Safe sokkie
Let’s face it: We’ve all been to a huisdans with everyone sitting at the tables wondering why all the wine is finished. You’ve taken pictures twice, rotated through all the tables, went outside for multiple smokes and even ate the skimpy food, but you haven't danced.

Then, while rotating tables for the fifth time, you hear “alleen leen leen” in the distance. This can only mean one thing: Kurt Darren. In a frenzy of excitement, everyone starts getting up and make their way to the dance-floor. Suddenly the dancefloor is packed and the DJ thinks he is the best. Must be his awesome playlist. Failing to comprehend that the crowd actually want to hear sokkietreffers, he then follows the treffer with a hip-hop song or something from the 5FM top 50 and 80% of us move back to the tables. Story of our lives.

Goue sokkietreffers are fun when you are at a huisdans. No denying that, and thats fine. We can all enjoy Kurt Darren at the right place and time. The worrying thing is that some people listen to sokkie treffers in ridiculous and irresponsible places like their car, living room and bathroom. This trend is on the rise at an alarming rate.

Education should start at home
I always thought that people who listen to Kurt have no taste. Not true. Most of these people don’t get exposed to enough good music. In a recent case study, it was found that 32% of these people actually like good music when introduced to it. 32% might not sound like a lot, but keep in mind that about 5.2 billion people listen to Kurt Darren worldwide, and even more in South Africa.

One of those 5.2 billion people once brought me this “exciting new track” to listen. It was “Breek die ys” by someone I won’t mention. It wasn’t that exciting to me. While looking for a knife or anything sharp, I noticed that this person was enjoying the track tremendously and was air guitaring it out in the middle of the room. Wow, he genuinely liked the song. But why? He was fairly intelligent and well educated. Why would he listen to this song willingly? Further investigation was needed.

It turns out that guy went to KKNK with his parents from a young age. KKNK is the one place I don’t stop and stare when I see a 40 year old man chatting up a 23 year old girl. Its nothing unusual there. There is a whole different set of rules at KKNK. And you dare not challenge any of these. Change is a bad thing at KKNK.

This mindset is fine under the older generation, but the problem is that these gets passed down to the younger generation. Imagine going to KKNK with your parents each year. What is there to do besides eat vetkoek? Not much. Wherever you go, you just hear sokkie treffers. You see people enjoying that casio keyboard beat. If they all like it, then you surely must too, right? And so it starts, you get conditioned to think that sokkietreffers are actually OK. Since this is the only festival your parents ever go to, you probably don’t hear much else. You start to kind of like these sokkietreffers. If only someone could show you the error of your ways.


Prevention is the best cure
Enter MK kaktus sessies. This is a venue which now finally allows bands like aKing, Straatligkinders, Foto na Dans to play at KKNK.

Finally, you can have your vetkoek and eat it while listening to real music. At first you are a bit confused. No refrence to bokkies in the songs? No casio keyboard beats? Real instruments on stage? No lipsyncing? What? Then you begin to click. Live music means that the music gets made live on stage. Great concept really. And so your eyes and ears begin to open. Suddenly Kurt isn’t that awesome anymore. Although you still wish you could pelvic thrust like that.

I was at Kaktus Sessies in 2008. Small venue, small sound system, but reasonable size crowds. It was obvious that MK were onto something. This year it was good to see that they had a better venue, better sound and better support from KKNK by the look of things. The venue is still quite a long way from the main route, but this is understandable. Can’t upset Kurt with all those well-written lyrics.

The line-up this year included:
Pretty Blue Guns, New Holland, Foto Na Dans, Jackal & Wolf, Zinkplaat, Straatligkinders, Ashtray Electric, Heuwels Fantasties, Van Coke Kartel, Ryno Velvet, Bed on Bricks, aKing, eF-el and of course Fokofpolisiekar.

Overall, impressive stuff. The Kaktus sessies still has a long way to go in some aspects I won’t write about, but its off to a good start. I must congratulate MK for their taking this great initiative in the fight against sokkietreffers, but they can’t do it alone.


We must all do our part
Here’s how you can help: Next time you hear someone listening to a sokkietreffer in their car, living room or bathroom: Instead of punching them in the face, talk to them, listen to them; try to understand. I’m sure you will soon see that they simply don’t know any better. Its now up to you to tune their DSTV from 111 to 324, or send them to MK Kaktus sessies.

Lets hope that this great effort by MK can help stop the idea under teens that sokkietreffers are OK. By staying positive and each doing our bit, we can stop this terrible pandemic. Its in our hands.