My life as a performing poet has
seen me travel across South Africa in search of poetry sessions where I can
share poesy with those willing and able to hear and listen. During these travels, I have observed
similarities in the cultures, or sub-cultures, and music of said sessions. These include a preference for hip-hop
culture and dress as well as hip-hop music, particularly conscious rap. These observations have led to the current endeavour
or excursion, in which I ask the questions, “Has American hip-hop culture and
music impacted on South African street music and culture?” and “Is this
influence a new occurrence? Are there
other examples of South African musical culture being influenced by American
music and culture?” Another question
that glared at the writer from the onset is, “What philosophical socio-political
questions are raised by this transcultural exchange?”
For purposes of this essay I will
focus on a pair of musicians based in Tshwane, Sibusile “Skraal” Xaba and
Kholofelo “Naftali” Mphago. This in turn
will be aided by looking at hip-hop duo Black Star.
At this point I wish to define
what I term street music and culture,
which is similar to what Kai Fikentscher calls “underground dance music” (UDM),
he explains,
“The prefix “underground” does not merely serve to
explain that the associated type of music - and its cultural context – are
familiar only to a small number of informed persons. Underground also points to the
socio-political function of the music, framing it as one type of music that in
order to have meaning and continuity is kept away, to a large degree, from
mainstream society, mass media, and those empowered to enforce prevalent moral
and aesthetic codes and values” (2000:5).
I must add, however, that in street music the aim is not always to
keep the art away from the mainstream media and society. In fact the aim is quite the opposite, that
being to infiltrate the media and society.
The purpose of such infiltration is to propagate certain “…moral and
aesthetic codes and values” (Fikentscher, 2000:5).
As a definition of underground,
Fikentscher puts forward the following,
“The prefix “underground” often denotes a context in
which certain activities take place out of a perceived necessity for a protected,
possibly secret arena that facilitates opposition, subversion, or delimitation
to a larger, dominant, normative, possibly oppressive environment. These environments may be political, social
or cultural in nature, and underground responses to them may emphasize one of
these qualities or combine them in various ways” (2000:9).
During an interview in Rosebank,
Cape Town, Kholofelo Mphago (Naftali) spoke of how he feels they should be
living as musicians and artists. He spoke
to an agrarian lifestyle, socialism and went on to add (rather poetically),
“…no this bullshit that we going through now…we have
to have a plan, ‘cause even them, these people, Babylon, them have a plan
you know? So we have to have a plan too,
to get what we want, what’s ours…” (2013).
In his words, we hear echoes of
the previous quote by Fekentscher, the idea of them, and us. The “us” in
this case being the so-called facilitators of opposition, the delimitation of a
dominant and / or oppressive environment.
In this case the environment is indeed political, social and cultural in
nature (2000:9). This dominant
environment is named Babylon. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) defines Babylon as,
“Chiefly Jamaican (esp.
in the context of Rastafarianism). A contemptuous or dismissive term for:
anything regarded as representing the degenerate or oppressive nature of white
culture; spec. the police, a policeman” (2013).
In essence, the drive for such musicians is similar to
the drive and social, political, economic and cultural circumstances that led
to the creation of hip-hop as a culture, along with its respective arts.
“[Hip-hop] is, essentially, a redefinition of “what
is” into “what is ours” (Nkoana, 2012:1).
At this point it would perhaps be fitting to briefly
touch on the emergence of hip-hop in the Bronx of New York and how it too was a
revolt against the status quo at the time. Cheryl Keyes, in her essay At the Crossroads: Rap Music and Its African
Nexus states,
“…rap music expresses the everyday harsh realities of
ghetto life and socio-political sentiments ranging from poverty, police
brutality, and racial genocide to class and gender relations by urban black
youth constituency. Although these
studies were primarily drawn from lyrical analysis rather than ethnographic inquiry,
they nevertheless remain important in comprehending rap as a form of resistance
and contestation” (1996:224).
Here we see a connection between on the one hand, the
battles against Babylon as articulated by Naphtali, and on the other, “…rap as
a form of resistance and contestation.” (Keyes, 1996:224) What concerns this paper is not the musical
element within hip-hop, but rather the cultural and more specifically the
culture of revolt and resistance. It is
my contention that part of the influence that hip-hop has had on the inner city
youths of Tshwane has been giving them examples of people who look like them
and are in the same socio-political position as they are, but who have managed
to use the arts to at least attempt to make a change within their communities.
“Since its emergence in the South Bronx and throughout
the northeast during the early and mid-1970s, Hip Hop has encompassed not just
a musical genre, but also a style of dress, dialect and language, way of
looking at the world, and an aesthetic that reflects the sensibilities of a
large population of youth…” (Alridge & Stewart, 2005:190).
My observations of Tshwane street culture is that it
is increasingly hip-hop in its “…style of dress, dialect and language…”
(Alridge & Stewart, 2005:190). Although
linguistics and dress code do not form a part of the scope here, it is
important to note the various ways in which the culture has been expressed
within the subject area. As William E.
Perkins explains,
“Rap has transformed American fashion with its
sneakers, boots, loose fitting clothes, and “whacked” colors and designs”
(1996:1).
The same holds true for other regions in Africa,
“The presentation of self is…dependent on an
individual’s position and interest in a given context. For instance, in live performance, many youth
use the stage to display the identity of communities with which they want to be
associated. These communities are known
as camps in Tanzania and refer to the gathering of youth in specific locations
throughout the city who share common ideological perspectives” (Perullo, 2012:199).
The artist communities of Tshwane also seem partial to
loose fitting or sagging trousers, as well as takkies. One difference however, is the preference for
natural colors, different shades of brown, green and beige[1].
The adoption of American popular music styles by South
African musicians is, as a matter of fact, not a new occurrence,
“Kwela is
one style in a long tradition of urban black South African music which stems
from marabi…Musically, a new identity
was negotiated through the syncretic amalgamation of two stylistic traditions,
namely African-American music and music of South Africa’s pre-colonial past”
(Allen, 1996:56).
This is true for American popular culture as
well. In the same paper, titled "Drumbeats, Pennywhistles and All That
Jazz", Lara Allen asserts that kwela
music or rather, African-American lifestyle, presented an ideal that black,
urban and upwardly mobile individuals could aspire to. Allen says,
“The incorporation of black American musical elements,
such as the swing rhythm, connoted the chic sophistication desired by many
young kwela fans” (1996:58).
This is not unlike the influence of hip-hop on the
street music and art of the Tshwane area as is the position of this paper. Particularly in terms of “conscious
rap.”
When looking at hip-hop acts such as Black Star, we
find artists who, like Skraal and Naftali, use their art to promote
socio-political together with socio-economic consciousness among inner city
youths. In both instances - for reasons
that will not be explored in this paper - the youths are predominantly black,
whereas in America the group also includes other non-white youths. The demographics are important because they
speak to a historical imbalance that much conscious rap tries to address. It is indeed common knowledge that much of
these imbalances have been, over the past few centuries, been based on race,
particularly against black people.
“A significant part of hip hop
culture, rap articulates the experiences and conditions of African-Americans
living in a spectrum of marginalized situations ranging from racial
stereotyping and stigmatizing to struggle for survival in violent ghetto conditions. In this cultural context, rap provides a
voice to the voiceless, a form of protest to the oppressed, and a mode of
alternative cultural style and identity to the marginalized. Rap is…a potent form of cultural identity. It has become a powerful vehicle for cultural
political expression…[describing] the rage of African-Americans facing growing
oppression, declining opportunities for advancement…and everyday life as a
matter of sheer survival. In turn, it
has become a cultural virus, circulating its images, sounds, and attitude
throughout the culture and body politic” (Best and Kellner, 1999).
In their song “Thieves in the Night”, Talib
Kweli and Yasiin Bey (members of the hip-hop duo Black Star) speak to similar
issues in their lyrics,
“Our morals are out of place
and got our lives full of sorrow and so tomorrow comin later than usual.
Waitin' on someone to pity us, while we findin beauty in the hideous. They say money's the root of all evil but I
can't tell, you know what I mean, pesos, francs, yens, cowrie shells, dollar
bills. Or is it the mind state that's ill? Creating crime rates to fill the new
prisons they build. Over money and
religion there's more blood to spill, the wounds of slaves in cotton fields
that never heal. What's the deal?” (Talib
Kweli, 1998)
To this Yasiin Bey adds,
“We either niggaz or Kings We
either bitches or Queens The deadly ritual seems immersed, in the perverse Full
of short attention spans, short tempers, and short skirts Long barrel
automatics released in short bursts The length of black life is treated with
short worth Get yours first, them other niggaz secondary That type of illin
that be fillin up the cemetery…” (1998)
These are words parallel the dimensions of black
consciousness, advancement of black power against a backdrop of white supremacy
and socioeconomic oppression by what was previously referred to as
Babylon.
Skraal echoes similar sentiments during our
interview when he speaks about what he feels the duty of an artist should be,
“Society as a whole, everybody
struggles for freedom and happiness and artists are somehow able to tap into
that…all artists, regardless of race and color, all true artists who are really
in this, not for them, but for [the] betterment [of] all, face the same
challenges. It’s like we are suppressed
because we come with the true light of how living should be” (2013).
Although Skraal and Naftali are not rappers or
emcees, nor do they necessarily compose or play hip-hop music, their ideas,
ideals and way of life is very much in the vein of hip-hop culture. They have both also performed with various
hip-hop acts in and around Tshwane, these include Ndo and the Beatbox, Hakeem,
Lil Winter, too name but three. As Lee Watkins posits,
“Hip hoppers share their skills
and the ideology of hip hop with underprivileged children, who acquire skills
in performance and are given an opportunity to improve their social
environment. Establishing a sense of
communalism through hip hop is regarded as a means to combat the intense
alienation most young people experience in the townships of South Africa. This sense of communalism depends on
developing critical awareness and black consciousness among adherents and new
recruits” (2012:65).
The past few paragraphs have covered the socio-political
elements and questions that are generally raised within hip-hop and in
consequence the socio-political questions brought about by said transcultural
exchange.
One point at issue raised by the last quote from
Lee Watkins is that of the role of education among hip-hop artists, or in the
point of this paper, street artists. Not
the education of the artists themselves, but rather their education of others,
their social responsibilities.
What is of most significance here is Skraal and
Naftali’s contribution to the arts and music in particular. The focus here will be on a movement called
The Capital Arts Revolution (CAR). CAR
is an initiative by young artists from across the world, which is based in the
capital city, Tshwane. They organize art
events in and around Tshwane. Their
Facebook page describes their aim as,
“We aim at bringing about an
artistic revival in the Capital City. We
aim at bringing an appreciation, an enjoyment and…an education of sincere
artistic endeavor to people of all walks of life: education in the form of
community workshops. We aim at being the
living, breathing representation of young artists in the Capital City.” (2011)
The importance of such a movement is not lost to
me, nor should it be to anyone else. It
is this papers contention that these “community workshops” are beneficial to
music education of inner city youths of Tshwane, particularly informal and
non-formal education,
“Music education is a life-long
process which commences in the womb and continues throughout life, in the
formal, informal and non-formal education sectors.” (Hauptfleisch, 1993:34)
It is also a worthwhile network of artists,
whereby artists can share knowledge about gigs, business management, rehearsal
spaces, SAMRO registration, and etcetera.
Essentially, the street art culture of Tshwane
is a subculture that can be compared to hip-hop’s culture. Indeed in many ways hip-hop has informed the
direction, ideology and philosophies of street culture. This, however, is not necessarily to do with
rap music and the music of the streets of Tshwane. This transcultural exchange or borrowing is
not a new occurrence between South Africans and their African American
counterparts and has influenced everything from dress code to lingo. We have seen how hip-hop artists,
particularly rappers, use their lyrics to inform, educate and elevate
consciousness of youths, just as the street artists of Tshwane do so with their
lifestyle. Lastly, it should be
mentioned that most, if not all, the artists in and around Tshwane are ardent
followers of hip-hop music and culture and thus it should not be a surprise to
see the impact such lifestyle has had on these artists.
[1] I am
of the opinion that this has something to do with an affinity to militancy and
a close association with all things agrarian, although this requires more
research and cannot, at this point, be stated unequivocally.
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