Category: Gender & Sexuality
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Feminine ideals in Toussa Senerap’s work
Toussa Senerap—who’s name is a play on the French “Tous ça,” or “everything,” and an agglomeration of Senegal and Rap—plays an interesting consciousness in her work surrounding the idea of femininity. Senerap both embraces womanhood and shies away from traditional conceptualizations of femininity from both hip-hop and Senegalese contexts. For this piece, I’m primarily analyzing
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Lola Monroe’s “Grime”
Lola Monroe, or “Queen Roe”, is an artist who has been steeped in hip hop culture long before she first picked up a mic. The Addis Ababa born, DC raised emcee first got her start in hip hop as a “video vixen” in the early and mid 2000s, when she appeared in music videos for
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Power
Zambian Hip Hop artist Bombshell, comes into the music scene much like her name may indicate. She is an artist that freely expresses herself and is not afraid of laying down impressive beats and verses. She empowers women through her music videos and music, specifically the song XBass, which carries itself in braggadocio hip hop
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EVA ALORDIAH – DEAF
Looking at the state of the female hip hop scene in Nigeria, there has clearly been a sharp drop in quality and quantity of content both from the established faces as well as a dearth of new faces. This is in sharp contrast to other countries in the West African bloc where there are vibrant
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A Platform for Good
By the end of Sister Fa’s Milyamba music video you can practically feel the sweat dripping through the display. If monitors were capable of transporting mass from one location to another, Milyamba would have brought a deluge of blood, sweat, and tears from Senegal onto your lap. The artist, Sister Fa, has enough life experience
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Ugandan Rapper and Queer Icon Keko Finds New Home in Canada
Keko Speaks to the Media. Photo from Autostraddle.com The Ugandan rapper and icon Keko raised eyebrows in an interview she gave with PRI during 2017in which she announced that she was queer. This notably garnered international attention as at the same time the crackdown on the queer community by president Museveni was gathering international headlines.
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Resistance and Community in Dope Saint Jude’s “Grrrl Like”
The color black is so powerful. That is the thought that comes to mind when I first watched South African artist Dope Saint Jude in her video “Grrrl Like.” The first scenes in the video reveal a group of women standing together, preparing its viewers for the overall message in Dope’s female-centered single. Poet Audre
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Queer, Feminist, Survivor: How Ugandan Rapper Keko Brought New Perspectives to Ugandan Rap
Uganda has seen a steady rise in its Hip Hop scene over the past two decades, but no Ugandan rapper has made as unique an impact on the scene as Keko, a 31 year old queer female rapper whose style of storytelling through rap stole the hearts of many Ugandans and Africans. She started out
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HHAP Episode 27: Laura Lora on the Politics of Gender & a Ghanaian American Identity
In this episode we speak with Ghanian-born, U.S. based artist Laura Lora. In the interview, Laura Lora talks about her experiences an artist, navigating between Ghana and the United States. Growing up in Los Angeles has definitely influenced her music and style, as she talks about being Ghanian and American. Laura Lora, who majored in Black Studies in college, also talks about her experiences in the African American community, and with the divide between Africans and Africans Americans in the United States. Her music and work has also placed her in conversations around gender and sexuality, where she chooses to confront ideas on how African, or Ghanian women should dress and behave. In this interview she also addresses ideas of beauty and femininity, which she has also chosen to challenge. Laura Lora is very conscious and intentional about her music, and the messages she wants to send. She is very intentional about her confrontations with gender and identity. Her most recent video for the song “Rebel” blends hip hop, femininity, Ghanian ascetics, and American sounds and visuals. The colorful video is clear in its expression of all of these identities. You can find Laura lora on: lauraloramusic.com SoundCloud @lauraloramusic Facebook @Lauraloramusic Instagram @Mslauraloa Twitter @akaDeviantLady
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HHAP Episode 20: Nazlee Saif on Hip Hop, Sexuality, Race, & Protest in Cape Town
Our conversation with Cape Town based hip hop and spoken word artist Nazlee Saif centers on discussions of race, gender, religion, sexuality, and activism. This conversation centers on the use of hip hop as a cultural space within which to engage several different social issues, and to deconstruct social taboos that continue to exist within hip hop culture. Nazlee Saif is a spoken word and hip hop artist originally from Durban, who moved to Cape Town and attended the University of Cape Town (UCT) during the height of the #RhodesMustFall movement. Nazlee, who was already a socially conscious artist, was an activist and organizer in the movement on the UCT campus. Nazlee, as a queer identified, Muslim, MC, also brings those intersecting identities into the hip hop, a culture that has historically been very patriarchal, very misogynistic, and hostile to queer voices. In the conversation Nazlee Saif talks about several topic, including the #RhodesMustFall movement at UCT, intersectionality, being Black & Coloured, queer identities, being a Muslim & queer MC, Steve Biko and Black consciousness, the term “Hoteps”, and feminism. Nazlee Saif’s presence in hip hop challenges hip hop’s masculine, heteronormative culture. Nazlee Saif expresses strong stances on topics of race, sexuality, and religion. The artist’s discussion of a level of frustration with Black Consciousness, as well as the term “Hoteps”, may put Nazlee Saif at odds with some Pan Africanists. Nazlee on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwNoj0WTO0fAoKG0fagDFxQ Nazlee on Twitter: @NazleeArbee Readings Clark, Msia Kibona. 2014. “Gendered Representations among Tanzanian Female Emcees”. In Ni Wakati: Hip Hop and Social Change in Africa, edited by Msia Kibona Clark and Mickie Koster. Lanham, MD: Lexington Press. Haupt, Adam. 2016. Queering Hip-Hop, Queering the City: Dope Saint Jude’s Transformative Politics. M/C Journal, 19(4). Smith, Marquita R., 2014. “Or a Real, Real Bad Lesbian”: Nicki Minaj and the Acknowledgement of Queer Desire in Hip-Hop Culture. Popular Music and Society, 37(3), pp.360-370.