Written piece
The Shebeen Queens' Brew
Kamva Majo
South Africa
About this piece
The Shebeen Queen’s Brew is an excerpt from my story Pay Homage to the Shebeen Queen, inspired by the 2026 Time of the Writer Festival. It centres overlooked histories of women who resisted apartheid laws on African beer, tracing the roots of “wathinta abafazi,wathinta imbokodo."
Back then, shebeens were little worlds on the fringes of the city—where government control and the defiance of Our People met inside tiny tin-roof houses—a kind of alcoholic Apartheid.
The place was soaked in chatter and chants that competed with the jazz performer, who was deeply concentrated on coaxing sweet notes from his trumpet. Beneath the noise, the music, the earthy and sweaty scents—something gurgled, fermented, and brewed.
Not just umqombothi.
The shebeen queens’ resistance.
Because shebeens weren’t just places for men to shake off the black soot of the mines and unwind—they were places of survival.
In these shebeens, no matter how small, many people came and went. Miners. Jazz singers and players. Gamblers. Dancers. Women with tricks up their skirts. Stray dogs and cats. Unkempt children.
But there was one frequent visitor—one who always arrived like a violent gust of wind. Scarlet-faced with racist rage, batons swinging, leaving brew spilt, trumpets silenced mid-note, and never without the trademark of the times—bloodshed.
Yet, despite the police raids that shook the flimsy structures of the shebeens, the queens remained standing.
They may have had the bullets, but the queens had the will to fight for their independence. And in doing so, the independence of Our People. Their doeks fastened tight on their heads, their skirts and dresses flowing against the Sowetan winds, their fists striking the air—fierce and formidable—as they chanted, “Wathinta abafazi, wathinta imbokodo.”
These were the forgotten. Or maybe they weren’t even forgotten but lacked a certain swinging appendage in their lower regions to be recognised for their fierceness and formidableness. The “oh, and…” and the “and also…” of our struggle story. The cornerstones of fractured Black families during The Struggle.