Hip-Hop in Africa. Msia Kibona Clark
artists and how such language use is linked to hip-hop identities for authenticity. To her, hip-hop language, or as she cleverly puts it, “brkn lngwjz,” points to new forms always being created by hip-hop artists.
For Clark, hip-hop language represents hybrid linguistic practices in the local African hip-hop context. Let’s not get it twisted with language, because, as she argues, African hip-hop artists share in hip-hop cultural codes that allow them to represent their racialized identities on the African continent and by doing so bring us back to the connection between class, race, and culture. Questions of the dominance and hegemony of English on the African continent, and certainly other languages such as French and Portuguese, have been around since colonialism, and apartheid—for decades—and much ink has been spilled in critical op-eds, books, journal articles, poetry, and literature on those two issues. With calls for decolonization of not only the mind but the material reality of the historically marginalized people of Africa in this century, language has once again taken center stage, and it is through “the coded language used by African hip-hop artists,” Clark claims, that we once again see the emphasis fall on the need to develop Pan-African identities. Hip-hop artists should be seen as critical language scholars, and for every artist, irrespective of which country in Africa they may find themselves in, language is central to representing a Pan-African identity. And depending on the language or language variety used, even if through “African and African American coded language and cultural symbols,” such an identity does emerge.
In considering language, Clark raises an important question: Does it mean cultural appropriation takes place when African hiphop artists mix African and African American linguistic codes to represent their identities? The answer to this is a carefully considered critical discussion of the distinctions we need to make between the “localization of art, styles, symbols, and practices between Africa and the African diaspora” and the wholesale adoption of American hiphop. If this does happen, she asks, should we be talking about misappropriation? This clever analysis of misappropriation, as the reader will no doubt discover, is more than just a rhetorical device Clark uses to lure the reader into her critical ambit. She argues that you cannot simply suggest that African youth deeply invested in hip-hop culture are just appropriating hip-hop culture from the United States willy-nilly. This would be a mistake at best, and at worst an ahistorical approach to the local development of hip-hop across various localities in Africa. We have to focus, as she argues, on the language choices of the artist because selecting a language is not only important for the listening audience but for the social statement the artist will make.
The reason is simple: the multilingual emcee of Africa is a “super emcee.” This powerful description of the linguistic biography of the multilingual emcee, as Clark quotes Chuck D, who coined the phrase “super emcee,” reminds us that when African hip-hop artists write, they draw on “more than one cultural system, using multiple languages, symbols, and cultural cues to compose songs that claim ownership of multiple cultural systems.” That is the norm for a multilingual emcee on the African continent.
There is of course no such thing as a monolingual emcee in Africa. This is because emcees are able to choose to rap in European languages or African languages. As Clark clearly demonstrates, emcees on the African continent may rap in Sheng, Swahili, Twi, Ewe, Wolof, Jola, and of course English and French. And though African hip-hop artists are fluent in European languages and choose to rap in those languages, they also do so in African languages—they take into account their target audience, the marketability of their music, how best to represent their political views, and how to strengthen their cultural connections. To best represent their Pan-African identity, they often code-switch between what H. Samy Alim (2007) has termed Hip Hop Nation Language (HHNL) and an African or European language to identify with the global hip-hop community and to demonstrate their linguistic authenticity.
Not fully understanding this difference in code-switching, Clark argues, not only often leads to a misunderstanding of the multilingual situation of African hip-hop artists but also leads to the unfair and unreliable description that those artists are inauthentic because they only speak like, or rap like, African American rappers or produce music that sounds too African American or generally American. Hardly. Clark hits back hard at this assertion, arguing that “one cannot appropriate from one’s own culture” and that we have to take seriously the “historical-cultural give-and-take that has gone on between the two communities.” The downside to the appropriation argument is the misappropriation one, and as Clark puts it powerfully: it happens “when one culture’s privilege allows it to incorrectly appropriate another culture in the creation or furtherance of harmful tropes and stereotypes. For example, when performing in blackface, White actors used their privilege to appropriate what they thought was African American culture, only to further negative tropes about the lazy, untrustworthy, and stupid African American.”
This powerful notion of misappropriation introduced by Clark pushes the focus on language and hip-hop performance and practice onto the localities where hip-hop is practiced in Africa. Misappropriation opens up on the racialized perceptions held not only by Africans about African Americans but also the other way around. The notion helps us tease open an often uncomfortable subject in inter- and cross-cultural communication studies: misunderstanding and politeness, or impoliteness across cultures. Clark argues convincingly that we cannot adopt a culture wholesale without adapting to it to local conditions. This means a fair amount of reworking and ultimately the production of new forms of hip-hop.
Clark’s book is a welcome contribution to the growing scholarship on hip-hop in the African continent. It should be of interest to scholarship in anthropology, sociolinguistics, cultural studies, musicology, and sociology. It opens up not only debate about hip-hop culture on the African continent, but it is also a decolonizing statement on the evolving forms, functions, and translinguality of African hip-hop in the twenty-first century.
Acknowledgments
This project has been years in the making. There has been a network of scholars, artists, and activists who supported this project. Much gratitude to Kibacha Singo (KBC) and Zavara Mponjika for being down since 1996 and helping with the connects in Tanzania, Kenya, and South Africa; and for reminding me to “keep it hip-hop.” Fareed Kubanda (Fid Q) for making the necessary introductions in Dar. Magee McIlvaine and Ben Herson from Nomadic Wax, who helped secure contacts in Senegal, and for starting the Trinity International Hip-Hop Festival. My brother, Becaye Dial, for hooking me up with folks in Dakar. Mamadou Sambe and the Sambe family for welcoming me into your home. Dr. Seth Markle from Trinity College for providing a space for me to meet with artists coming to the Trinity Festival. Prof. Shani Omari from the University of Dar es Salaam for our many discussions about hip-hop in Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar. Kwame Opoku (aka Quame Jr), for introducing me to most of the artists I linked with in Ghana. Sarah Hager from Amnesty International USA for helping with me with Angola links. Burni Aman and Shaheen Ariefdien for all the links in South Africa. Mejah Mbuya for being my historian on graffiti in Tanzania. Tacitus Nana Yabani for introducing me to the Pidgin Music crew and taking me around Accra. Buddha Blaze for helping put the pieces together on hip-hop in Kenya. The comrades in the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party for helping me with accommodations in Ghana. Babaluku and the Bavubuka Foundation for inviting me to Kampala and allowing me to build with Ugandan and Congolese artists. The many artists that were gracious enough to not only allow an interview but responded to my requests for clarification or translation.
To the crew, who supported this project from day one: Dr. Adryan Wallace of the University of Hartford, one of the smartest and funniest people I know, thank you for allowing me to bounce my crazy theories off you. Dr. Mjiba Frehiwot at the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana, Legon, and the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party: Mjiba, you are the ultimate activist-academic and you have helped me understand Kwame Nkrumah better than any book. Mamertha Kente, my sister for life, your support allowed me to do my research and not break my bank.
The JCSU family: you guys always held me down. Tamitha Lewis and Hafid McIntyre, your questions about the status of the book kept me on track more than you realized. Nicole Holmes, there’s no one else I’d rather go into battle with.
The illustrious women of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority,