The Changing Dynamics
of African Rap
African rap
is a genre with roots embedded in American soil. In the early 1980’s, hip-hop took the pop
culture scene by storm in America, and African artists were quick to
follow. Africans learned about this new
genre in the same ways they had in years past with genres from countries such
as Cuba. They listened to tapes and
radio; if they could afford it, they watched television programs. These artists took what they saw and made it
relevant to them and the public in their region. Various new sub-genres developed over these
early years and continue to develop today.
In America, many artists connect their involvement with rap to the hope
of “making it.” This often comes with
fancy cars, money, drugs, women, and violence.
American rappers, especially the early “gangster rappers”, did not
hesitate to rap about these topics as a symbol of experience and status. However, in an interview with Sudanese rapper
Emmanuel Jal, I found a different inspiration towards becoming involved in
hip-hop music. Jal seeks peace and uses
his music as an outlet for his work as an activist. He goes against these “American” ideals and
outwardly criticizes rappers such as 50 Cent.
Why does Jal seek to destroy these rap stereotypes? Why does he fight so hard to go against the
grain of hip-hop culture? Artists such
as K’naan have followed suit and spoken out against American rappers as
well. It seems there is a certain cyclical
phenomenon going on, in which African rappers learn their music from American
artists, perfect their craft, and then comment back on those whom they’ve
learned from. In this post I seek to
analyze this cycle and the forces that drive it.
American
rap took off in the 1980’s and immediately became a genre for the minority
class. In the later 1990’s, rap did
“suburbanize,” but it primarily remained in the major urban centers of America;
and minority groups used rap to describe this place in which they lived. Murray Forman (Forman 2000:68) emphasizes the role of “place”
in raps development, and notes a shift from the notion of the all-inclusive
“ghetto” to “the more localized and specific discursive construct of ‘the
hood’." Rappers
associated strongly with their city and more specifically, their neighborhood. Territories emerged and this idea was only
intensified with the gang culture often present within the rapper lifestyle. Quickly, the gangbanger life and the rapper
life became synonymous, and a successful rapper was one who could
finally afford to stop living life on the streets in order to live life in the
studio. However, because of these roots,
rap music was filled with tales of violence, drugs, sex, and money. Women were often disrespected and there was an
inherent lack of respect for authority. The
nature of this early rap is best shown in songs by N.W.A. (Niggas With Attitude)
such as “Boyz N’ Da Hood” and “Fuck Da Police.”
Emmanuel
Jal, however, has a different outlook on the rap game and the meaning of rap.[1] Born to a South Sudanese family in Tonj in
1980 (he is not aware of an exact date), Jal was immediately immersed in
tension. His father joined the SPLA
(Sudan People’s Liberation Army) and was killed in battle. Government soldiers then killed Jal’s mother
and Jal was taken by rebel forces to Ethiopia under the guise of seeking an
education. There, at age six, he was
handed a gun and taught to fight. He
endured starvation, torture, and the many other unknowable terrors that
accompany war until British foreign aid worker Emma McCune finally rescued him
at age 12. Jal’s musical career started
as one of tradition. Music was at the
root of his society as a way to spread ideas and practice tradition. “If you couldn’t sing, you couldn’t get a
girlfriend. It was necessary,” Jal told
me. After his experiences in war, however,
music became an outlet for his pain. “Music
is like a painkiller for the day,” he says, “and my faith gives me the hope to
want to see tomorrow.”(Jal) Jal’s message is
one of peace and unity. Jal’s most
recent and notable song is “We Want Peace,” which received support from figures such as Alicia Keyes, George Clooney, Kofi
Annan, and Jimmy Carter. Further
research on the cause can be done here. This song has become a sort of movement through which Jal promotes his ideals,
raises funds, and spreads awareness.
Jal is not afraid to express his
disgust with the current morals of the rap game. His songs such as “50 Cent,” “No Bling,” and “Skirt Too Short,” criticize the cultures of drug abuse, violence, materialism, and sexual
promiscuity in the rap industry. These
are not only the concerns of artists such as Jal, as other African artists such
as K’naan have spoken out against American rappers who promote the gangster
ideal as well. Errol A. Henderson (Henderson 1996:309) believes
that rap has become “a conduit for African American culture to a greater extent
than even jazz." Henderson, like Jal and K’naan, looks to return to an idea of community
in order to “create a standard of behavior and a new rites of passage away from
guns, dope, sexism, and violence” (Henderson 1996:308). The members of this camp seek a 180-degree
turnaround from the old ways of the gangster rappers that still hover over the
rap industry. Simple examples such as
the phrase “sex sells,” which has become all too common in our vocabulary and
mindset, are what these rappers and scholars point to when they call for change. Although Jal often speaks of God and faith in
his songs, his qualms with the rap industry do not come out of some zealous
Christian sense of moral highness, but simply for the betterment of the youth
of the world.
Jal is a human’s rights activist,
and more specifically a children’s rights activist because of the pain he
personally endured as a child. He
believes that the idols of these youth, such as 50 cent, are promoting the
wrong ideals. Jal wants children to
idolize those who are righteous, caring, peaceful, and intelligent. In his song, “50 Cent,” Jal raps, “You
have done enough damage selling crack cocaine / now you got a 'kill a black man' video game / We have lost a whole generation through this lifestyle / now you
want to put it in the game for a little child to play.” Jal knows from experience how impressionable
children are, and thus, the dangers that come with exposing them to the wrong
content. Awad El Karim M. Ibrahim
believes that this impressionability comes from a sense of wanting to
belong. In an interview with an African
immigrant (Ibrahim 1999:361), the child says, “We identify ourselves more with the Blacks of America. But this is normal, this is genetic… We live
in Canada… We are going to identify ourselves on the contrary with people of
our color, who have our lifestyle, you know." These children watched T.V. and listened to
radio and mimicked everything that they “Black culture.” Marc Perry (Perry 2008:639) writes, “Blackness, as such,
becomes a transnational site of identification and self-making; one made most immediately
tangible for many diasporic youth by way of hip hop." Black children seek to identify with a larger
black community, and rappers are often the most iconic heads of this community. It appears that not until rappers of America
stop worrying about their material well being by “selling sex” and rapping
about drugs, the cycle of raising urban youth to idolize these ideals will
never end.
So why do we see rappers who are so heavily influenced by American
rappers, who idolized those they listened to on tapes back in Africa, turn
around and criticize them once they are grown up? Many children in America, Africa, and the
rest of the world idolize the rappers who promote sex, violence, and drugs, but
there remain those few who speak out against them. In a study done by Rachel E. Sullivan (Sullivan 2003:605), she
finds that Black adolescents are “more committed to rap music and are more
likely to see rap music as life
affirming." These are the people at risk for falling into
this cycle of violence and they are the majority who listen to rap music. It is people like Jal—who have actually fought
for their lives, who have endured starvation, who have killed men but are not
proud of it, and who have had their childhoods stolen from them—that seek
change. These men know the true dangers
of violence, and not what we see in the movies.
It appears that the “realer” you are, the less proud you are of the
crimes you’ve committed. Jal did not
kill by choice, and he is still haunted by what he has done, as he describes in an interview here. The rappers of America were raised in the
culture described above, they were brainwashed to believe that money, guns, and
girls are the essentials to a life of happiness. It is not until someone from outside of this
cycle—with an outside prospective on this culture due to their realizations
from life experiences—starts a movement of change that hip-hop will become the
outlet of positive expression that it has the potential to be.
[1]
I understand it is an essentialist and sweeping judgment to state that all American
rappers are black, from the ghetto, in a gang, and obsessed with materialism,
violence and sex. I recognize that this
is a major generalization, however this is a dominant and important trend that
is at the core of my concern in this article.
