Category: South Africa
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Journal of Pan African Studies: Hip Hop in Africa
I’ve recently edited a special edition of the Journal of Pan African Studies on hip hop in Africa. With articles by myself and a diversity of other scholars writing on Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe. ● The Struggle for Hip Hop Authenticity and Against Commercialization in Tanzania by Msia Kibona Clark ● Urban Guerrilla Poetry:…
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African Hip Hop Film Series
This winter California State University, Los Angeles is holding an African Hip Hop Film Series. The films feature hip hop scenes from all over Africa, including Burkina Faso, Ghana, Kenya, Senegal, South Africa, and Uganda. All films are free and open to the public. For more information contact Msia Clark @ mclark7@calstatela.edu.
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Is Kwaito South African hip hop?
In the article, Is Kwaito South African hip hop?, Swarlene Swartz writes about Kwaito in South Africa. There is an ongoing debate in South Africa as to calling “Kwaito” music South African hip hop. Many people argue that it is not, saying that it is merely mainstream European house music with reggae and rock elements.…
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Ben Sharpa
Ben Sharpa was born in 1979 in the slum of Soweto, South Africa. From young childhood Ben Sharpa experienced the brutal reality of the Apartheid regime as well as the struggle against it. As a child his father moved the family to live in Chicago, Illinois where he grow up acutely aware of the suffering…
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Driemanskap
Driemanskap is a hip hop group from South Africa, consisting of El Nino, Ma-B, Redondo, and Dla. They are represented on Pioneer Unit record label based out of Cape Town. This hip hop group like many other South African artists believe that hip hop is about bring attention to important issues and representing where you…
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Jean Grae
Jean Grae was born in South Africa to politically conscious musician parents who immigrated to New York for more freedom when she was very young. Though she identifies as a New Yorker, she stays close to history and exemplifies the struggle Black female artists go through in Africa or in America. She speaks of the…
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The Effects of American Hip-Hop in South Africa
In her article, Being a ‘bitch’: some questions on the gendered globalisation and consumption of American hip-hop urban culture in post-apartheid South Africa, Lliane Loots explores how American hip-hop has impacted the identities of youth in South Africa. Loots begins her article by discussing her first encounter with hip-hop in Wentworth, South Africa. This town…
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State of South African Hip Hop
The rise of hip hop in South Africa began with Prophets of Da City when they performed the song “Excellent, the First Black President”, said Lee Kasumba, a DJ, writer, and all round authority on the rap scene there. That song put hip hop on the map in South Africa. Prior to that, hip hop…
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Hip Hop: who represents South Africa
Hip Hop artists in Africa are faced with a common problem among most musicians in the world, how to reach as wide an audience as possible. For most the answer has seemed to be the internet, but the internet is not as useful for this problem in South Africa because only 6 million of the…
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Film: Counting Headz: South Afrika’s Sistaz in Hip Hop
Counting Headz: South Afrika’s Sistaz in Hip Hop is a documentary that was shot in Johannesburg and in Cape Town, South Africa. This film is a documentary about South African women and their struggle. Several rap artists in the film discuss their life and situation through music and Hip Hop. The film explained the obstacles…