Hip Hop is a genre that is adored and celebrated worldwide, and nowadays, the North American continent isn’t the only one booming with Hip Hop lovers. Africa has produced an influx of Hip Hop artists over the last four decades. Within the game that we’ve come to know as the music industry, there are artists who are now in the limelight and ascended from bad conditions. Those artists go on to tell their stories of pain and struggle within their music. Today we dive into the story of a Liberian artist who followed that same plan of action.
Christoph the Change, born Christopher Nyenga, is an award-winning Hipco rapper and songwriter from Monrovia, Liberia. Christoph recalls in many of his songs how he came from the streets and has had a hustler mentality since he was a kid. Growing up in Liberia, the living conditions weren’t the best, and Christoph describes in his lyrics how he and his family struggled to put food on the table, and how he, like anyone in that situation would, wanted to come up and have the means to make sure his family doesn’t sink to that low again. Christoph is an artist that likes to give insight on his background, how he operates, and how he came into the “beast mode” mentality, the mentality that labels him as a role model for so many Liberian kids. Now let’s dive further into the music.
Christoph hasn’t released a Hip-Hop-related, individual body of work since 2020, yet he’s done a couple of features since then. In his last released Hip Hop song, Burst It, which was released in 2020, it’s primarily a song about sexual encounters with a woman. To be frank, the visuals are nothing special. We see a woman whining her waist and throwing herself all over Christoph. Alongside that, we see Christoph rolling a blunt, and nothing but men fondling over women’s behinds. The beat is similar to a lot of standard American Hip Hop songs that we hear today and, like most rappers today, the lyrics consist of money, stealing girls, and proving he’s the hottest thing on the block. The music video has amassed over 16,000 views in the three years since it’s been released and features fellow Liberian artist, Lil Jay. Christoph has produced better bodies of work so don’t let this one song ruin your judgment of him. If you’re anything like me and love a song with a message, check out his single “African Child Christoph”.
On top of making music, Christoph is the CEO of Massive Entertainment Music Group (MEMG). There isn’t much information about his company or what artists are associated with it other than Christoph, but nonetheless, this is an achievement that can’t go unmentioned. It’s safe to say that Christoph the Change is an active artist striving to make his name known throughout the African continent.