South Africa

South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded on the south by 2,798 kilometres (1,739 mi) of coastline of Southern Africa stretching along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans, on the north by the neighbouring countries of Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe, and on the east and northeast by Mozambique and Swaziland, and surrounding the kingdom of Lesotho. South Africa is the 25th-largest country in the world by land area, and with close to 56 million people, is the world's 24th-most populous nation. It is the southernmost country on the mainland of the Old World or the Eastern Hemisphere. It is the only country that borders both the Atlantic Ocean and the Indian Ocean. About 80 percent of South Africans are of Sub-Saharan African ancestry, divided among a variety of ethnic groups speaking different Bantu languages, nine of which have official status. The remaining population consists of Africa's largest communities of European (white), Asian (Indian), and multiracial (coloured) ancestry.

Links To Peel
In the 60's, Peel played tracks from Bantu tribes of South Africa from the BBC Archives on his shows and admitted playing the first African record by Sipho Bhengu in 1971. By the 80's, many African records Peel played came from South Africa, especially those from the sax-jive genre. However the rise of soukous music from the Congo attracted Peel and from the 90's, he rarely played much music from South Africa.

During the apartheid era in South Africa, Peel supported many anti-apartheid movements, including the imprisoned Nelson Mandela, whose name was included on a record by Special AKA, which reached number 41 in the 1984 Festive Fifty. Peel also attended the Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute Concert at Wembley Stadium and commented on his show of 07 June 1988 whether artists who performed at the show know the significance of the concert and whether they will remember the importance of Nelson Mandela, who was in prison. After Mandela was released from prison in 1990, Peel remarked on his show from 10 July 1997 that Nelson Mandela was  'the one man on earth that I would really like to meet'.

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Festive Fifty Entries

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