Africa Is a Country

Hip-hop's Language Problem

Hip-hop's Language Problem

By
Tom Devriendt

Rob Boffard writing in The Guardian:

Hip-hop in South Africa faces the same problems all music faces – how do you reach as wide an audience as possible? But it has additional posers unique to this country – can you rap in any of South Africa’s 11 languages and still be relevant to all your listeners? And how much can you rely on American hip-hop before losing your own identity? But this is a genre bursting with talent, and South African rap artists are finding ways around the difficulties their situation throws at them … Corporate interest helped South African hip-hop beat one of its biggest problems. Globally, few genres have taken to the internet like hip-hop, and it’s now a vital tool for any artist. But in South Africa? Not a chance. Of the country’s 49m people, only around 6m have access to the web. And in the predominantly black townships, which represent hip-hop’s core market, internet access is almost unheard of. When it comes to publicising and distributing music, there’s rarely a workable online option.

Is that so?

Further Reading

Not only kafala

Domestic workers in the Gulf typically face a double bind: as a foreign worker, you are governed by kafala laws, while as a female, you are governed by the male guardianship system.

Edson in Accra

It happened in 1969. But just how did he world’s greatest, richest and most sought-after footballer at the time, end up in Ghana?

The dreamer

As Africa’s first filmmakers made their unique steps in Africanizing cinema, few were as bold as Djibril Diop Mambéty who employed cinema to service his dreams.