South African 'Idol' yet to crown black winner after six seasons

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The hopefuls squeal as they’re told that they’re through to the next round. The judges squabble over which singers were off-key — and which were pitch-perfect. Emotional video introductions tell the story of the contestant’s ‘journey’ — complete with schmaltzy slow-mo’s and backing tracks.

You could be watching American Idol. Even the set and opening titles are familiar. But while Idols — the South African reincarnation of the international franchise — looks just like all the other foreign versions of the show, it doesn’t quite look like South Africa. After six seasons of the program, it has yet to crown a black winner.

“White people vote for white people and black people get the short end of the stick”, Mara Louw, one of the show’s judges is reported to have told a newspaper after the end of the last run.

Click here to view a slideshow of black breakout stars on American Idol

Louw was speaking about the controversial grand finale, involving L’loyd Cele, a black pastor from Durban with a typically brutal upbringing in the slums of Apartheid South Africa. “As a child, some mornings you’d wake up and find someone dead right outside your house with a burning tire around their neck,” he said of his childhood.

His competitor was a white performer — Elvis Blue, a music teacher. Blue won — even though many said that the black finalist was the greater talent.

Of course, it’s all in the ear of the beholder. But some cynics have argued that because of Cele’s skin-color, he didn’t stand a chance — even in a country which is 80 percent black.

“I don’t know if that was the reason that I didn’t win… I do have a lot of white fans, but it’s a strange thing. I really don’t know” he told theGrio.com. “We do have a problem. South Africa desires to be a place of liberation. It’s a beautiful country — I love this country… But we’re still stuck in the race issue — we’re still stuck in the Apartheid era.”

Just like American Idol, Idols requires viewers to call expensive phone lines to register their votes. So, the theory goes, it is left to a disproportionate number of wealthier white people to select the winner. Whatever people say publicly about racial harmony, do private polls on reality shows give an insight into what people are really thinking about other races?

“There are many factors that people take into consideration when voting: Yes, one will be talent but one will be race. You’re in denial if you think it doesn’t. We don’t know for sure – but I’d bet me right kidney that it does”, says Eusebius McKaiser — a social commentator, radio host and black South African.

“In South Africa, one of the aspects of our daily reality is that we are more racially aware than your average person in the US or the UK — even when we vote on TV shows. How can a society that has had such racial fury not have the issue of race come into people’s perceptions on a show like this? And it’s not just a white thing — it’s a general thing. Black voters latch on to black talent too.”

“We tend to vote for people who look like us and sound like us. You want people who come from your background to succeed.”

“But it’s not necessarily racism. It’s ‘racial affinity’. If I prefer the black guy it doesn’t mean that I need to go and see the shrink because of my attitudes to white people. The black contestant’s biography speaks to me. I buy into that. I can identify with him – and yes he does look like me.”

Aware of the racial affinity that black youngsters might have with him, L’loyd Cele is attempting to become a black role model for the youth of post-Apartheid South Africa: He has resisted raging about the result, or becoming a symbol of racial division. Instead, his first album, entitled ‘One’ will be a celebration of racial unity.

“We’ve got 11 tracks. Five songs are R&B, we have another four that are rock, some are a mixture of both. One is even written in Zulu. It’s really about having different types of song, but calling it “One”… We have inspirational songs about living together and working together”.

Meanwhile, the producers of Idols have just started filming the auditions for season seven. Soon, the judges’ road-show will travel to Soweto — the impoverished black township near Johannesburg which is said to be the spiritual heart of the black struggle for freedom. Seventeen years after the first multi-racial elections signaled the end of Apartheid, a very different mass vote has the potential to create a new black superstar. It would be celebrated as a significant step — a journey not just for the contestant, but for all of South Africa.