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

After the coups

Without institutional foundations or credible partners, the Alliance of Sahelian States risks becoming the latest failed experiment in regional integration.

Whose game is remembered?

The Women’s Africa Cup of Nations opens in Morocco amid growing calls to preserve the stories, players, and legacy of the women who built the game—before they’re lost to erasure and algorithm alike.

Sovereignty or supremacy?

As far-right politics gain traction across the globe, some South Africans are embracing Trumpism not out of policy conviction but out of a deeper, more troubling identification.

From Cape To Cairo

When two Africans—one from the south, the other from the north—set out to cross the continent, they raised the question: how easy is it for an African to move in their own land?

The road to Rafah

The ‘Sumud’ convoy from Tunis to Gaza is reviving the radical promise of pan-African solidarity and reclaiming an anticolonial tactic lost to history.