History Of Drum
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.
Across its formative decades (c.1951–1986), Drum magazine built an influential photographic and editorial record of Apartheid in South Africa and Independence across Anglophone Africa. Published in multiple editions, Drum Magazine delivered serious content in a “sweetie-wrapper of sport, sex and scandal” - while also tracing newly urbanised, Black cultural life across Southern Africa, Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. True to its early claim, Drum positioned itself as “A Magazine of Africa, for Africa.”
It nurtured the talents of a generation of Black journalists and photographers such as Casey Motsisi, Todd Matshikiza, Henry Nxumalo, Can Themba, Nat Nakasa, Lewis Nkosi, Bloke Modisane, Es’kia Mphahlele, Arthur Maimane, Bessie Head, Juby Mayet, Henry Ofori, Cameron Duodu, Nelson Ottah, Cyprian Ekwensi, Peter Magubane, Ernest Cole, Bob Gosani, Alf Kumalo, Ranjith Kally, Gopal Naransamy, G.R. Naidoo, James Barnor, Matthew Faji, Mohamed Amin, Joseph Taro, amongst others.
Use the Drum Archive Site to explore digitised photographs, articles, and advertisements, and to learn more about our photographers and our content through themed collections. Clear pathways are provided for research access and rights-managed licensing.
For exhibitions, museum programming, and curatorial collaborations, please contact the archive directly.