National Wake

The National Wake were a mixed-race punk band in the township of Soweto in South Africa between 1976, and 1981. The band grew out of the student uprising in Soweto in 1976 through a series of loose jam sessions during the commune explosion of that year. Founded by Jewish immigrant Ivan Kadey, and the rhythmsection comprised of two Soweto-born brothers, Gary and Punka Khoza, and guitarist Steve Moni, the band played its own mix of punk, reggae, and township-inspired funk. They released one album in 1981, which sold a little more than 700 copies. Due to pressure from the apartheid regime that refused the group permission to play in public, the recording itself was eventually withdrawn. Given the oppression, the band split that year, but their influence had already spread to dozens of emerging bands from Johannesburg. Outside their native country, the National Wake languished in obscurity until the documentary film Punk in Africa led to their rediscovery. Kadey, an architect who emigrated to Los Angeles, reissued the band's lone recording in 2011 in South Africa (the Khoza brothers were deceased by this time), and through the web and social media, let others know there were 20 other tracks left in the can. In 2013, Light in the Attic issued the the album with bonus material.