true origins of hip hop
THE STORYTELLING OF THE AFRICAN GRIOTS VENTURES INTO THE WORLD AND COMES BACK AS HIP HOP, A WHOLE NEW GENRE FOR THE SOUTH AFRICAN PALATE.
“HIP HOP IS UNIVERSAL. We were excluded from Kwaito because we cannot understand it. To us, music is not just about dancing, it is a vehicle for us to speak to the masses.” _ Godessa
Hip hop, thus, meant different things to people all around the world, at different times, and often within the same space.
In the US what began as a party trick exploded into a commercial money train, in South Africa, though, it was a way to speak one’s story and share the triumphs and hopes of an oppressed generation. Hip hop within these borders isstill forging an identity; from the rubbles of yesterday triage but, the artists and emcees must continue to mould and fight for a succesful industry.
Africa, it seems, is owed more than the cradle of mankind but, the birth of an incredibly lucrative genre.
From the griots in West Africa to the steady hands of DJ Kool Herc in the Bronx. From the block parties to the house parties, from the underground to the club scenes. From backstreet cyphers, makeshift studios and alleyways to state of the art recording booths and arenas. Gritty scribbles on pages to the ears of a mob fellowship. Turning hood rats to music moguls that sell their worth as ringtones and i-pod downloads, adorning themselves in chain-and-teeth-grill riches. This is how greatly the face of hip hop has changed.
Westernised hip hop and rap has, up to this point, refined a very raw genre into a moneymaking machine.
This feature has taken you through the times and through the changes that Hip Hop has undergone and how it has branched off in America into rap and its sub genres.
From it’s raw gangsta rap with NWA, which gave us Easy E and Ice Cube, to Run DMC, Schooly D, Ice T, Public Enemy, Rakim, Big Daddy Kane, Slick Rick, LL Cool J and Cypress Hill to it’s more kaleidoscopic G Funk and Pop-Orientated rap that gave us MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice. We moved through the times of mob wars and Mafioso rap and to our current commercial cats and inbetween you discovered Kool G Rap, DJ Polo, Biggie Smallz, TuPac Shakur, Raekwon, Jay Z, Nas and many others.
But lyrical prowess gave way to streetcred. A popularity contest which bred the love of flossing in praise of the green. One ought to question the cost of such a transition.
But something else was brewing in southernmost tip of Africa. Hip hop made its way back to Africa and morphed into something completely different.
"From backstreet cyphers, makeshift studios and alleyways to state of the art recording booths and arenas. Gritty scribbles on pages to the ears of a mob fellowship"
South Africa’s chance to take the baton of hip hop came at a harsh period in its history.
The political landscape not only shaped the responses of our greatest minds but also offered an opportunity for the new fathers and mothers of hip hop to respond on the same soapbox in a different way. It was hard to access the bustling and burgeoning mainstream musical scene for the youth in the 80’s.
Two very powerful, but equally exclusive styles were apparent for the outer-city youth at this time;
“apolitical” Kwaito with its undercurrents of South African house music and the “politically-charged” Hip Hop, though neither was commercially promoted or even given airtime.
Hip Hop made it’s notable entry in 1985 in Cape Town and by 1989, the apartheid government tried to ban it because of its content and how it included all races and tribes but, in 1993 the government made it legal and it once again became accessible and commercially viable for the youth.
Cape Town is undoubtedly the home ground of South African hip hop and has been cited to be greatly influenced by minstrelsy, swing and bebop music.
This style was also found not just to be politically charged, but equally socially conscious as well. At the same time, the more general forms of hip hop became clearly evident in the scene. Break dancing and graffiti soon seeped into the streets and city walls of cape town which soon enough made it’s away out of the city and into the rest of the country.
This was epitomised for most hip hop heads by Black Noise and Prophets of da City. They had a heavy and militant lyricism , backed by arguably the greatest hip-hop dj in South Africa at the time, Ready–D.
Other than Cape Town based hip hop, there was the “fun” Motswako hip hop which was hugely popular in South Africa and Botswana.
Motswako is a mix of seTswana and English lyrics. The influence of this genre was largely based in Maf-town (Mafikeng), where many of the Sotho/Tswana youth studied in Botswana where they had excessive exposure to the 80’s surge of hip-hop in the states and they had extensive exposure through the BOP TV and Radio whose musical shows had the freshest hip hop music available in the Southern Africa developing countries.
This is the basis of the strong influence of Motswako hip hop artists like Stoan (bongomaffin), and Motswako Kings: Morafe, Hip-Hop Pantsula and Tuks.
Unfortunately, since hip hop was not welcomed with open arms on the South African airwaves the rampant rise of Kwaito trumped the ascension of SA hip Hop and relegated it onto the backburner of Cape Town.
Most CT acts would find relative fame in Nordic countries. Here was also the view that hip-hop was a ”coloured thing” and kwaito was more true and relevant to the issues of post-apartheid youth, even though it offered a more conservative platform to voice the thoughts of the youth.
It is inconclusive whether hip hop did not take on early enough due to it’s militant nature and it’s appeal to township youth or that it was not a strong mainstream form of music in the US yet or maybe due to it being suppressed by the apartheid government.
In spite of that, exile youth coming back from other countries with their own influences of hip hop eventually helped to define it in South Africa, the likes of Tumi from Tumi and The Volume, Da Les from Jozi and many others added a new flavour to hip hop.
"hip-hop was a ”coloured thing” and kwaito was more true and relevant to the issues of post-apartheid youth"
It was partly through a new force in radio, through the launch of YFM in 1997, that hip hop acquired granted mainstream appeal in SA. With the advent of YFM also came the sudden rampant surge in mass appeal for house and hip hop music in South Africa. Bad Boy-T introduced many South Africans not only to A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, Blackstarr and others but also to South African Hip-Hop artists, the likes of Spex, Amu, Mischief, Max Normal, Proverb and the musicians from Rage records.
The airplay given by the YFMs of the time, along with the new commercial edge that local hip hop acquired, spurned a force never seen before in youth culture and started a new way of life for hip hop enthusiasts through hip hop websites, magazines & publications, hip hop clubs, hip hop couture and a whole new language.
Today, many other radio stations seem to, at least half-heartedly, emulate what YFM started by giving local music more airplay. But it holds true that SA radio still plays a large selection of foreign hip hop acts like 50cent, Eminem, Kanye West, Lupe Fiasco at the cost of the local music industry.
Right now, South Africa is the focal point of the continent in many respects, but still has a long way to go in order for hip hop artists to get the respect that foreign artists receive locally, within the continent as well as abroad.
Everyday we witness another person adding a page to its history.
We must ensure that what is being written is not only concise but progressive as well, for soon enough South African hip hop will either become the throne for real hip hop or just another cautionary tale.
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