The Hip Hop African

Yazzavelli’s EP is similar to what is discussed in the current readings of my class. When we look at “lyricism of female emcees in Africa, we must translate the meanings of the words, the purpose of the text. This goes beyond language translation and is an analysis of the subtext understood through the artist’s use of wordplay “(Clark 2014).

This can be applied to the “use of braggadocio by female emcees in Africa” (Clark 2014). Essentially what happening is “the artist is trying to communicate through lyrics that appear to be only self-celebration and will reveal the role of braggadocio in an artist’s empowerment and rejection of taboos around female aggression” (Clark 2014).

Female artists in this space tend to use their voices to bring awareness to the injustices to women and bring a feminist perspective and voice to African hip-hop. They expose the deep rooted political issues behind all the injustices that occur within society.

And some women represent their gender identities in different ways. Some in ways that are argued to be counter intuitive to the movement forward of women and their rights in society. “Some women choose to act out the hypersexual images of women, they may simultaneously choose to assert their masculinity through their lyrics. Women, in fact, present their own “masculinities” and represent challenges to socially constructed gender identities in doing so (Clark 2014).

“A focus on the meanings of messages being conveyed provides an opportunity to expand ideas surrounding womanhood and sexuality in Africa. It also allows us to see the dialogue happening among artists as a representation of the varied notions on these topics among many African urban women” (Clark 2014).