The Hip Hop African Blog & Podcast
A blog and podcast on hip hop in Africa
Reggie Rockstone is one of the pioneers of hiplife in Ghana. In this conversation, he discusses how as a Pan Africanist, his perspective influenced his participation in hip hop culture in Ghana. He talks about the importance of popularizing the use of African languages through music, and how he helped to popularize the use of Twi in Ghanaian hiplife and hip hop. He discusses the importance of African languages in reaffirming pride, breaking colonial mentalities, and bridging class divides. Reggie Rockstone also talks about his own Pan Africanist upbringing, and the impact of his Diaspora experiences, as well as those of his father and African American mother.
The episode begins with Reggie Rockstone’s song “Proactive” and ends with his song “Woso”, both on his 2010 album Reggiestration, which is available on iTunes https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/reggiestration/412457159.
Reggie Rockstone can be found on Instagram @reggierockstone711 and Twitter @ReggieRockstone
This is an article from GhanaMusic.com that talks about the album “Reggiestration” from the African hip hop artist Reggie Rockstone. Rockstone was born in Ghana but spent his early childhood in the United States. He returned to Ghana in the 1990’s and has been continuously living there developing the music style hiplife which infuses the African genre highlife with hip hop music. The album “Reggiestration” is a double album that includes remixes of some of Reggie Rockstone’s older songs as well as brand new tracks. There are many big artists featured on this album like 2face, Wyclef, Sena, D Black, and Trigmatic. The second track on the album is titled “Ah Jay” and has the essence of the African Highlife style, the chorus of the song is done in Twi. Songs from the album “Reggiestration” tell the history and roots of Africa as well as celebrate the high points of African culture and life. The album cover has a cocoa pod, which Rockstone said represents the harvest of all the hard work he has been doing.
http://www.ghanamusic.com/music/album-review/reviewing-the-qreggiestrationq-album/index.html
