The artist Stormzy originally named Michael Omari was born in London but his parents are originally from Ghana. His song Rainfall speaks to those who look down on him and those who he considers “enemies” by saying, “Lord let the rainfall on my enemies.” Looking at the video I do not see much connection to his African Heritage from the clothing, and the video itself. However, he does bring something new to hip hop artists and music with this video. His song represents the innovation and creative growth of hip hop over the years. The video caught my attention with its use in technology. The video is made to resemble a video game and he is presented as a video game character. His costume is very simple and plain but the visuals and graphics similar to a video game making the video very aesthetically pleasing to watch.
His lyrics are another factor that make him stand out. Many of his songs are very diss-like. Especially the song Rainfall, he curses out his enemies and mentions their mother. Although it is important to have African artists in hip hop, and not to say that he is a bad artist, but some could say that he may stand as an antithesis to some progress of Africans in hip hop. As I have said before, his song and other songs do not link him to Africa in my opinion. Not to say that you have to link yourself to Africa to be considered an artist; however, in terms of his music, it seems very westernized. I exclaim that he is a very good MC; however, besides the creativity of the visuals, I don’t see a major influence or uniqueness that would differentiate him from other UK MCs using African symbolism. In all, he still brings something new visually to the music industry. I feel his location also plays a vital role in the minimum representation of Africa in his music overall.
FOLLOW STORMZY:
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/stormzyoffic
WEBSITE: https://stormzy.com/
Leave a Reply