Have You Seen Drum Recently

In South Africa in the 1950s and 1960s, the magazine Drum chronicled the most important cultural happenings in the black townships laboring under apartheid. This documentary uses dozens of archival photographs to trace the arc of this vital journalistic resource from its inception to its forced decline. In the magazines coverage of politics, arts and sports, it shines a spotlight on the early careers of influential figures such as Oliver Tambo, Albert Lutuli, Miriam Makeba and Nelson Mandela.

Have You Seen Drum Recently? is a 1989 film which uses photographs from the Drum archives to tell the story of the magazine and documents its contribution to the cultural and political life of South Africa.

In the 1950s, Drum focused on urban blacks living in a white-dominated apartheid world. It contained articles about the township jazz scene, crime, fiction and sport and documented the hopes, aspirations and despair of the urban, educated black sophisticate.

Directed by Jurgen Schadeberg, the film includes such images as Oliver Tambo as a lawyer, Trevor Huddleston demonstrating against the demolition of Sophiatown, Nelson Mandela sparring in the boxing ring, Chief Luthuli the Nobel Prize winner and the singer Miriam Makeba.

The background music reflects the best of the fifties e.g. big band, jazz, swing, kwela and penny whistle.