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Rappers, Urban Space and Identity in Dar Es Salaam

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Rappers, Urban Space and Identity in Dar Es Salaam CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by University of Birmingham Research Archive, E-theses Repository Performing the self: Rappers, Urban Space and Identity in Dar es Salaam by David Kerr A thesis submitted to the University of Birmingham for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of African Studies and Anthropology School of History and Cultures College of Arts and Law University of Birmingham February 2014 University of Birmingham Research Archive e-theses repository This unpublished thesis/dissertation is copyright of the author and/or third parties. The intellectual property rights of the author or third parties in respect of this work are as defined by The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or as modified by any successor legislation. Any use made of information contained in this thesis/dissertation must be in accordance with that legislation and must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder. ABSTRACT Hip hop is part of a global economy of music, images and signs. In Tanzania, since political and economic liberalisation in the 1990s, local musical forms which appropriate the practice of rapping have become popular. Rapping has become a widespread practice which has produced musical stars as well as unrecorded ‘underground’ rappers. This study explores the aesthetic, performative and ideological commonalities and differences between these two forms of rapping. Situated at the intersection of debates about masculinity, youth and globalisation, this study will contribute to ongoing debates about new forms of identity and sociality created by rappers. It explores both appropriation from the transnational circulation of styles and signs as well as local orders of meaning rappers use to fashion themselves. While recognising the difficult social and economic conditions under which young people in Dar es Salaam live, I view rapping as productive and highlight the creativity, inventiveness and ingenuity of rappers. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Researching and writing this PhD thesis has been a collaborative project during which I have received advice, support and encouragement, personal and intellectual, from a great many people. There is not sufficient space to thank everyone and so I hope any omissions will be forgiven. I am profoundly indebted to my doctoral supervisor, Karin Barber, for her guidance and support. She has helped to identify new avenues of inquiry, and encouraged me to pursue them. The completion of this thesis would not have been possible without her personal and intellectual generosity. This study has been made possible by the time, interest and kindness of the numerous rappers, DJs, producers, journalists and music fans whom I met and worked with in Dar es Salaam. Their goodwill, kindness and willingness to allow me to spend time ‘hanging out’ with them made fieldwork an immensely enjoyable and inspiring experience. This study has benefitted immensely from the friendship, and willingness to discuss my ideas, shown by Hashim Rubanza, Mkuki Bgoya, Walter Bgoya, Mwinjaka ally Mwinjaka, Atienno Dock and Kibacha Singo. The warmth and generosity of Ramadhan Mlehamo’s friendship, as well as his endless willingness to discuss my experiences in Dar es Salaam, were immensely helpful; tuko pamoja. I have been fortunate to be based at the Department of African Studies and Anthropology at the University of Birmingham, which has provided a wonderfully engaging and encouraging intellectual environment for my research. I’d particularly like to thank present and former members of staff Stewart Brown, Insa Nolte, Kate Skinner, Lynne Brydon, Reg Cline-Cole, Keith Shear, Paulo de Moraes Farias, Katrien Pype, Toby Green, Paul Ugor, Max Bolt and Benedetta Rossi for fostering such a warm and supportive atmosphere. I thank current and former doctoral students at Birmingham University for many discussions and debates but, most importantly, sharing their friendship; in particular, Saima Nasar, Rebecca Jones, Nozomi Sawada and Jo Skelt. I am grateful for the institutional support I have received for this research. My six month fieldwork trip to Dar es Salaam was enabled by my former employers the African Studies Association UK, and 2008-2010 President William Beinart in particular. Kevin Da Costa was hugely helpful in supporting my grant application to the Arts Council to bring Hashim Rubanza to the UK as a resident artist. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my family and, in particular, my parents Hugo and Henriette Kerr for offering support and encouragement throughout my research and writing. TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Images CHAPTER 1 – INTRODUCTION Introduction 1 Research Questions Hip Hop 3 Youth, Masculinities and Urban Space 5 The Global Circulation of Signs 7 Methodology 8 Conclusion 16 CHAPTER 2 – DAR ES SALAAM – AN INTRODUCTION Introduction 18 History of Dar es Salaam 19 Informal Settlements - Uswahilini 22 Labour 30 Young Men in the City 36 Conclusion 37 CHAPTER 3 – INTRODUCTION TO POPULAR MUSIC, HIP HOP AND RAPPED MUSIC IN DAR ES SALAAM Introduction 39 Tanzanian Popular Music 39 Hip Hop 46 Hip Hop in Africa 51 Tanzanian Rapped Music 55 Conclusion 65 CHAPTER 4 – STUDIOS, RADIO STATIONS AND DISTRIBUTORS Introduction 67 Wasambazaji - Distributors 69 Radio 72 Radio Presenters – DJ’s 79 Studios 81 Negotiating the Production of Rapped Music 93 Conclusion 97 CHAPTER 5 –UNDERGROUND RAPPING Introduction 100 Defining Underground 101 Who are the Youth? 104 Underground Rapping in Dar es Salaam 106 Maskani – Spaces of Sociality and Recognition 111 Kampu – Performance and the Politics of Presence 118 Underground Performance Practice 126 Displaying Knowledge 128 Subjectivities and Embodying the Rapper 133 Thugs and Gangsters – Rapping and the Transnational Imagination 139 Kujitegemea Rapping and Self Reliance 142 Performing Masculinity 146 CHAPTER 6 – TRACING CAREERS TRAJECTORIES Introduction 148 The Commercial MC - Ambwene Yessayah (AY) 151 The Stubborn MC - Joseph Mbilinyi (Mr II / Sugu) 160 Witness Mwaijaga - (Witnesz) 167 Conclusion 170 CHAPTER 7 – DOGO HASHIM Introduction 173 Biography 175 Playing with Identity 179 Meaning and Multiplicity in Hashim’s Lyrics 192 Conclusion 201 CHAPTER 8 – GENRES AND TEXTS Introduction 202 The Creation of Texts 203 Genre Boundaries and the Ordering of Musical Space 210 Convening an Audience 214 Music with a Message 216 Code Switching and Swanglish 220 Underground Rappers Imagining the Audience 222 Themes Wives and Playboys – Love, Sex and Romance 227 Tuspend – Consumption and its Anxieties 232 Kioo cha jamii – Socio Political Commentary 239 Intertextuality 243 Religious Discourses 250 Conclusion 255 CHAPTER 9 – RAPPING ONLINE AND IN THE DIASPORA Introduction 257 Rappers in the Diaspora Kibacha Singo – (KBC) 260 Msafiri Kondo – (Solo Thang) 268 Rapped Music Online 270 CHAPTER 10 – CONCLUSION Introduction 280 Underground Rap 283 Contesting and Imagining the Nation 285 Rapping and Masculinity 289 Rapping as Intellectual Engagement with the World 293 Future Research 295 Appendices 298 Bibliography 301 LIST OF IMAGES Figure 1 – The area of Kinondoni Hanna Nasifu 26 Figure 2 – Mesen Selecta and O-Key in studio in Sinza 89 Figure 3 – Duke at the MLAB studio Kinondoni 89 Figure 4 – Salim Muba and his maskani in Kiwalani Dar es Salaam 115 Figure 5 – Mbaya Wao and Majivu drinking coffee at the maskani 115 Figure 6 – Sugu at his home in Sinza 166 Figure 7 – AY in Kijitonyama 166 Figure 8 – Hashim and Myke Forte working together in Birmingham 183 Figure 9 – Chedi Ngulu recording in the studio Mwananyamala 205 1 CHAPTER 1 – INTRODUCTION Introduction I first travelled to Dar es Salaam to conduct fieldwork in 2006. This initial experience in Tanzania, meeting rappers, producers, radio presenters and Tanzanian music fans, had a significant effect on me, and on my subsequent thinking. Prior to travelling to Tanzania, I had done what research I could into Tanzanian popular music which was then, with a few notable exceptions, largely absent from the ‘world music’ sections of British record shops.1 Before my trip, I had not been able to gather very much information on the music of Tanzania. What was most striking to me, as a new arrival in Dar es Salaam, was the vitality of the popular music scene. Music was everywhere. Not only did it stream out from restaurants, bars and passing vehicles; it was a common topic for discussion. While popular music in general, and certainly hip hop, are largely closely associated with distinct groups in society in the UK,2 contemporary Tanzanian popular music was a hot topic for discussion in Dar es Salaam, across the whole of society.3 In Dar es Salaam, discussions about popular music touched upon ideas about the nation, and national culture, societal morals and the distinctions and divisions between the generations. It was a space within which new forms of behaviour, most obviously relating to displays of consumption and sexuality, could be 1 The genre of World Music has been much analysed and critiqued as essentialising and reductionist (Feld 2000, Huq 2006, 65) and I use the term here as a descriptor of the genre markers at that time in commercial music sales in the UK. In general music stores in the main, only recordings of Remmy Ongala and Dr Hukwe Zawose were available. Two recordings of rapped music, both on the Out Here label, were available: the ‘Bongo Flava: Swahili Rap from Tanzania’ and the X-Plasterz album ‘Maasai Hip Hop’. 2 Popular music in the UK is largely associated with a variety of different sub-cultures hip hop, reggae, punk, indie for example, sub-cultures with their own sense of style, ways of sociality, beliefs and practices. 3 This is not to suggest that these new musical genres, Bongo Flava, Hip Hop and RnB, were universally popular but that they seemed to have a resonance with popular discussion which ‘youth’ or ‘urban’ genres in the UK did not. 2 displayed and were contested.
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