rhythmic style. Artists participate in developing subgenres through experimentation, especially with samples and other elements that help distinguish where the artist is located and which subgenre they represent. According to Lena, sampling helps “the artist or group in signaling sub-genre identity. Through sampling practices, rappers tell listeners to which artistic circles they belong” (2004, 309). In South Africa’s diverse rap scene, language is also a signifier of rap subgenre.
Hip-hop subgenres remain connected to broader hip-hop cultures and communities. Spaza and motswako rap artists in South Africa still use hip-hop rhyme techniques, while kwaito, its own genre, borrows elements from hip-hop music, as well as house music, and has its own rules of composition. In a study of hip-hop subgenres in the United States, Lena writes, “While the diversity of rap sub-genres over sixteen years of production is undeniable, an analysis of rap lyrics suggests strong similarities across sub-genre styles” (2004, 490). New genres of music emerge from blending elements of various music genres. As new genres develop their distinctive styles, dances, culture, and rules of composition, they also develop their own identity.
In Africa, hip-hop would influence the development of several new music genres. New, hip-hop-influenced, musical genres emerged in many countries in Africa in the 1990s. These new genres (hiplife in Ghana, bongo flava in Tanzania, and kwaito in South Africa) would often blend hip-hop, R&B, reggae, house, and African sounds. In the cases of hiplife and bongo flava, the songs are also performed primarily in local languages. They are popular in urban African club scenes and have directly competed with hip-hop for radio airtime.
In Ghana, hiplife emerged in the early 1990s (Odamtten 2011; Collins, 2012; Shipley 2012). Artists like Reggie Rockstone, along with groups like Talking Drums, were among the first hiplife musicians in the country. Rockstone, known by many as the godfather of hiplife, is also a hip-hop artist. In a photo taken at his home in Accra (fig. 1.2), he wears a T-shirt proclaiming “I am Hiplife.” Ghana is home to an active hiplife and hip-hop community (sometimes referred to as GH rap, or Ghana rap), with many artists moving between the genres. Artists like Sarkodie, Reggie Rockstone, and Edem move between genres regularly.
Figure 1.2. Reggie Rockstone in Accra in 2010. Photo by author.
Unlike in Tanzania and South Africa, both the Ghanaian hybrid (hiplife) and hip-hop deal with social and political issues. According to producer Panji Anoff, hiplife often takes a more humorous approach to social commentary, while hip-hop tends to be more aggressive in its approach. Kwaito and bongo flava are known as mainly dance music, lacking a lot of real political commentary. Hiplife, kwaito, and bongo flava have all been described as be their country’s versions of hip-hop, but are actually their own genres, which incorporated sound from hip-hop and other music to create new genres. Today most are financially lucrative industries. Bongo flava is sung in Swahili, while hiplife is sung in Twi, Ewe, Ga, and other local languages. Kwaito is usually sung using one of the South African languages. Both kwaito and bongo flava contain lighter lyrical content, often avoiding many of the politics that South African and Tanzanian hip-hop often cover (World: The Global Hit 2007; Clark 2013), though in discussing early bongo flava, Lemelle (2006) suggests that it was initially political. Unlike in Ghana, in Tanzania hip-hop artists have fought to forge their own separate identity, distancing themselves from bongo flava, with only a few artists performing music in both genres. Ghanaian hip-hop artists often do both hip-hop and hiplife music. Likewise, in South Africa, Shaheen Ariefdien says that some hip-hop artists do kwaito in order to fund hip-hop projects. Shaheen Ariefdien is one of the members of pioneering South African hip-hop group Prophets of da City.
According to Shaheen Ariefdien, the reason hip-hop in South Africa remains strong is “because it doesn’t imagine its life-force coming from a barcode” (pers. comm., August 11, 2011). Shaheen Ariefdien perceived the biggest threat to South African hip-hop to be hip-hop influences from outside South Africa, particularly the kind of hip-hop that a lot of conscious South African artists do not identify with ideologically. Indeed, South Africa does seem to be facing some of the debates facing American hip-hop. According to Lee Watkins (2012), the growing influence of purely profit-driven hip-hop music has created some divisions within South African hip-hop.
The subgenres of South African hip-hop include spaza, motswako, and zef rap. The three styles utilize the same hip-hop rhyme techniques, and these terms are applied to artists performing South African languages. Spaza rap contains lyrics that are performed in multiple languages, especially Xhosa, often representing ghetto life in South Africa (UnderGround Angle 2009; Subzzee 2010b; Williams and Stroud 2013). Examples of Spaza artists include Driemanskap, Middle Finga, and Kritsi Ye’Spaza. Motswako is said to have come to South Africa via Botswana, and also contains the blending of languages, especially Tswana (Subzzee 2010a). One of the best-known Motswako artists is Hip Hop Pantsula (HHP), while younger artists Chazz le Hippie and Missy RBK have emerged recently. Zef rap was a style started by White Afrikaans speaking hip-hop heads and is performed in Afrikaans (Williams and Stroud 2013).
In Tanzania, hip-hop is not as commercially viable as bongo flava: many hip-hop artists are critical of the pop genre and have turned into activists invested in maintaining and developing Tanzanian hip-hop culture. While hip-hop culture remains strong through the youth involved in the culture, the tensions between bongo flava and hip-hop may have had an impact on hip-hop’s development and the willingness of hip-hop artists to experiment with sound. For example, many hip-hop artists in Tanzania have been hesitant to experiment by using beats and sounds that come from other music genres, exclusively using hip-hop beats, in an effort to stay “authentically” hiphop. Meanwhile in Senegal, with a variety of youth music, hip-hop artists do not have a popular pop hybrid to compete with, though in recent years Senegalese hip-hop has begun seeing a trend toward dance music and more commercialized hip-hop, as discussed in the short documentary 100% Galsen (Sene 2012).
As in Tanzania, some Senegalese hip-hop artists use only hip-hop beats, believing that using beats from other musical genres would affect the authenticity of their music (Appert 2016). According to Appert, mbalax beats are usually performed with socially and politically conscious lyrics in Senegal, though conscious lyrics are not always accompanied by mbalax beats. Also, as in Tanzania, Senegalese artists have a difficult time earning a living from their music (Keyti, pers. comm., August 2, 2009; Herson 2011; Clark 2013). Artists often have to rely on other business deals, paid appearances, shows, and touring to make a living.
Into Africa
As hip-hop spread globally, it made its way back across the Atlantic Ocean to Africa. Hip-hop arrived on the continent in the 1980s and brought with it a new sound and new styles of dance (e.g., breakdancing). Many young Africans first heard hip-hop as it trickled in via radio stations, house parties, and night clubs. As the music spread, it would often be those with relatives who traveled to the United States or Europe, or those with access to exchange students studying in their country, who would get the latest hip-hop cassette tapes. Copies of the prized tapes would then make their way around the neighborhood. Pioneering hip-hop artists like Zimbabwe’s Doom E. Right, Tanzania’s KBC of Kwanza Unit, and South Africa’s Shaheen Ariefdien have all reflected on these experiences in their first contacts with hip-hop (Doom E. Right, pers, comm., August 26, 2011; KBC, pers. comm., September 1, 2011; Ariefdien and Burgess, 2011).
In his 2007 memoir A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, Ishmael Beah recounts his first contact with hip-hop music in early-1990s Sierra Leone. After hearing hip-hop for the first time, Beah and his friends became so absorbed by the music and the culture that they formed a hip-hop group. Though later forced into becoming a child soldier for the Sierra Leone military, it was his hip-hop cassettes and his skills as an emcee and dancer that initially saved Beah from being killed (Beah 2007). The civil wars in Sierra Leone and Liberia were infamous for their use of child soldiers. Often the boys forced to
