National Wake

Formed amid the turmoil of 1970s South Africa, the mixed-race punk band National Wake operated in Soweto from 1976 to 1981. Its origins traced directly to the 1976 student uprising in that township, where informal jam sessions arose during the period’s surge of communal living experiments. Jewish immigrant Ivan Kadey assembled the group with Soweto-born brothers Gary Khoza and Punka Khoza forming the rhythm section and Steve Moni on guitar. The musicians developed a distinctive blend of punk, reggae, and township-inspired funk. Their sole album appeared in 1981 and moved slightly more than seven hundred copies before the apartheid regime denied the band permission to perform publicly and forced the recording’s withdrawal. Under sustained pressure the ensemble disbanded that same year, yet its reach had already extended to dozens of emerging Johannesburg groups. Beyond South Africa’s borders National Wake remained largely unknown until the documentary Punk in Africa prompted rediscovery. Kadey, who had trained as an architect and relocated to Los Angeles, oversaw a 2011 South African reissue of the band’s only album—the Khoza brothers having already passed away—and used the internet and social media to announce twenty additional unreleased tracks. Light in the Attic released an expanded edition with bonus material in 2013.