This study examines Drum magazine's journalism from 951 to 1959. Many studies have primarily examined Drum and its role as a vehicle for the "Sophiatown generation" of fiction in the 1950s but this study instead concentrates on Drum's non-fiction reporting. It looks at both Drum's role in the birth of the popular black press and the magazine's complex conceptions of urban life. It argues that Drum's non-fiction promoted a cosmopolitan identity for its urban readers, in direct opposition to the efforts by the apartheid government to "retribralise" black urban residents, but also reflected anxieties about the urban experience. Drum was also one of the first non-partisan black publications to make political news accessible to a mass audience and the study argues that Drum's coverage of black politics has been overlooked and sometimes underestimated.

Includes bibliographical references.