Category: Playlist
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They don’t mean to brag…Actually they do
For my mixtape, the theme was South African braggadocio rap. The reason for this is because I felt like it would be a good closer to all of my previous blog posts. For most of my post, I’ve written about South African female rappers and how their rap styles represented this new wave of rap.
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The UK through the lens of The African diaspora
For this mixtape, I focused on the modern rap scene in the United Kingdom, more specifically England. All of the artists in the mixtape are born to African parents and speak about their struggles living in the UK as young Black people but still being proud of their heritage. Much like the United States, the
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WOMEN IN CONTROL
Nigerian and world-renowned writer, speaker Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie spoke to the necessity of empowering females and feminism… “We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls, ‘You can have ambition, but not too much. You should aim to be successful, but not too successful. Otherwise, you will threaten the man.’
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The power of hip-hop: Africas FREEDOM FIGHTERS
The music industry has dramatically grown in the last couple of years despite harsh conditions faced by musicians on and off the continent. Music is sacred because it can calm the troubled mind, take away one’s sense of poverty, inequality, loneliness, and everything else that brings a burden. Political leaders, however, do not see music
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celebrate the female braggadocio
From the outsider’s gaze, hip hop is at times seen as monolithic and is trivialized by the outsider’s perspective – labelled as materialistic, unnecessary, and narcissistic. In their pursuit to underplay the complexity and nuance of the genre, as well as their convenient omission of the dedicated Eminem playlist in their music library, these strangers
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keep hip hop queer
For my mixtape project, I chose “Keeping Queerness Visible from Artists of South Africa.” As the world becomes more and more accepting of the LGBTQ+ community, it’s important that queer people across the globe take up the spaces they weren’t previously allowed or seen in. Hip hop is notoriously trans and homophobic, so the courage
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5 LGBTQ+ African Artists who challenge heteronormativity
This mixtape shines a well deserved light on five African hip hop artists who are challenging the heteronormative culture prevalent in much of Africa through their music. In many African countries, such as the ones these artists hail from, it can be dangerous to be openly LGBTQ+. These artists are taking great steps to normalizing
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Female & Southern African Rappers — Putting Themselves on the Map
A woman stepping into the male-dominated field of hip-hop is revolutionary in itself. Hip-hop was created by men like DJ Kool Herc and Afrika Bambaataa, in the South Bronx of New York City. Upon its creation you did not see too many female emcees and the weight of hip-hop was carried on the shoulders of
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Mixtape: Francophone Hip Hop and Political Consciousness
Hip-hop is at the forefront of political contestation in Francophone Africa, and has been for decades. Too-often unrecognized in the West, particularly in the Anglophone world, French African rap artists have carved out a place in civil societies across the continent as politicians, pundits, public intellectuals, and rebels, sometimes directly playing essential parts in changing
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Breaking Societal Norms with the Beauties of Africa
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIWKhlJkANWnAmsSMzPKUOZX4yRK2cOHW The Playlist highlights a plethora of hip hop styles from the women of Africa. All the artists help break a prevalent and ubiquitous norm typical in African Hip Hop today while still speaking of their own success using braggadocio. While watching the videos and listening to songs, you should think about first gender norms.