dayo, Makers of Nigerian Press: An Historical Analysis of Newspaper Development, the Pioneer Heroes, the Modern Press Barons and the New Publishers Prom 1859-1987 (Ikeja, 1987)Google Scholar; Ogbondah, Chris W., Military Regimes and the Press in Nigeria, 1966-1993: Human Rights and National Development (Lanham, 1994)Google Scholar; Ogbondah, Chris W., The Press in Nigeria: An Annotated Bibliography (New York, 1990)Google Scholar; Oluwasanmi, E. E., McLean, Eva and Zell, H., Publishing in Africa in the Seventies (Ile-Ife, 1975)Google Scholar; Omu, Fred I. A., Press and Politics in Nigeria: 1880-1937 (London, 1978)Google Scholar; and Hachten, William A. and Giffard, C. Anthony, The Press and Apartheid: Repression and Propaganda in South Africa (Madison, 1984)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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4 Besides The Beat of Drum series, several published works celebrate the magazine's satellite projects. See, for instance, Bailey, Jim, Cooper, Carole and Bundeth, Garth, eds., Kenya: The National Epic (Nairobi, 1993)Google Scholar; Dyson, Sally, ed., Nigeria: The Birth of Africa's Greatest Country, vol. 1 & 2 (Ibadan, 1998)Google Scholar; and Hopkinson, Tom and Couzens, Tim, eds., Zimbabwe: The Search for Common Ground Since 1890: From the Pages of DRUM Magazine (Lanseria, South Africa, 1992)Google Scholar.

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8 The first edition of Sampson's book was printed in 1957. It was later reprinted in 1983 under the name of DRUM: An African Adventure — And Afterwards, which included the original text of the 1957 edition but with a newly added epilogue. For the purpose of this essay, we will cite the 1983 edition only when citing Sampson's epilogue, which was not included in the 1957 edition.

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11 Michael Chapman, a professor of South African literature, has released an edited volume under the same title, The Drum Decade. The work compiles many of the stories that appeared in Drum during the 1950s, and also includes an essay examining “Drum and its Significance in Black South African Writing”.

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17 Due to shipping considerations the international edition of Drum was usually distributed a month after the release of the South African.

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27 Drum's early returns on its West African expansion was successful enough, according to Bailey, ibid., “that Mr Anthony suggested he should abandon his career in Niger House and join us full time.”

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41 J. Amon Okoe and Francis Gasso-Porsoo, “Are the Herbalists Healers and Fakes?” Drum (September 1958), taken from Nigeria, 1:96–97Google Scholar.

42 Alexander Chia, “Secrets of the Man with 600 Wives,” Drum (July 1958), taken from Nigeria, 1:104–05Google Scholar.

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49 Bailey's decision to pull the photograph from the South African edition is even more relevant to this essay, as Stein resigned from Drum directly because of this. Stein resented Bailey and voiced his irritation by writing a commentary about the decision for Reuters and the South African Press Association. The article offered a negative image of Bailey and labeled him as a “racialist.” This eventually reached Nigeria, and Bailey had to spend a great deal of effort convincing Nigerians that he was not a racialist. (Jim Bailey, “Letting the Genie Out of the Bottle” in Beat of Drum, 1:131)

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59 Ibid., 124.

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72 Ibid., 20.

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78 Is Shitta a murder?,” Drum (November 1961), taken from Nigeria, 2:33–34Google Scholar.

79 Ottah, , “Jack the Ripper of Abakaliki,” Drum (December 1958)Google Scholar, taken from Nigeria, 1:162–64Google Scholar.

80 Ottah, , “Is Ritual Murder Still Going On?,” Drum (January 1959)Google Scholar, taken from Nigeria, 1:132–34Google Scholar.

81 Ottah, , “Terror in the Cameroons,” Drum (May 1960)Google Scholar, taken from Nigeria, 1:229–32Google Scholar.

82 Isaac Pepple, “Free Ticket to Hell,” Drum (April 1957), taken from Nigeria, 1:74–77Google Scholar.

83 See, e.g., Agbaje, Adigun A. B., The Nigerian Press, Hegemony, and the Social Construction of Legitimacy, 1960-1983 (New York, 1992)Google Scholar; Uche, Luke Uka, Mass Media, People and Politics in Nigeria (New Delhi, 1989)Google Scholar.

84 “Our Boat of Destiny,” Drum (September 1960), taken from Nigeria, 1:240Google Scholar.

85 Ibid., 241.

86 Isaac Pepple, “I Begged Him to Quit Politics, Says Zik's Father,” Drum (April 1958), taken from Nigeria, 1:8–9Google Scholar; “The Glamorous J.M. Johnson Gets a Kick Out of Life,” Drum (September 1960), taken from Nigeria, 1:245Google Scholar.

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93 Ibid.

94 Soyinka, Wole, “The Critic and Society: Barthes, Leftocracy and Other Mythologies” in Art, Dialogue and Outrage (London, 1993), 115Google Scholar.

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97 Ibid., 124-25.

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104 Oddly, few of the supremely talented black South African writers and journalists took positions in the east African and west African editions of the magazine. Few of these men could be considered true journalists, as they were more fiction writers or artists than reporters. Such was the case of Lewis Nkosi, Es'kia Mphahlele (who lived for a significant time in Nigeria teaching African literature but never contributed to the Nigerian edition), Casey Motsitsi, and Todd Matshikiza. Of the many true journalists, Nxumalo was murdered while on assignment in a township, Nakasa took a scholarship through Harvard and was on his way to becoming an influential international journalist in America when he abruptly died in New York City (the reports were that he committed suicide by jumping from a New York skyscraper but rumors surfaced that Nakasa was pushed by South African officials), and Maimane went on to work for the British Broadcasting Corporation. It appears, however, that few, if any, of these writers were offered positions in the satellite offices when they were forced into exile by South African government.

105 Ottah, , “The Inside Story” in Beat of Drum, vol. 1, 112Google Scholar.

106 Ibid.

107 Ibid., 115.

108 Rake, , “Drum Boy,” 12Google Scholar.

109 Sampson, , DRUM: An African Adventure, 213Google Scholar.

110 Ottah, , “Zik's Troubled Years,” Drum (October 1958)Google Scholar, taken from Nigeria, 1:81–83Google Scholar.

111 Ibid., 83.

112 Ottah, , “Straight From the Shoulder,” Drum (December 1958)Google Scholar, taken from Nigeria, 1:91Google Scholar.

113 “Sir Abubakar Balewa is no Turtle-Dove,” Drum (May 1960), taken from Nigeria, 1:212Google Scholar.

114 Ottah, , “Inside Story” in Beat of Drum, 1:114Google Scholar.

115 Ibid, 1:115.

116 Ibid., 1:117.

117 Sampson, , DRUM: An African Adventure, 217Google Scholar.

118 Ottah, , “Inside Story” in Beat of Drum, 1:117Google Scholar.

119 Ibid., 1:120.

120 Many African leaders viewed the magazine as an agent of the South African government, and Drum had already been briefly shut down by the Nkrumah government in 1962. (Hopkinson, Tom, “How to do Business in Ghana,” Creative Camera no. 235/236 (July/August 1984), 1450–51Google Scholar.

121 Morris, , “Rise and Fall,” 53Google Scholar.

122 Sampson, , DRUM: An African Adventure, 203Google Scholar.

123 Bailey even noted that he was labeled a racist by many Nigerians after Sylvester Stein published his version of the dispute over the Althea Gibson cover. As noted, Bailey refused to publish the cover in South Africa, but he did allow it to be printed for the west African and east African editions. Stein's version of the story, however, had already been published before.

124 Ottah, , “Inside Story” in Beat of Drum, 1:120Google Scholar; Morris, , “Rise and Fall,” 53Google Scholar.

125 Sampson, , DRUM: An African Adventure, 214Google Scholar.

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