THE HISTORY OF DRUM
BAHA.co.za aims to create a space for students, researchers, artists and the greater public to find inspiration and engage with its historical content. Images featured were photographed over a period of three decade, Drum magazine’s five editions captured both the brutal realities of apartheid South Africa, that it delivered in a sweet-wrapper of sport, sex and scandal, as well as the newly urbanised black culture of the anglophone African countries as they achieved independence.
DRUM was described as "the first black lifestyle magazine in Africa”. It was a ground-breaking pan-African magazine, and a rare space in Apartheid South Africa, for black writers and journalists to capture and publish new, vibrant, African urban culture, and political injustices, like nelson Mandela’s arrest, and the death of Steve Biko. At its peak, in the 60s, it had the highest readership in Africa.
The magazine was founded in 1951 by Bob Crisp. However, its first few issues presented an oversimplified image of black culture as somehow untouched by the external influences of an increasingly urbanised and modernised world. Articles looked at traditional African culture -such as historic African musical instruments- but this content landed flat with an African readership who already knew the information from their grandparents.
Young, black South Africans wanted Jazz!
They wanted to read about the sports, sex and scandal taking place in their very own neighbourhoods!
Drum’s new publisher, Jim Bailey, and his editor Anthony Sampson quickly realised this, and Drum’s Black journalists and photographers led it in a new direction, building a magazine that both created and reported on a real, fresh, and distinctly African, pop-culture.
The Bailey’s African History Archives (BAHA) holds 40 years of material from all the editions of Drum Magazine and its various sister publications - Golden City Post, Trust, True Love and City Press. The Archives contains a wealth of information from politics to culture and complexities of the vast Anglophone African nations.
The Drum Archive Shop supports the digitisation of this incredible archive. Our mission is to protect, preserve, and share these incredible stories and photographs, making them accessible - online and for all.