Sandy Bota launches #White=Black campaign

Sandy Bota, who made her debut at First Thursday this month, is hoping her new track Dancing to Your Song will create a sense of unity among South Africans.

“Quite honestly, I was feeling joyful one morning in 2014. I may have also been imagining what it feels like for a number of people to be madly in love, and the idea came to pen it in a song! It’s a happy love song. It creates emotions of acceptance, safety and overwhelming, warm love,” Bota explained, when speaking about the inspiration behind the song.

“The song hinges on freedom to be and to love whomever you choose to love – be it black, white, coloured. Though there are no political lyrics in the song, as it is purely a love song, I thought it could work perfectly to reflect dancing together as a country after having gone through so much.”

Alongside the song, she is launching the #White=Black campaign.

“As we continue to live in a painfully fractured, racialised society, I am using the release of my single as a platform to create a diary of our country’s love journey – a love movement in which interracial relationships, be it family, lovers, friends, business partners, etc are embraced as orthodox and one.”

Her intention is not to erase or devalue the experiences of black and white people due to apartheid and the effects that society has failed to address. Instead, she is using music as a medium to transcend the pain so that a sense of understanding, healing and love can take its place.

Botha explained that once the music video for Dancing to Your Song comes out, everything would make sense.

“I was thinking about a few songs to be recorded and trying to decide which would be the single, when a picture flew right in my mind. A picture attached to this song. I saw, in my mind, a white man in a tuxedo proposing to a black woman adorned in glorious traditional attire and something about that random picture stung me. It was a picture of love in a different dimension. Black and white together getting married.

She continued, “Then I remembered the times and the racial uproar that has been going on lately. I thought that we, as a country, are in the perfect season to hear the message of unity and reconciliation through a creative medium – music.”

Bota is hoping that local artists get on board with the campaign and show their support. “Also, probably the biggest hope is for the hearts of the racist to learn to welcome forgiveness, acceptance and the possibility of loving another outside of their race. Imagine that … imagine if black and white together were seen as normal in SA!”

Sandy Bota’s single will be released on 27 April.

Details: Campaign White=Black on Facebook