Tag: Senegalese Hip Hop
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Toussa, or all-inclusive
Who is Astou Gaye, and how did she set the contemporary precedent for aspiring female rappers in the banlieus surrounding Dakar? Better known by her stage name Toussa Senerap, Astou began her career calling out a highly-patriarchal Senegalese culture that withholds respect for women in both marriage and the hip-hop industry. There is no questioning
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L’argot de Sénégal
“Senegal slang” signifies more than its catchy nature would insinuate. It is impossible to watch this “Y’en a marre” (enough is enough) video without recollecting Golden-Age American hip hop artists discuss social progression some 20 to 30 years after the civil rights movement. The video begins with Senegalese rapper Djily Baghdad discussing crumbling social and political institutions
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On the Other Side of the Tracks with Gokh-Bi System’s “Pikine”
New York, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Detroit— name a city in America and there’s sure to be artists that represent the vibrant hip-hop culture that inhabits it. The same holds true across the Atlantic in the West African nation of Senegal, and you’d be hard-pressed to find another city that embodies hip-hop culture as much as
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MHD en sa Patrie
Mohammed Sylla (MHD) performed in front of thousands of Senegalese in Dakar in December 2017. This concert, staged in front of the 49-meter-tall African Renaissance Monument, united the international phenomenon MHD with domestically-popular Senegalese hip-hop artists in an evening ripe with music, dance, and humor.
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Ghana & Senegal: Letters to the People
There are many types of hip hop songs: some sample old songs, some create their own back track, some tell a story and some send a message. In many African countries, the voice that hip hop artists have due to their popularity has been used to speak to it’s community of listeners (typically the youth) to
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“Respect the Nubians”
Hip Hop requires authenticity. No matter how you define authenticity it is the central element to hip hop. As stated in The Struggle for Authenticity and Against Commercialization in Tanzania “to be considered hip hop you need to stay true to the origins of hip hop as a tool of resistance and a voice of