No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the author.
Hip Hop as dusty foot philosophy: Engaging locality
Abstract
When asked what he means by the Dusty Foot Philosopher (the title of his recent CD, which received a 2006 Juno Award for Rap Recording of the Year, and was nominated for the inaugural Polaris Music Prize), Somali-Canadian MC K'Naan explains that this is both how he sees himselfand a broader image of global representation. When images of Africa are shown on charity television (the most common means by which people view Africa, he suggests), the camera always kind of pans to the feet, and the feet are always dusty from these kids. What they're trying to portray is a certain bias connected to their own historical reasoning, and what I saw though instead, was that that child with the dusty feet himself is not a beggar, and he's not an undignified struggler, but he's the dusty foot philosopher. He articulates more than the cameraman can imagine, at that point in his life. But he has nothing; he has no way to dream, even. He just is who he is. (K'Naan Interview, April 25, 2004)1
The contemporary world is confronted with different forms of movement. Illegal migration is one of the types of these movements of people. In this chapter, I use hiphopography as an approach, following an emic vision of Mozambican hip-hop culture, to explore how Da Billas, a contemporary Mozambican rap performer, through the performance of the song Mafohlana, exposes the challenges of integrating illegal Mozambican migrants into South Africa. In doing so, I intend to discuss the transidiomatic practices that are created in the process of negotiating sociocultural identities in transnational contexts. By combining an ethnographic study of Mozambican hip-hop culture with oral histories and the socio-political agreements between Mozambique and South Africa that allow the migration of workers, my analysis will focus on the semiotic indexicalities found in the transition from the so-called purely Mozambican to the almost South African citizen, commonly referred to as madjonidjoni. I argue that transidiomatic practices are an important criterion in the construction of new migratory identities. I will illustrate that the new linguistic and sociocultural resources adopted by Mozambicans in South Africa generate new linguistic repertoire that allow for the construction of a new idea of belonging to a new world, the world of almost being a South African citizen. This new identity behaviour attains a prestigious socio-symbolic capital in Mozambique that is demonstrated through the use of a mixture of languages and performances. These sociolinguistic transformations and appropriations ultimately lead to language ideologies where some language varieties have more prestige than others.KeywordsMozambiqueSouth AfricaRapMigrationHiphopographyTransidiomatism
Language has always been one of the key areas of focus in discussions of rap music. This chapter has the intention of exploring the language used in Malawian rap music, not merely to show the blending of local languages with English, but to highlight the impact of this linguistic activity on the status of the artists and, consequently, on their situation of waithood. The chapter locates the language used in Malawian rap music as drawing from Global Hip Hop Nation Language (GHHNL), but also formed among the youth as an African Urban Youth Language (AUYL). The hypothesis is that linguistic versatility, as it is expressed in the music, provides a passport up the ranks of social status and may also translate into economic gain. The chapter presents the three key trends in Malawian rap, and also highlights various other linguistic features that determine how rappers are evaluated. The discussion features some extracts from rap songs in order to illustrate the use of language by the rappers.
In this chapter, the focus is on the means through which Malawian rap artists have managed to make rap music a Malawian music genre. With examples from several artists, the chapter illustrates the different tactics used by the artists including sampling techniques, arguing that this does not lead to the erasure of a culture, but rather the enriching of both the global hip-hop culture and the Malawian youth culture.
The premise of this chapter is based on the tendency among rap artists to sing about the places they come from. In Malawian rap, there is a recurrent reference to the ghetto, with the rappers claiming they are singing as a way of representing this space. The chapter explores the different nuances that the ghetto attains in the music, showing that despite the constant references to the ghetto, the rappers hold divergent attitudes about it. These include emphases on the need to escape the ghetto, the need for politicians to recognise and develop the ghetto, or the celebration of the ghetto as a formative space.
Der Beitrag untersucht, wie männliche Rapper, die zu unterschiedlichen Zeiten in Österreich mit dem Musikmachen begonnen haben, ihre Männlichkeit gewissermaßen beiläufig durch die Artikulation von Authentizitätsansprüchen konstruieren. Diese Praktiken umfassen beispielsweise die Einübung des männlichen Habitus in homosozialen Gemeinschaften, die Verwendung lokaler (Minderheiten-)Sprachen und die Betonung spezifischer geschlechtlicher, ethnischer und klassenspezifischer Dimensionen, die auf die Alltagserfahrungen der Rapper verweisen. Der Beitrag basiert auf Interviews mit Rappern und der Analyse von Songtexten.
The world was shrinking in the late 1800s. Growing global contacts, conflicts, and exchanges were eroding societies’ isolation and autonomy. One particularly influential response to the world’s need for improved communication came from L. L. Zamenhof (1859–1917), a Jewish student with strong interests in languages and international peace. He had grown up in Bialystok (then in the Russian Empire), whose population was divided into four mutually hostile communities: Poles, Russians, Germans, and Jews, each with its own language and religious tradition. His experience convinced him of the need for a universal language that would facilitate trade, diplomacy, and cultural exchanges, while reducing misunderstandings and conflicts. Like others with similar ideas, Zamenhof believed that no existing language could become a universal language, both because it would be resisted as foreign (perhaps imperialistic) and because of the practical difficulties of mastering the sounds, grammar, and idioms of the leading international languages. Instead, he argued, the world needed a new, “artificial” language, designed to be politically neutral and, by means of a simplified vocabulary and grammar, to be much easier to learn than any existing language.
Are young hiplife artists in Accra mere imitations of Jay-Z, Snoop Dogg, Kanye West, Eve, and Nicki Minaj? Are contemporary Ghanaian musicians and their fans trying to replicate American hip-hop wholesale? Perhaps the larger question is, are local cultures in Africa subsumed by a global cosmopolitanism constituting a new brand of colonialism that engenders a “foreign” identity among the local youth generation intent on being “modern” and “hip?” The answers to these questions are both simple and complex, representing convoluted realities of how culture travels, encounters both complicity and resistance, and reconstitutes itself in various hybrid forms.
ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any references for this publication.