Nope, Oppikoppi isn't just for white people anymore

For as long as it has been around, Oppikoppi has carried the reputation of being a fun weekend for those who are melanin impoverished. While never being explicitly hostile towards them, those who are sun-kissed often came away with the idea that some of the attendees didn't take kindly to their presence at Northam's most popping annual social event.

Over the years that has been slowly changing, and this year Oppikoppi burst out of its cocoon as a fully realised black festival.

Calm down my Caucasian brethren. No one at Oppi is putting up signs reading "Slegs swartes". You are still more than welcome to attend and will probably still have a blast.

Unfortunately, Brad, we've gotta make it about race. If you're confused about why, have a chat with your parents.

Much like any story that involves evolution, how Oppikoppi came to be a festival blacker than Samuel L Jackson before the movie Django Unchained is a little hard to pin down. At some point in the recent past though, variations began to appear in the festival's demographic make-up.

Enterprising black early adopters whose names were Thembelihle, but were probably just called "T" because it was easier to pronounce, started popping up. No doubt they were drawn by massive international acts and tales of bush debauchery.

As is the case with many white spaces, chocolate sprinkles are always appreciated. It showed how progressive Brad and his friends were. Besides, T had such a blast that he went and spread the gospel to his friends when he got back home.

The changes arguably started becoming more pronounced in 2014. That year featured a surprising number of local hip-hop acts, none of them near the main stage but enough of them for people to notice that the festival organisers had spotted demographic shifts and responded accordingly - acts like HHP and Reason have never typically drawn large white crowds.

This creeping transformation was compounded by the Red Bull Stage which also spent its time catering to more, ahem, urban music tastes. This was also the year that Aloe Blacc headlined.

Fast forward four years and one begins to see the completion of a project. There were no famous yet obscure international rock bands headlining Oppikoppi this year. The big ticket names this time around were names like Kwesta, Oliver Mtukudzi and Bongeziwe Mabandla.

The theme for this year was "nomakanjani" and the Jagermeister stage looked more like a party in Braam than one in the bush. For the first time since I started attending the festival in 2013 I saw more black faces gallivanting around the infamous dust bowl than any others.

Maybe this year was an aberration. A one-off glitch in the system caused by factors beyond the organisers' control. Whatever the reasons were, the result was a lesson.

As it turns out, festivals in this country can reflect our nation's demographics without ruining the vibe. Oppikoppi is for everyone and in a country that is overwhelmingly black, it's nice to see a festival take kindly to everyone, not just the Brads.