African State of Mind: , Identity and the Effects of Africa Rising Lorien R. Hunter

Bryan Singer Department of Cinema and Media Studies

Doctor of Philosophy

University of Southern California

Conferred on December 13, 2017

Faculty of the USC Graduate School

1

For Yvonne W. Hunter

The Original #1 Fan

2 Acknowledgements

Six years ago, I happened across an article on Africanhiphop.com discussing the release of American rapper J Cole’s freshman album Cole World (2011). I had been following his career for a couple of years and was excited to get my hands on more of his ; however, after securing my copy of the album via the Apple Music Store, I turned my attention back to the website that had given me this information. What exactly is , I wondered? And what is its relationship to Black American artist J Cole? To get answers to these questions, I began digging through the website, which only led to new questions and more digging. By the end of the semester, I had written my first paper on Africanhiphop.com, focusing on its conceptualization of the African Diaspora, which started me on the long and bumpy road that has now culminated into this dissertation project.

I do not remember whether anyone ever tried to convey to me just how hard and bumpy this road would be; however, I am certain that if they did, my naiveté prevented me from truly hearing them. Instead, I started off as most doctoral students do—filled to the brim with too much confidence and barely any idea of where I was actually headed. Despite these significant shortcomings, my gracious committee members Taj Frazier, Kara Keeling, Josh Kun and committee chair Anikó Imre all bravely agreed to undertake the journey with me, acting as my guides, my champions, my critics and along the way, becoming my friends. Anikó’s office, especially, became a sanctuary to me, where our conversations always began with an offer of chocolate and a chuckle over my grandfather’s most recent antics. The chairs in the offices of

Alicia White, Bill Whittington and Todd Boyd also became some of my most frequented and familiar places, as they were always willing to lend an ear, give advice, or answer one more of my seemingly endless supply of questions.

3 One of the most challenging aspects of this research project turned out to be its data collection, which took me to three different continents and numerous other virtual spaces. Were it not for the openness and generosity of individuals like Adam Haupt, Ade James, Akin, Angelo,

Camiël, CC Smith, Culmin Matthew, Derick Neal, Eitan Prince, Emile Jansen, Hishaam, Ian

Keulder, Jade Trueman, Jason Fraser, Leila Dougan, Lisa Burnell, Margolite Williams, Mariska

April, Msa Mapiliba, Roger Steffens, Rushay Booysen, Sara Chitambo, Schaik Hewitt, Sebenzile

Zalabe, Shameema Williams, Shane Heusdens, Siphiwo Kobese, Sky, the late Stephen Beale,

Stephen Sontag, Thomas Gesthuizen, Tiffany Kung, Tom Schnabell and Tseliso Monaheng, as well as those attached to organizations like Kristin J. Craun with the University of Southern

California internal review board, Lindsay Wicomb with the City of Cape Town, Meredith Drake

Reitan and the Research Enhancement Fellowship Program with the University of Southern

California Graduate School, Nico with the Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek, Zanele

Matshotyana with Smart Cape, the entire staff at the International Institute of Social History in

Amsterdam and the Musicology Archive at the University of California- Los Angeles, and countless others, this task would have proved impossible.

As is often the case with challenging circumstances, I formed a close bond with many of my colleagues who found themselves struggling along similar paths. Late nights and a little too much wine with Ashley Young, Ayana McNair, Dayna Chatman, Dominic Matheny, Garrett T.

Thompson, Janeane Anderson, Jessica Young, Jheanelle Brown, Kwynn Perry, Leah Aldridge,

Manouchka Labouba, Stephanie Hoover-Yeung and Thomas Carter are by far some of my fondest memories from the last six years. I am also thankful to my cohort sisters Katherine

Madden and Heather Blackmore, as well as my writing partners Cecilia Stepp, Pat Alford-

Keating, Rachel Russel and Shieva Davarian, whose constant presence alongside me during my

4 entire graduate school career has made even the most difficult parts of the process seem survivable. My brilliant fellow adventurer Talia Squires not only inspired me to finish the project but also showed me that I could have a blast while doing it, while the frequent work sessions and late-night conversations I shared with Sangeeta Marwah amidst the ups and downs of this process were pivotal to my success and productivity in the Bay Area. I also want to express my deep sense of gratitude to the many brilliant minds I exchanged ideas with at conferences over the years, especially Fungai Machirori, Mark V. Campbell, Megan Murph, Murray Foreman,

Shola Adenekan, Vanessa Plumly and Victor Vicente.

Throughout it all, I have been lucky enough to have the love and understanding of my family, especially my auntie Donna Hunter and brother Sander Hunter who have both been through the doctoral process before and were thus invaluable sources of encouragement, empathy and understanding. Thank you very much also to my mother Karen Stowe for helping me proof read this entire document and root out typos, since we both know that I am not now, nor will ever be, a speller. On the day of my defense I was blown away by the number of family and friends who came from all over the country to show their support, including my father

Robert Hunter, auntie Kim Hunter, uncle Ray Davis, auntie Julia Davis, friends Jessica Arline and Jessica Koslow, and many others whose names have already been mentioned.

Thank you!

5 Table of Contents

CHAPTER 1 THE FACE OF AFRICAN HIP HOP: AFROPOLITANS, CHEETAHS AND THE RISING GENERATION 9 HIP HOP AND THE AFROPOLITAN IDENTITY 24 THE STUDIES 30

CHAPTER 2 WORD TO YOUR MOTHER(LAND): DIASPORIZATION AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF AFRICAN HIP HOP 37 A NEW AFRICAN DIASPORA 44 DIASPORA, ITS PRACTICE & THE RISE OF AFRICAN HIP HOP 49 SURROGATING IN THE NETHERLANDS 60 IDENTITY IN DIASPORA 68 CONCLUSIONS ON DIASPORIZATION 74

CHAPTER 3 LIVE FROM : THE ROLE OF DIGITIZATION IN COMMUNITY FORMATION 77 BUILDING A HIP HOP COMMUNITY 81 GOING ONLINE 89 THE PARADOX OF SUCCESS 97 CONCLUSIONS ON DIGITIZATION 125

CHAPTER 4 AFRICA IS THE NEW BLACK: COMMERCIALIZING AFRICAN IDENTITY IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY 129 THE ROOTS OF COOL 140 OKAY AFRICAN COOL 144 EFFECTS OF THE CORE 149 ACCESS AND POWER 153 AFROPOLITAN IDENTITY IN YOUR EARBUDS 160 CONCLUSIONS ON COMMERCIALIZATION 168

CHAPTER 5 MIND OVER MATTER: THE FUTURE OF AFROPOLITANISM, RISING AND IDENTITY 170 THE RISING FACTOR 174

WORKS CITED 179

6 Table of Figures

FIGURE 1.1 ...... 9 FIGURE 1.2 ...... 10 FIGURE 1.3 ...... 12 FIGURE 1.4 ...... 13 FIGURE 2.1 ...... 37 FIGURE 2.2 ...... 39 FIGURE 2.3 ...... 54 FIGURE 2.4 ...... 56 FIGURE 2.5 ...... 58 FIGURE 2.6 ...... 60 FIGURE 2.7 ...... 61 FIGURE 2.8 ...... 65 FIGURE 2.9 ...... 66 FIGURE 2.10 ...... 70 FIGURE 2.11 ...... 72 FIGURE 3.1 ...... 78 FIGURE 3.2 ...... 84 FIGURE 3.3 ...... 91 FIGURE 3.4 ...... 92 FIGURE 3.5 ...... 93 FIGURE 3.6 ...... 98 FIGURE 3.7 ...... 99 FIGURE 3.8 ...... 101 FIGURE 3.9 ...... 103 FIGURE 3.10 ...... 108 FIGURE 3.11 ...... 111 FIGURE 3.12 ...... 113 FIGURE 3.13 ...... 116 FIGURE 3.14 ...... 119 FIGURE 3.15 ...... 120 FIGURE 3.16 ...... 121 FIGURE 3.17 ...... 121 FIGURE 3.18 ...... 124 FIGURE 4.1 ...... 129 FIGURE 4.2 ...... 130 FIGURE 4.3 ...... 131 FIGURE 4.4 ...... 134 FIGURE 4.5 ...... 135 FIGURE 4.6 ...... 132 FIGURE 4.7 ...... 136 FIGURE 4.8 ...... 146 FIGURE 4.9 ...... 147 FIGURE 4.10 ...... 148 FIGURE 4.11 ...... 150

7 FIGURE 4.12 ...... 151 FIGURE 4.13 ...... 152 FIGURE 4.14 ...... 156 FIGURE 4.15 ...... 157 FIGURE 4.16 ...... 166 FIGURE 5.1 ...... 170 FIGURE 5.2 ...... 175 FIGURE 5.3 ...... 178

8 Chapter 1 The Face of African Hip Hop: Afropolitans, Cheetahs and The Rising Generation

Figure 1.11 Samuel Bazawule was born in Accra, Ghana in 1982 (Figure 1.1). When he was around ten years old, Bazawule encountered his first hip hop song, which was on a cassette tape his older brother had brought home with him from school. As he explains:

I remember it like it was yesterday. My older brother had just returned from his freshman year of secondary school and the loud engine of my father’s old Nissan Stanza pulling into the compound had sent us all rushing to welcome him. Amidst my parents [sic] chatter about his grades and how he’d lost weight, my brother signaled me to follow him. He pulled out a Sony Walkman and told me he had a new dance to teach me. I can’t remember exactly what he called it, only that it was similar to the running man. The soundtrack to that dance was a sound I had never heard before: ‘Hip-Hop music.’ I spent the days that followed filled with immense curiosity, digging into this new sound. Years later, I would come to learn the names of the artists on that cassette tape: Big Daddy Kane, Rakim, KRS One, Salt & Pepa, and Public Enemy. This was my introduction to a culture that changed my life.2

1 Image by Jahse, obtained from “Blitz the Ambassador, Native Sun (Embassy MVMT),” Rock Paper Scissors, Accessed July 30, 2017, http://archive.rockpaperscissors.biz/index.cfm/fuseaction/current.media/project_id/556.cfm 2 Blitz the Ambassador, “The African Hip-Hop Generation Arrives,” Africa Is A Country, April 28, 2014, Accessed July 30, 2017, http://africasacountry.com/2014/04/the-african-hip-hop-generation-arrives/

9 Following this introduction, Bazawule immersed himself in hip hop, first as an impassioned fan and later as a budding artist. Adopting the moniker Blitz the Ambassador, Bazawule began performing in local talent shows around Accra. In 2000, Blitz was discovered by Ghanaian producer Hammer of the Last Two, who featured him in a song called “Deeba,” which won Blitz the title “Best New Artist of the Year” at the Ghana Music Awards.

The following year, Blitz moved to the United States to attend Kent State University in

Ohio, where he graduated a few years later with a bachelor’s degree in business. While working towards this degree, Blitz continued to develop his skills as a rapper through frequent live performances, and released his first EP Soul Rebel in 2004. After graduation, Blitz moved to

New York City to pursue his music career. Since this move, he has released several new EPs and four full-length albums. Remarkably, in all cases, these productions have been made independently without the financial backing or guidance of a major . Consequently, each is highly reflective of Blitz’s own evolution, both as a developing artist and as an African living abroad.

Figure 1.23

3 Album cover for Stereotype (2009) obtained from “Stereotype | Blitz the Ambassador,” Bandcamp, August 4, 2009, Accessed July 30, 2017, https://blitztheambassador.bandcamp.com/album/stereotype

10 Blitz’s first album, Stereotype, was released in 2009. Its simple yet provocative black and white cover artwork is highly reflective of the music contained inside (Figure 1.2). The twelve- track compilation is filled with jazzy samples of horns, pianos, high-hats and stringed instruments that are woven together to create classic boom-bap beats, giving it a deliciously nostalgic old school feel. The lyrical content of the album complements these characteristics, espousing an underground New York City vibe that offers poignant social commentary using intricate rhythmic and rhyming patterns.

Notably, despite the album’s labeling, which points to both “world music” and “”4 categories,5 Stereotype draws little attention to Blitz’s Africanness. As was characteristic of most early African , throughout the album Blitz rhymes entirely in English, often while adopting a Black American accent. Moreover, beyond the occasional reference to well-known

African figures like Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, the subject matter of Stereotype is also largely centered on American topics. For example, in “Home,” Blitz highlights the experiences of three characters that are well-known in the United States: an old man in Louisiana who lived through Hurricane Katrina, a young man from the inner city who joined the US military and fought in Iraq, and a young Mexican woman attempting to cross the border into the

United States. In each instance, these references placate to the American listener, creating a familiar world in the music that speaks directly to Blitz’s audience in New York City. However, in this way Stereotype projects an American perspective that allows these listeners to presume it is also Blitz’s own, thereby effectively sublimating his national and cultural identities.6

4 Hiplife is a hybrid form of hip hop that originated in Ghana, which combined the practices of traditional American hip hop with Ghanaian music. 5 Please see “Stereotype | Blitz the Ambassador,” Bandcamp, August 4, 2009, Accessed July 30, 2017, https://blitztheambassador.bandcamp.com/album/stereotype 6 Historically, this has been a common approach for rappers with an African identity who are attempting to crossover into the United States market. Other notable examples include Chamillionaire, who was born in Houston,

11

Figure 1.37 Blitz’s second album, Native Sun (2011), however, diverges significantly from this earlier practice. Although the bright brass instrumentation and classic boom-bap style still features prominently within his sophomore album, these characteristics are complimented with new aesthetic choices that purposefully and unmistakably articulate an African identity. Perhaps most notably, this shift is evident in the incorporation of African languages, such as in the song

“Akwaaba” where Blitz rhymes entirely in Twi. The subject matter Blitz touches on in Native

Sun is also decidedly more African-centered, as is, for example, indicated by song titles like

“Dear Africa” and “Accra City Blues.” The incorporation of traditional instrumentation similarly conveys a feeling of Africanness, which is further referenced by other aesthetic choices like dense polyrhythmic melodies and collective performance. Even the album’s artwork (shown above in Figure 1.3), takes up a more discernable African aesthetic, which is characterized by, among other things, textiles with repetitive, symmetrical geometric designs. Thus, much like the evolution of African hip hop music itself, Blitz’s second album reflects a period of artistic and cultural transformation, marked by genre hybridity and experimentation.

Texas to a Nigerian father and Black American mother, and Wale who is also Nigerian but was born in Washington D.C. 7 Album cover for Native Sun (2011) obtained from “Native Sun | Jakarta Records,” Bandcamp, May 1, 2011, Accessed July 30, 2017, https://jakartarecords-label.bandcamp.com/album/native-sun

12

Figure 1.48

Three years later, on April 28, 2014,9 Blitz released his third full-length album,

Afropolitan Dreams. As is evident in the cover artwork shown in Figure 1.4 above, this project was, in many ways, a continuation of the cultural merger Blitz had initiated in his second album.

The use of a live band and incorporation of both Western and African instrumentation continued to feature prominently in this third effort, as did the engagement with African languages and content. However, these blends often felt more organic and less abrupt than was true of his earlier work, once again mirroring the development of African hip hop music more generally.

In part, the coherence of Blitz’s third album stems from its organization and thematic structure, which employs skits and interludes commonly used in American hip hop during the late 1980s and early 1990s to create a world that is further animated by sound effects and Blitz’s lyrical storytelling. The interlude “Traffic Jam,” for example, opens with ambient sounds of street vendors, passing vehicles and honking horns, before the crackle of an old radio enters the

8 Album Cover for Afropolitan Dreams (2014). Image sourced from “Afropolitan Dreams | Jakarta Records,” Bandcamp, April 28, 2014, Accessed July 7, 2017, https://jakartarecords-label.bandcamp.com/album/afropolitan- dreams 9 This is the release date provided by Jakarta Records on the album’s Bandcamp page. However, other dates are also listed as the release date of the album, including April 29, 2014, as found on iTunes and April 25, 2014, as found via google. However, this earlier date could not be substantiated with any other source; therefore, the next verifiable date, posted on Bandcamp, is used.

13 foreground as it searches the airwaves. Suddenly, an electric base and guitar, baritone saxophone and drums break through the static with an energetic melody, which is then overtaken by a male radio announcer’s voice welcoming listeners to another beautiful morning in Accra. Here, much as throughout the rest of the album, these layered sounds create rich sonic textures that blossom into vivid and almost tangible spaces, allowing listeners to experience the world through Blitz’s eyes (or rather, his ears). In this way, Afropolitan Dreams weaves what Blitz describes as “a new

African story,”10 which is one heavily centered on movement, relationships and identity.

The experience of movement, above all else, is the central thematic structure in Blitz’s new African story. The opening track “The Arrival,” for example, which begins with the clatter of a city train, fades out to reveal sounds of a United States immigration officer at the airport as she processes Blitz’s entry into the country. A few songs later, in “Call Waiting,” Blitz is back at the airport again using a calling card to speak with his son in New York, before his mother interrupts on the other line phoning him from Ghana. In “One Way Ticket” and “Make You No

Forget” Blitz speaks about the importance of maintaining his sense of connection with Africa

(thereby implying current feelings of distance from it), while in “Dollar and a Dream” he recounts his evolution as an MC traveling from Ghana to the United States. Throughout the album, the sound of airplanes, automobiles and trains are used as a backdrop to these vignettes, which are punctuated with meditations on distance, travel, Africa, identity and migration.

Notably, Blitz is not the only African artist to engage these topics in recent years. In

2011, for example, Ghanaian rapper M.anifest released an album entitled Immigrant Chronicles:

Coming to America, which similarly speaks of persistent travel and featured songs like

“Motherland” and “Coming to America.” In 2012, Brooklyn-based Nigerian rapper Fore released

10 Jesse Brent, “Afropolitan Dreaming with Blitz the Ambassador,” Afripop Worldwide, May 13, 2014, Accessed July 9, 2017, http://www.afropop.org/18376/afropolitan-dreaming-with-blitz-the-ambassador/

14 the album Going Back is Not the Same as Staying, which offers a darker take on being an

African in motion, articulating a deep sense of loneliness and isolation brought about by this identity.

In most cases, these new representations of African identity have been produced by hip hop artists belonging to what I refer to as the Rising Generation. This generation, which is the cohort of African people born on the continent or in diaspora between 1968-1991, was most significantly affected by the transformations known collectively as Africa Rising. These transformations include several loosely connected phenomena such as declining poverty, rising

GDPs, increased life expectancy, falling fertility rates, strengthening democracies, improved leadership and expanding infrastructures. Together, these indicators tell a still-unfolding story of the improving state of Africa’s economic, social and political health, particularly as it relates to development and the potential for future successes.

As with all generational groups, the dates identified with the Rising Generation (1968-

1991), are not intended to be definitive, yet have been carefully chosen as productive markers with which to roughly outline the boundaries of this cohort. First, 1968 is used to mark the birth of this generation, as by that year colonialism had fallen in most African nations.11 As will be revealed below, this new era of independence resulted in a significant shift in the worldview of

African citizens, who had previously been engaged in the struggle against colonialism as their primary objective. Thus, whereas the defining focal point of the previous cohort (what I refer to as the “Independence Generation”) had been the anti-colonial struggle, the Rising Generation

11 While not all African nations were independent by 1968, those gaining independence after this year were mostly either smaller countries like Guinea-Bissau (recognized in 1974) and São Tomé and Príncipe (1975), or under the control of other African (rather than European) nations like Namibia (controlled by South Africa until 1990) and South Sudan (part of Sudan until 2011). Significant exceptions to this general trend do exist (for example, both Mozambique and Angola gained their independence from Portugal in 1975); however most large countries (and along with them, most African citizens) were already independent by 1968.

15 had no first-hand knowledge of this experience because the overwhelming majority of this latter group were born in independent states.

On the other end of this period, 1991 serves as a productive cutoff for the Rising

Generation. This year was carefully selected as the endpoint because it was this year in which the formal abolition of Apartheid took place in South Africa. Significantly, this abolition was not only an important turning point in the lives and history of South Africans, but also, as will be detailed below, for the citizens of other African nations in the southern region. As such, 1991 marks a crucial turning point in the development of Africa and the lives of its inhabitants, and is therefore recognized as a key catalyst in the larger narrative of Africa Rising. For this reason, it also signifies a shift in the social atmosphere on the continent, thereby justifying its use as a bookend for the Rising Generation.

Using these guideposts, the Rising Generation is roughly charted out as the cohort of individuals who came of age during an important transitional period on the African continent.

What started out as an era of hopeful enthusiasm ignited by the successful struggles for independence had by the 1980s deteriorated into a period of economic decline, uncertainty and instability. In response to these challenges, many African nations adopted new economic, social and political practices, such that, by the mid 1990s, the situation on the continent began to improve once again. Since this time, circumstances, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, have continued to improve, as is evinced through the six indicators Steven Radelet employs to chart

Africa Rising, which include economic growth, health, education, population growth & fertility, trade & investment, and poverty. In this way, just as the Independence Generation was inextricably shaped by the anti-colonial struggle, the Rising Generation is defined by the growing pains and hard-won successes of their newly independent states.

16 However, these successes have not been enjoyed equally by all African people. On the contrary, the effects of Africa Rising have generally been to expand the African middleclass by improving their access to resources and power, particularly within the realm of representation.

Consequently, it has been the experiences of this group that have grown disproportionately more visible in recent years, at the same time as they have also become more mobile, globally integrated and affluent. The result has been the emergence in global media of an African world citizen who is young, educated, physically mobile and embraces cultural hybridity, such as that put forth by artists like Blitz the Ambassador in his albums Native Sun (2011) and Afropolitan

Dreams (2014) as outlined above.

Efforts to make sense of this new cohort of African people first began to surface in the development sector around the turn of the millennium. In an article published in the early

2000s12 entitled “The Cheetah Generation: Africa’s New Hope,” author George B. N. Ayittey points to an emerging group of young African professionals as the driving force behind Africa

Rising. These individuals, he argues, are highly productive and innovative, and, most importantly, can evaluate their circumstances clearly, which he emphasizes as essential to the continued progress of the continent. This is because, unlike the older “Hippo Generation,” whom he describes as “intellectually astigmatized [sic] and stuck in their colonialist pedagogical patch” who can “only see oppression or exploitation…when it wears a white face,” Cheetahs:

do not relate to the old colonialist paradigm, the slave trade, nor Africa’s post-colonial nationalist leaders…Nor do they have the least inclination for colonial-era politics. In fact, they were not even born in that era. As such, they do not make excuses for nor seek to explain away government failures by blaming some external force. Unencumbered by

12 While no specific date is provided on the document itself, it is likely that the article was published prior to his book Africa Unchained: The Blueprint for Africa’s Future (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2005), in which Ayittey discusses the Cheetah Generation in greater detail. At the same time, the article makes several references to events occurring as recently as 2003, which suggests it was likely written at some point that year or in 2004. George B. N. Ayittey, “The Cheetah Generation: Africa’s New Hope,” No Date, Accessed May 9, 2017, https://freeafrica.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/The-Cheetah-Generation.pdf

17 the old shibboleths over colonialism, imperialism, and other external adversities, they can analyze issues with remarkable clarity and objectivity.13

This unfettered approach, Ayittey argues, is key to the group’s success. Although here and elsewhere he labels these Cheetahs as a generation, he is careful to clarify in later works that they are a philosophical category where membership is flexible rather than temporally fixed. In this way, Ayittey softens the requirements for belonging to this new and important group, ultimately presenting the Cheetah Generation as a state of mind.

After the publication of Ayittey’s article, other development scholars also began to engage with the Cheetah concept. For example, in Africa Rising: How 900 Million African

Consumers Offer More Than You Think (2009), Vijay Mahajan details the characteristics of the

Cheetah Generation as an important youth market. Similarly, Steven Radelet also focuses heavily on the Cheetah in his 2010 project Emerging Africa: How 17 Countries are Leading the Way; however, in this text he pays special attention to their role in sub-Saharan Africa’s economic recovery.

In all cases, following Ayittey’s lead, scholars engaging with the Cheetah concept have also tended to refrain from denoting clear boundaries to belonging, thereby allowing the category to remain somewhat fluid and ambiguous. However, one consequence of this practice has been the failure to acknowledge that these conceptualizations of the Cheetah also tend to present the group as elite—or at the very least middleclass—due to their positioning as educated young professionals with access to resources. To illustrate this point, consider the individuals Ayittey holds up in his article as exemplar Cheetahs. First, Ayittey describes a young university graduate attending a conference at the Institute of Economic Affairs in Elmina, Ghana. He then points to the Ghana Cyberspace Group, celebrating their efforts to challenge political corruption and

13 Ibid.

18 support economic growth in the country. In a similar manner, Ayittey also names a group of

African students who organized a series of conferences addressing Africa at George Washington

University in Washington D.C., followed by the executive director of a company called Inter

Regional Economic Network. In all cases, these individuals are depicted as resourceful self- starters who do not wait for help from the West to address their issues and concerns surrounding

Africa. Yet, Ayittey leaves out any overt recognition of their privilege or how it enables the resourcefulness he celebrates in his work. Consequently, his presentation of the Cheetah and its subsequent iterations have been limited because they assume the experiences of these upper- and middleclass individuals are universal rather than unique.

In 2005, a few years after Ayittey first published these observations on the Cheetah

Generation, Ghanaian-Nigerian author Taiye Selasi presented her own take on the emerging group. In a short piece written for LIP Magazine entitled “Bye-Bye Babar,” she also describes a dynamic collective of young Africans who have recently begun surfacing in cities all around the world:

They (read: we) are Afropolitans – the newest generation of African emigrants, coming soon or collected already at a law firm/chem lab/jazz lounge near you. You’ll know us by our funny blend of London fashion, New York jargon, African ethics, and academic successes. Some of us are ethnic mixes, e.g. Ghanaian and Canadian, Nigerian and Swiss; others merely cultural mutts: American accent, European affect, African ethos. Most of us are multilingual: in addition to English and a Romantic or two, we understand some indigenous tongue and speak a few urban vernaculars. There is at least one place on the African Continent to which we tie our sense of self: be it a nation-state (Ethiopia), a city (Ibadan), or an auntie’s kitchen. Then there’s the G8 city or two (or three) that we know like the backs of our hands, and the various institutions that know us for our famed focus. We are Afropolitans: not citizens, but Africans of the World.14

In the remainder of this article, Selasi goes on to outline the origins of the group (offspring of

African migrants who began leaving the continent in the 1960s), and to identify their defining

14 Taiye Selasi, “Bye-Bye Babar,” The LIP, March 3, 2005, Accessed May 9, 2017, http://thelip.robertsharp.co.uk/?p=76

19 characteristics (namely, cultural hybridity and a “willingness to complicate Africa”15). Like

Ayittey’s Cheetahs, Selasi’s Afropolitans are also framed as the most visible manifestation of recent changes; however, in contrast, Selasi’s discussion is primarily centered on elements of culture.

Although brief, Selasi’s article proved significant because it launched the Afropolitan into public discourse. Gradually at first, conversations about the Afropolitan began to surface, primarily in the art world where a separate essay by Achille Mbembe titled “Afropolitanism” had also been recently published.16 By 2010, however, these conversations had begun to trickle into the mainstream, as is evinced by, for example, the publication of South African magazine

Afropolitan and the unrelated blog started by Minna Salami entitled Ms Afropolitan. In 2011, the

Houston Museum of African American Culture hosted an evening structured around the topic, as did the London Victoria & Albert Museum in England. Over the next several years, many new voices joined in the conversation from all over the world, offering their own perspectives on shifting African experiences in a variety of forms ranging from literature to photographs to fashion to music.

Typically, the most ardent champions of Afropolitanism have also tended to embody its basic characteristics: they are generally well-educated, multilingual, professional young Africans whose sense of home and belonging spans multiple continents. Blitz the Ambassador, for example, is a clear illustration of this propensity, whose third album Afropolitan Dreams (2014) engages this experience directly. First and foremost, throughout the album, Blitz establishes a dual sense of home—rooted in both Ghana and New York—which is most clearly illustrated in

15 Ibid. 16 Given that both articles were published around the same time, it is generally accepted that neither can lay sole claim to the origination of the Afropolitan term.

20 the song “Call Waiting,” as detailed earlier. Similarly, although his stated profession of rapper is somewhat unorthodox, he consistently frames it as a typical job, thereby aligning his work with that of any other white-collar business professional. In addition, his engagement with history, broad vocabulary, reference to structural inequalities and analysis of current events all serve to indicate his high attainment of education, as does his demonstrated multilingual dexterity.

There have been, however, alongside these ardent illustrations of support, many other

Africans who are far less accepting of the Afropolitan concept. Emma Dibiri, for example, is highly critical of Afropolitanism, arguing that “[its] insights on race, modernity and identity appear to be increasingly sidelined in sacrifice of […] consumerism.”17 Binyavanga Wainaina also laments this connection, insisting in an impassioned 2012 speech that “I am a Pan-

Africanist, not an Afropolitan.” In a later interview, Wainaina admits that he is “not as angry at

Afropolitanism as I was before;” however, he maintains his rejection of the concept as a meaningful or productive tool:

Look, I think what you’ve had, and maybe particularly in the diaspora, in the big cities— in New York, in London and everywhere else—is this idea that there is this Black African elite who are able to purchase these products, clothes[, etc.,] and inventing new things […] [T]hey have a fashion week and they meet in Paris, they meet in London, they meet in Africa and they can mix all these things in remix. And so it’s this kind of identity which bears no responsibility. It consumes, sometimes it creates, but it has no residence in any solid value.18

Thus, although distinct from the Cheetah in its closer association with consumer culture, the problem of elitism is equally applicable to both concepts, a fact which is due in large part to the uneven distribution of benefits among Africans resulting from Africa Rising as suggested earlier.

17 Emma Dibiri, “Afro-Rebel (Or Why I am Not an Afropolitan),” Black Girl Dancing at Lughnasa, July 9, 2013, Accessed August 1, 2017, http://thediasporadiva.tumblr.com/post/55036008288/afro-rebel-or-why-i-am-not-an- afropolitan 18 Binyavanga Wainaina quoted in an interview posted on YouTube, shared by TVWiriko, “Entrevista Binyavanga Wainaina,” March 28, 2014, Accessed August 1, 2017 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RF2ZGXUWKlw

21 Despite these limitations, the emergence of both the Afropolitan and the Cheetah over the last fifteen years still serves to illuminate the growing interest in and confusion surrounding contemporary African identity, which has largely been brought about by the transformations of

Africa Rising. Put simply: What does it mean to be African? More specifically, what does it mean to be African in the twenty-first century, when the old constructs of Blackness and tradition are no longer able to fully encompass the diversity and richness of the African experience? Where does one find an appropriate place to root such a complex and multifaceted identity, when communication and transportation technologies have advanced to such a point where the line between “on the continent” and “in diaspora” has been blurred almost beyond recognition? How are we to make sense of the Africa and Africans of today in a manner that honors their rich socio-cultural history, while at the same time also recognizing their dynamic present-day realities?

In this project, I, too, attempt to take up these questions of identity. Much like Ayittey and Selasi, I am also particularly interested in this emerging group of young Africans, who seem to be persistently at the forefront of all positive developments occurring around the continent.

Although I am wholly aware that the experiences and characteristics of this group are not reflective of the entire Rising Generation, the transformations they undergo in response to recent developments are still highly instructive of the effects of Africa Rising. As noted earlier, one of the central outcomes of the Rising phenomena has been the expansion of an African middleclass, whose visibility, in response, has improved dramatically, due in large part to their expanding levels of access to resources and power.

Therefore, I focus this study on the evolution of this elite group, which I, too, have ultimately chosen to refer to as the Afropolitans. Unlike Dibiri and other critics like her, who

22 reject this notion in its entirety, I, instead, subscribe to Wainaina’s view, which draws a distinction between the glossy yet empty Afropolitanism popularized by Selasi, and the more substantive, thoughtful iteration presented by Achille Mbembe. This latter view was also put forth in 2005, in a short piece entitled “Afropolitanism,” which Mbembe published as part of an essay collection structured around the exhibit Africa Remix: Contemporary Art of a Continent as noted above. Taking stock of African identity at the start to the twenty-first century, he argues,

“important social and cultural reconfigurations are in progress” that have urged a reconsideration of what it now means to be African.19 Pointing to the long and complicated patterns of migration that have occurred to, from and within the continent, and which have increased significantly in recent years, Mbembe rejects the notions of cultural purity and traditionalism that have often structured understandings of belonging within the group. Instead, he argues for a conscious embrace of hybridity, terming the approach “Afropolitanism,” and presenting it as an alternative way to structure thoughts around African identity. This approach, he argues, centers on an:

Awareness of the interweaving of the here and there, the presence of the elsewhere in the here and vice versa, the relativisation [sic] of primary roots and memberships and the way of embracing, with full knowledge of the facts, strangeness, foreignness and remoteness, the ability to recognise [sic] one’s face in that of a foreigner and make the most of the traces of remoteness in closeness, to domesticate the unfamiliar, to work with what seem to be opposites – it is this cultural, historical and aesthetic sensitivity that underlies the term ‘Afropolitanism’.20

Notably, this conceptualization of Afropolitanism as a comfort with cultural difference and convergence is not unlike the implied perspective put forward by Selasi. In both cases, these figures are presented as globally integrated citizens, conscious of the impossibly complex connections that suture all humans together. However, unlike Selasi, Mbembe is careful to detail

19 Achille Mbembe, “Afropolitanism,” Africa Remix: Contemporary Art of a Continent, Njami Simon and Lucy Durán (eds), Laurent Chauvet (trans) (Johannesburg: Johannesburg Art Gallery, 2007), 26. 20 Ibid., 28.

23 the ways in which these practices have always been a part of African culture, thereby relaxing its links with twenty-first century consumerism. Although, as will be revealed below, such consumer culture has become a more significant part of African life, in this way, Mbembe successfully frames his Afropolitanism first and foremost as “a way of being in the world,”21 which he consistently holds up as a broader and more productive approach to resolving the ever- increasingly complex question of who and what is African.

Hip Hop and the Afropolitan Identity

African hip hop—or hip hop music produced by Africans residing either on the continent or in diaspora—has not been the only cultural text to exhibit the emergence of an Afropolitan identity. Indeed, Instagram has also recently become a popular space of visibility among

Afropolitans, such as is illustrated through self-proclaimed “Border Being” Emeka Okereke’s profile @emakaokereke,22 as well as #afropolitan hashtags on both Instagram and Twitter.

African literature, too, has recently showcased a plethora of Afropolitan characters, appearing not only in recent texts like Taiye Selasi’s Ghana Must Go (2013), but also, as some have argued, originating as far back as Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart (1958). Notably, this association of Achebe’s work with Afropolitanism is suggestive of its much longer history as a philosophical concept, which is outlined by Mbembe above. This concept, which is one that embraces foreign cultural practices and aesthetics and merges them with those identified as

African to create new cultural norms and products, is evinced in myriad other forms, such as in the emergence of during the 1940s, which was heavily influenced by Cuban musical practices introduced to the Congo Basin via radio broadcasts.

21 Ibid. 22 Please see Emeka Okereke, “@emekaokereke,” Instagram, Accessed August 2, 2017, https://www.instagram.com/emekaokereke/

24 However, the timing of hip hop’s introduction into Africa, its immense popularity among

African youth, and its relatively low production costs and ease of circulation has made African hip hop one of the most readily accessible forms of representation. Given the superior levels of access to this form that have been enjoyed by those in the upper and middle classes, the

Afropolitan experience that began to emerge amongst them in response to Africa Rising has, not surprisingly, been the most visible representational development to occur within the music.

Therefore, above all other mediums, African hip hop offers the best opportunity to study the

Afropolitan’s development, as its record of this historical process has arguably been the most detailed and the longest.

Hip hop first made its way out of the United States in the early 1980s, which was, coincidentally, an extremely challenging period for the African continent that has frequently been referred to as the “Lost Decade.”23 In stark contrast to the optimism and exuberance that characterized the era of independence during the 1950s and 1960s, by the late 1970s many nations on the continent had begun to experience significant setbacks, which progressively worsened throughout the 1980s and into the early 1990s. During this period, economies failed and democracies collapsed in one newly independent nation after another. For example, between

1975 and 1993 in Nigeria, nearly all transfers of power between leaders were achieved (or attempted) via coups d’état. Because of these changing circumstances, internal conflict and violence became increasingly common in many parts of Africa, such as in , where civil war broke out between 1981-1986. At the same time, famine also augmented these struggles,

23 The term “Lost Decade” was frequently used to describe a period of significant stagnation and/or regression in regional economic growth, such as that tied to the Latin American debt crisis in the 1980s. For the term’s use in relation to Africa, please see John Darnton, “‘Lost Decade’ Drains Africa’s Vitality,” The New York Times, June 19, 1994, Accessed August 26, 2017, http://www.nytimes.com/1994/06/19/world/lost-decade-drains-africa-s- vitality.html?pagewanted=all; Frederick Ahwireng-Obeng, “An African response to the new wave of afro- pessimism,” South African Journal of International Affairs, vol. 10, no. 2 (Winter/Spring 2003), 139-57; and, David Rieff, “In Defense of Afro-Pessimism,” World Policy Journal, vol. 15, no. 4 (Winter, 1998/1999), 10-22.

25 most notably in the East African nations of Uganda, Ethiopia and Somalia. Furthermore, as the

1980s neared its close, the AIDS epidemic, which had been wreaking havoc on many communities in the West, also began to rear its ugly head in Africa. Writing in 2003, Giovanni

Arrighi summarized this period well, underscoring the extent to which these problems had injured African society:

In 1975, the regional GNP per capita of Sub-Saharan Africa stood at 17.6 per cent of ‘world’ per capita GNP; by 1999 it had dropped to 10.5 per cent. Relative to overall Third World trends, Sub-Saharan health, mortality and adult-literacy levels have deteriorated at comparable rates. Life expectancy at birth now stands at 49 years, and 34 per cent of the region’s population are classified as undernourished. African infant- mortality rates were 107 per 1,000 live births in 1999, compared to 69 for South Asia and 32 for Latin America. Nearly 9 per cent of Sub-Saharan 15 to 49-year-olds are living with HIV/AIDS—a figure that soars above those of other regions. Tuberculosis cases stand at 121 per 100,000 people; respective figures for South Asia and Latin America are 98 and 45.24

Although Arrighi acknowledges that this period was a challenging time in many places throughout the world, through his statement he makes clear these struggles were particularly acute in Africa.

In response to these challenges, many Africans took to diaspora during this period, initiating the Afropolitan on her developmental journey. Unsurprisingly, the earliest wave of emigration was largely comprised of upper-class Africans seeking to protect their financial assets from the troubles on the continent; however, this group was soon joined by middle-, and later, working class people, who sought to escape violence, famine, political persecution or who were simply in search of better opportunities. Over time, these groups developed extensive social networks, connecting themselves to friends and family members back home, as well as to other communities residing elsewhere in diaspora. Subsequently, these networks helped to facilitate

24 Giovanni Arrighi, “The African Crisis: World Systeming and Regional Aspects,” New Left Review 15 (May/June 2002), 5-36, Accessed May 20, 2017 http://krieger.jhu.edu/arrighi/wp- content/uploads/sites/29/2012/08/2002_Arrighi_African_Crisis.pdf

26 further movement abroad, which resulted in the continued expansion of these African diaspora communities.

In addition to people, these diaspora networks also played an essential role in the circulation of early hip hop music. Much as was the case in other developing hip hop communities around the world during this early period, the lack of formal circulatory channels available to hip hop culture forced fans residing outside of the United States to rely almost exclusively on its physical transportation via cassette tapes, records, magazines, etc. This process, which will be detailed in Chapter 2, meant that consumption of hip hop was relatively low among Africans during this first decade, given that they were, even more so than fans in

Europe or Asia, somewhat removed from this circulatory process. The result was the formation of a small and elite community of fans, whose familiarity with Western culture often made them somewhat marginalized in relation to other Africans. This marginalization was due in part to the early perception that hip hop was an American rather than an African cultural practice; however, it was furthered by the reality that what little hip hop music was produced on the continent during this period was also heavily Americanized both in affect and ethos. Although Blitz’s first album, Stereotype (2009) was not released until several years later, its characteristics detailed above serve as a clear illustration of this evolutionary process.

Two key events occurring in the early 1990s helped to transform the challenging circumstances in Africa and initiate the emergence of Africa Rising. First, the culmination of the

Cold War in the early 1990s had a significant effect on many African nations. Previously, numerous countries on the continent had been aligned with either the Soviet Union or the United

States, both having provided significant financial support to developing nations around the world as a part of their Cold War strategy. However, after the Soviet Union collapsed this strategy was

27 no longer necessary, which resulted in the abrupt dissipation of financial aid from these sources.

This loss of capital exacerbated the struggle of African nations who were already grappling with growing debt and fewer resources. The loss of this income ultimately forced many governments to reform their economic policies, reducing debt, discontinuing government subsidies, and working toward a balanced budget. These austerity measures frequently resulted in an initial surge in political unrest such as is outlined earlier; however, they ultimately paved the way for greater stability across the continent.

The second key event to occur during this period was the fall of the apartheid regime in

South Africa. As noted above, because the country had the most fully developed economy in the

Southern region, this political shift also affected the circumstances in surrounding nations.

Throughout the 1980s the international community had placed increasingly severe sanctions on

South Africa in growing recognition of the struggle against apartheid occurring there. While these sanctions had the desired negative affect on that country, they also sent ripples throughout the southern region. Thus, when the international community began to lift these sanctions in the early 1990s, the subsequent increase in flows of capital and resources into South Africa resulted in improvements, not only in South Africa but also in many of its neighboring countries. For this reason, the formal abolition of apartheid legislation in 1991 and the subsequent democratic election of Nelson Mandela in 1994 are both widely celebrated in this region, and are also justifiably regarded as key turning points in the narrative of Africa Rising.

In response, starting from the mid-1990s, changes in economic, social and political policies on the continent began to foster growth and development. One of the key threads in this development was the expansion of Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs), which were essential to the maturation of the Afropolitan as a globally connected, hybridized

28 citizen. The two most influential of these technologies have been the Internet and the mobile telephone. Much like the early pattern of diffusion for hip hop music described above, penetration rates for both new technologies were relatively low during their introductory decade, which resulted in roughly the same small elite group of Africans benefiting from early access.

Notably, the initial expansion of the Internet occurred rather slowly in comparison to the mobile telephone due to the lack of necessary infrastructure and the higher costs associated with establishing it.25 However, the Internet’s connectivity was central to improving access to information and linking the continent with the rest of the world, which is most evident in the exponential growth of penetration rates for both following the launch of smartphone technology.

The effect of this digitization process on African hip hop was a noticeable rise in access to information and representation among fans, particularly those of the developing Afropolitan group. Whereas previously, most Africans had been relatively isolated from the rest of world, the introduction of ICTs aided elite hip hop fans to increased their visibility by leveraging this improved access to the tools of representation. Consequently, the production of African hip hop expanded during this period, and at the same time, also became more popular and overtly

African. Much as is true of Blitz’s second album Native Sun (2011), these changes were most apparent in the growing experimentation with local languages and instruments, which helped attract African listeners and expand the fan base of the music.

One consequence of this growing representation of an affluent, cosmopolitan African was that they began to capture the interests and imagination of business owners and investors, resulting in a growing number of advertisement campaigns and products aimed specifically at the

African consumer. Often, these efforts involved the engagement with African culture and/or

25 Other factors also included higher levels of illiteracy and a lack of reliable electricity.

29 aesthetics, which subsequently led to a growing appetite for African-inspired products within the global culture industry more generally. While many of the resulting efforts came from overseas, it is also worth noting that others originated among Africans themselves, who were residing either on the continent or in diaspora. In most cases, participants of this second group were also members of the privileged class, thereby perpetuating the overrepresentation of the Afropolitan identity, which is a pattern made evident in Ayittey’s observations of the Cheetah Generation detailed earlier.

The growing popularity of and commercial interest in African cultural products also translated into the world of African hip hop, where the embrace of African aesthetics has continued to advance in the new millennium. The experimentation with formal mixing in the previous decade has since matured into a sophisticated demonstration of cultural hybridity. As is illustrated in Blitz’s third album Afropolitan Dreams (2014) detailed in the opening of this chapter, this hybridity, which continues to embrace several of the foundational practices of

American hip hop’s original form, is punctuated by a stronger focus on African topics, sounds and experiences that has resulted in the cultivation of a product that is unmistakably African.

However, despite a growing diversity in representation that has recently begun to surface within the music, it continues to overwhelmingly articulate an Afropolitan identity.

The Studies

To chart this historical progression of the Afropolitan through African hip hop, in this study I focus specifically on three elements of its evolutionary process: diasporization, digitization and commercialization. As was outlined above, this progression describes the experiential changes that have occurred in African lives as a product of Africa Rising, which in many cases has been significantly aided by globalization. Broadly speaking, “globalization”

30 refers to the ongoing process of global integration that has occurred especially since the 1980s.

However, much like African identity, since the 1980s this term has become an increasingly slippery concept. Thus, to clarify its use in this project, I employ Arjun Appadurai’s five dimensions of global culture flows, which he terms “ethnoscapes” (the circulation of people),

“mediascapes” (the circulation of media production tools and products), “technoscapes” (the circulation of information and technology), “finanscapes” (the circulation of money) and

“ideoscapes” (the circulation of ideologies). Per Appadurai, these five flows interact in unpredictable and at times even conflicting or disjointed ways, yet together illuminate the complex narrative of ongoing global integration. Notably, because Africa Rising emerged in the

1990s shortly after the commencement of these enhanced integration flow patterns, many of these globalization elements have also enhanced and bolstered the Rising phenomena. However,

Africa Rising nevertheless remains its own distinct historical occurrence, bolstered by, rather than merely a product of, globalization.

The first element of Africa Rising that I examine in this study is a process I refer to as

“diasporization.” Although it may seem obvious, I employ the term throughout this project to describe the dispersal of people away from their homelands and into diaspora. In this case, I am specifically interested in tracing the movement of African bodies and culture (as well as its effects) out of Africa and into other parts of the world, which began to take shape in response to the transformations leading up to and during Africa Rising, as noted earlier. Significantly, this circulation of African people is not a new phenomenon, but rather, has been occurring for several hundred years. However, as will be detailed in Chapter 2, patterns of African diasporization have undergone a significant shift in the last forty years in conjunction with Africa Rising, which has sparked the emergence of a new African identity known as the Afropolitan.

31 The second theme I examine in this study is the process of digitization, which began to occur in the early 1990s at roughly the same time as the start of Africa Rising. Here, digitization broadly references the introduction and expansion of ICTs and other digital tools into the lives of

African people, both those living on the continent and in diaspora. Although I consider the role of a variety of digital technologies in this discussion, I focus heavily on the introduction and expansion of the Internet and cellular telephones into Africa. My reason for this specific emphasis is that both have played a particularly significant role in the transformations of Africa

Rising, which has been widely noted by many experts including Steve Radelet, Dayo Olopade, and Vijay Mahajan.

The final theme I consider in this study is the process of commercialization, which began to surface in the first decade of the new millennium. So far, this commercialization has been one of the most visible consequences of the Rising phenomena in the twenty-first century, which therefore necessitates its close examination in this study. Throughout the project, I conceptualize this process of commercialization as the visible incorporation of African people and cultures into the global culture industry, which has continued to increase particularly since the beginning of

2010. More specifically, this incorporation has involved the growing participation of African people as cultural producers within the industry, as well as the increased visibility of African cultural products and experiences globally. In both cases, the study of these most recent trends focuses heavily on the flows of goods and capital, as well as cultural texts and ideas between

Africa and the West.

Together, these three themes roughly chart out the historical evolution of Africa Rising, and illuminate its role in the emergence of the figure known as the Afropolitan. One of the primary developments revealed through this narrative is the expansion of the African

32 Middleclass and its improving access to resources and power. The result of this trend has been the growing representation of Afropolitan experiences and identity, particularly within the cultural texts of African hip hop, which has grown increasingly popular among African youth since its introduction in the early 1980s.

To examine this evolution, this study focuses specifically on the development of the

Afropolitan as found on African hip hop websites, tracing the ties between access and representation in relation to the processes of diasporization, digitization and commercialization.

Although several works have begun to emerge in recent years that focus on various international hip hop scenes including those in Africa,26 thus far, these contributions have largely avoided engagement with websites and/or the communities surrounding them. However, as will be revealed below, the Internet has played a significant role in the cultivation and solidification of these communities—particularly true of African hip hop, which was still a relatively nebulous genre when they first emerged in the late 1990s. Because of the music’s niche status and the difficulties of circulation, it was often through the launch of an African hip hop website that communities first began to form, and an understanding of the genre came into focus. Thus, much like the role of digital technology in the trajectory of Africa Rising detailed above, the website held a key position in the cultivation and solidification of African hip hop.

Each website detailed in this study has been carefully chosen for its longevity, historical significance, engagement with African hip hop and physical location. While at first this last

26 For example, please see Alain-Philippe Durand, Black, Blanc, Beur: Rap Music and Hip-Hop Culture in the Francophone World (Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 2002); Brad Wiess, Street Dreams and Hip Hop Barbershops: Global Fantasy in Urban (Bloomington, Indiana: Indana University Press, 2009); D. Pardue, Ideologies of Marginality in (New York: Palgrave Macmillian, 2008); Ian Condry, Hip Hop Japan: Rap and the Paths of Cultural Globalization (Durham: Duke University Press, 2006); Ian Maxwell, Phat Beats, Dope Rhymes: Hip Hop Down Under Comin’ Upper (Middletown, Conecticut: Weslyan Press, 2003); Mwenda Ntarangwi, East African Hip Hop: Youth Culture and Globalization (Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois, 2009); and, Tony Mitchell, Global Noise: Rap and Hip Hop Outside the USA (Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan, 2002).

33 criterion may seem somewhat out of place, the physical location of each website has proven to be central to its organization, thematic structure, content, advertising, aims and ethos. In addition, it has also affected the specific articulation of Africanness presented through the website, as what it means to be African in sub-Saharan Africa is often very different from what it means in or in the United States. Therefore, each case study carefully situates the featured website within its unique physical location, which is temporally fixed and is revealed to perform a central role in its development, reception and function. This location is also essential to the thematic structure of this project, which loosely follows the historical progression of

Africa Rising and the maturation of the Afropolitan. Although all three themes have, to varying degrees, been occurring simultaneously and on a global scale, this study illuminates the main thrust of each experiential shift from a unique geographical and temporal location.

Thus, going forward, Chapter 2 focuses on the Netherlands-based website

Africanhiphop.com to examine the process of diasporization, which began occurring in the late

1970s and early 1980s as a precursor to Africa Rising. Due to its proximity and old colonial ties,

Europe was one of the most popular destinations for African emigrants who were leaving the continent during the Lost Decade, which marked the birth of the Afropolitan. During this period, like the Afropolitan, African hip hop music was also young, and it developed slowly throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Because of its popularity, the flow of African people into Europe played a key role in the circulation of early hip hop, both that flowing into Africa as well as later flows back out. At times, however, these circulation patterns were not themselves enough, and were therefore also aided by non-diaspora members, particularly in the early stages when the levels of access to resources and power among budding Afropolitans was low.

34 In Chapter 3, AfricasGateway.com is employed to illuminate the process of digitization and its effects on the nature of African hip hop music and its networks. Beginning in the early

1990s, when Afropolitans were still struggling to gain better access to resources and representation on the continent, this chapter focuses specifically on the introduction of digital technology into Africa because it is here where improved digital connections were most significantly felt. More specifically, this chapter examines the introduction of ICTs and other digital technologies into South Africa, which has since arguably become the most digitized nation on the continent. The effect of this digitization has been an increase in access to resources among Afropolitans—particularly as it relates to self-definition and representation. Although this increase has also visibly extended beyond the Afropolitan group, this broadening has led to more visible fractures and heightened tensions among competing groups.

Finally, Chapter 4 studies the process of commercialization on African identity using the

American-based website OkayAfrica.com. By the initiation of this most recent process, which commenced shortly before 2010, the Afropolitan had matured into full adulthood. For many, this maturity afforded the opportunity to increasingly participate in the process of commercialization, which resulted in the expansion of access among Afropolitans once again, particularly in relation to power. In this study, I focus specifically on this process through the appropriation of Africa within the global culture industry, which is traced through the website’s engagement with not only the music but also the aesthetics and people of the continent. Although Okayafrica.com is shown to be less overtly focused on hip hop than in either of the two earlier case studies examined, this shift is revealed to be indicative of the evolution of the music and industry itself. Once again, the effects of this process have been unevenly spread

35 out amongst the African community, thereby facilitating transformations of identity, yet still failing to fully represent the diversity and complexity of the group in its entirety.

Ultimately, these three studies suggest an image of Africanness today that is very much like those laid out by both Ayittey and Selasi: a group of young African professionals whose lives exist in multiple places around the world and who frequently traverse back and forth between them. Although this Afropolitan figure does not in any way represent the experiences of the entire Rising Generation nor all African people, the mounting appearance of their lives reflects a growing sense of hybridity and global consciousness now circulating within the

African world that have been prompted by African development. Afropolitan Dream (2014) and other similar proclamations of Afropolitanism are thus, an insistence of those experiencing these changes that they do indeed exist. Ultimately, the apparent rise of the Afropolitan figure is one response to the looming question of African identity, asserting that, at least for some, it is no longer race or place that makes an African, but rather one’s state of mind.

36 Chapter 2 Word to Your Mother(land): Diasporization and the Development of African Hip Hop

Figure 2.127 The first cassette tape to feature a rapper performing in Swahili appeared in local shops around , Tanzania in 1991. At the time, hip hop had been percolating in the country for about a decade, but no commercial song had—until then—featured Swahili rhymes.

Because of this distinction, Saleh J’s single Ice Ice Baby was unique, and the response it garnered from the local youth population was significant. Its popularity and success helped, not only to launch the rising star of young rapper Saleh J, who subsequently released a full-length album of the same name (pictured above in Figure 2.1), but also to usher in a new era of hip hop in Tanzania. Whereas previously artists in the area performed primarily in English and mimicked

American styles, the emergence of Ice Ice Baby inspired Tanzanian rappers to begin experimenting with local languages and identities. Thus, even just two years later when Saleh J left the country to live with a relative in 1993, the production of Swahili rap that his album had inspired had already become significantly more common across the region.

27 Image of cassette tape jacket of the first commercially released Swahili rap album, Ice Ice Baby by Saleh J in 1991. Obtained via “Swahili version of ‘Now that we found love’ – rest in peace,” Africanhiphop.com, November 9, 2011, Accessed December 2, 2016, http://www.africanhiphop.com/swahili-version-of-now-that-we- found-love-heavy-d-rest-in-peace/

37 A few years after the initial release of Saleh J’s transformative single, a young hip hop fan from the Netherlands named Thomas Gesthuizen happened across his album while traveling through Dar es Salaam on vacation with his father. Intrigued, Gesthuizen bought the tape and headed back home to Europe. The following year, when a family friend returned from the area with a few more cassettes for his collection, Gesthuizen—who happened to be in the African

Studies program at Leiden University—started to suspect they were markers of an emerging local scene and resolved to focus his Master’s thesis on examining it further. In pursuit of this goal, Gesthuizen returned to Tanzania for a year where he completed his fieldwork, conducting numerous interviews with local artists and gathering all of the hip hop cassette tapes he could find. Gesthuizen then compiled and synthesized this information into a successful thesis; however, he felt it unfair to the artists to keep their music and stories to himself. Consequently, this Master’s scholar began building a simple one-page website he named “Rumba-Kali” featuring the music and information he had gathered through his studies, which he launched from the Netherlands in early February, 1997.

Initially, because of Gesthuizen’s specific research topic, his website had a strong

Tanzanian focus, which was articulated most notably through the name “Rumba-Kali”—a

Swahili slang term meaning “flat broke” that was popular in Tanzania during the 1990s.28

However, due to the relatively small size of early African hip hop networks, Rumba-Kali attracted more than just fans, instead drawing a diverse crowd of both continental and diasporic Africans. In response, Gesthuizen embraced this growing diversity on

28 Per the explanation provided on the old Rumba-Kali website, “[t]he word ‘Rumba Kali’ is a Swahili expression which [was] in use especially in the nineties, where it refers to a situation in which you are totally broke. We took it from the cover of an old school Tanzanian rap cassette by WWA…There’s a second explanation that we gave to it; as mentioned befor ‘rumba’ is the Latin inspired music from 1940’s to 80’s Central Africa and still played by many older artists. ‘Kali’ is a Swahili word and means ‘intense’ or ‘sharp’…so hip hop is our ‘intensified rumba’…” As quoted from “Welcome to Rumba-Kali,” Wayback Machine, Accessed January 8, 2017, https://web.archive.org/web/20000229040617/http://www.africaserver.nl/rumba-kali/index2.htm

38 his website by championing a broader Pan-African focus and actively promoting a sense of diasporic unity. As shown in Figure 2.2 below, these efforts were immediately visible when entering the space, illuminated not only by the subtitle “Home of Pan African Hip Hop,” but also through the introductory language framing its content, which opened with the words of famous

Nigerian musician and political activist Fela Kuti who insisted that “in [the year] 2000 Africa must be one.” In 1999, Gesthuizen took this Pan-Africanism one step further by changing the official name and web address of Rumba-Kali to the broader and more inclusive

Africanhiphop.com (AHH). Significantly, this name change not only represented a definitive shift in the focus and intentions of the website, but also inherently positioned AHH at the forefront of the burgeoning movement. Because, at that time, African hip hop was still a nascent and ambiguous genre, the website significantly contributed to the shaping of its geographical boundaries, and to this day continues to hold an important role in demarcating what does and does not constitute African hip hop music.

Figure 2.229 The second major development to shape the AHH website was the introduction of the forums section, which took place in 2001. As was the common path of development for hip hop

29 Screen capture of early Rumba-Kali website as provided on “Rumba-Kali Home of African Hip Hop (original page as it appeared in 1997),” Africanhiphop.com, Accessed January 8, 2017, http://www.africanhiphop.com/rumba-kali.htm

39 websites during this period, the AHH forums section quickly became a major focal point for visitors to the website, ultimately replacing the guestbook, which was an earlier digital space where users could post brief messages of introduction and interact with one another. Like the guestbook, the forums also allowed individuals to communicate directly with each other; however, the improved interface made such communication far more engaging and accessible.

Consequently, the forums greatly helped solidify and expand the AHH community. As one member recalled:

There was this huge community of people…from all over the place who were—they were hot. I mean, they had skills—they could spit their pants off, and it was fun! Most of those people now, we are talking brain surgeons, we are talking the son of the president of Nigeria […] Kna’an was there before he blew up in the West. Yeah, so we are talking a lot of people who, back then were just trying to find their feet and trying to express themselves…We talked everything from politics to science, but in lyrical form, and it was miles ahead of anything else. There was nothing else like that on the Internet. There was no other place where you could get that kind of community.30

This sense of community also manifested in other parts of the website, such as through the frequent encouragements to contribute missing information (also evident in Figure 2.2 above), as well as the penchant for cross-promoting other African hip hop websites.31 Significantly, although activity in the forums section began to wane during the latter half of the decade, the reputation these boards garnered as a popular destination for talented African practitioners gave the website a prestige that further enhanced its standing in the world of African hip hop.

Partly because of this developing reputation, as the 2000s progressed, AHH continued to mature and grow more firmly entrenched in the world of African hip hop. The most visible sign of this maturity was the emergence of the African Hip Hop Foundation, which was established

30 R23, interviewed by author in London, England on June 13, 2016. 31 Most notably seen through the links section found in nearly every iteration of the AHH website, such as can be found on this page from March 28, 2004, archived by the Wayback Machine, Accessed February 3, 2017, http://web.archive.org/web/20040328011529/http://africanhiphop.com/

40 by Gesthuizen and a few of his colleagues as the non-governmental organization (NGO) behind the AHH website. This foundation, which replaced the Netherlands-based NGO Madunia,32 began to appear on AHH as its sole official copyright owner in April 2005. Following this development, the foundation also began to organize and promote several African hip hop-related events, including a documentary film festival that took place in Amsterdam from 2004 to 2008, and a music festival called “Doin’ it in the Park” from 2009 to 2011.

In 2009, the Foundation was also first linked with the African Hip Hop Archive, which started appearing on AHH under listed projects. On its overview page the archive was described as a collection of “music, articles, books, newspaper cuttings, music videos, interviews and other materials related to the development of urban African youth culture since the early 90’s.”33

Significantly, this collection was not a new element of AHH, but rather a repackaging of the archival practices that had always been a part of the website. Thus, the appearance and labeling of the archive as another official project of the African Hip Hop Foundation reveals it as a continuation and expansion of the website and further underscores the position of both AHH and its creators in the landscape of African hip hop, which by that time had been firmly established as an important resource and voice of authority.

In addition to the formation of the African Hip Hop Foundation, the relaunch of African

Hip Hop Radio, which also occurred in 2005, similarly indicates the expansion of AHH and its authority as an influential platform during this period. The radio project originally began as a webcast in 1998, and its intended function was to give exposure (and access) to the African hip

32 This NGO was centered around the promotion of African music. For more information please see “Madunia,” Wayback Machine, Accessed February 3, 2017, http://web.archive.org/web/20010405022834/http://www.madunia.nl/ 33 “African Hip Hop Archive,” African Hip Hop Foundation (1997-2009), Accessed January 14, 2017, https://web.archive.org/web/20090803045508/http://www.africanhiphop.com/projects/african-hip-hop-archive/

41 hop artists whose music was featured on the website. Although initially conceptualized as an hour-long playlist that included brief liner notes and was available for limited streaming by AHH visitors, the scope and intent of this project expanded over time to include program hosts with recorded commentary between tracks and non-stop streaming. In both cases, these improvements made access to the webcasts easier, but the reach of the program was still largely limited to the user audience of the website. However, this limitation was removed with the radio relaunch in

January 2009 because it was then—for the first time—also licensed to conventional radio stations34. In addition, this program relaunch also coincided with the emergence of

AfricanHipHopRadio.com, which included a separate newsfeed that exclusively featured information related to the program. In both cases, like the formation of the African Hip Hop

Foundation, the developments that took place in conjunction with this radio project further revealed the expanding influence and improved social status that the AHH website enjoyed. At the same time, this development also indicated a growing global interest in African hip hop music that can, in part, be attributed to the successful pursuit of AHH’s original goal of increasing the visibility of artists and their music.

However, by the end of the decade, AHH had begun to struggle against the sharp decline in user participation that many hip hop websites experienced during that period. As is detailed in

Chapter 2, this decline can in part be explained by the rise of social media platforms like

Myspace, Facebook and Twitter that emerged in the latter half of the decade and enticed both users and artists away from the forums. In response, AHH underwent multiple redesigns and worked to expand its engagement with social media by creating a Twitter account and Facebook page. The most recent redesign, which was launched in January 2015, also included an overhaul

34 The specific radio station hosting the show changed over time; however, the first was a national broadcaster in the Netherlands called Vpro Radio.

42 of the forums section that now appears primarily as a tool for artists to promote themselves and their music. Thus far, these efforts have succeeded in maintaining AHH as a destination for

African hip hoppers from all over the world, despite the significant changes to the landscapes of both online hip hop and African hip hop that have taken place over the last twenty years. Thus, as is noted on AHH’s “About” page, while today it has been joined by “many more African hip hop websites[,]…Africanhiphop.com remains the starting point and final destination for anyone wanting to know more about hip hop in the Motherland.”35

In addition to providing one of the most thorough evolutionary accounts of both African hip hop music and its online culture over the last two decades, AHH is also significant because of its role as a diasporic space where members of the African Diaspora can share experiences and build community, facilitating what Brent Hayes Edwards describes as the practice of diaspora.

However, Gesthuizen’s role in AHH complicates this practice, as it brings to light the ways in which individuals outside the diaspora have contributed to and participated in this process.

Rather than dismissing Gesthuizen’s engagement with the website and community as a simple case of cultural appropriation, instead, I argue that he functioned as a surrogate to the African

Diaspora in the Netherlands, helping to facilitate and enable diasporic practice in the region during a period when such practice was less accessible to African Diasporans themselves. At the same time, Gesthuizen’s academic background and position as a non-diasporan have also informed the specific articulations of Africa and African identity that are expressed through the website. Thus, AHH provides a more robust and complex picture of the nature of diasporic practice, and ultimately reveals how the diasporization of the African experience has drawn out new shades of gray in the construction of contemporary African identity.

35 “About,” Africanhiphop.com, Accessed December 8, 2016, http://www.africanhiphop.com/about/

43 A New African Diaspora

To begin, it is first necessary to clarify a few important terms related to the African

Diaspora. Because of the long and extremely complex history of African dispersal from the continent, current engagements with this diaspora have often focused on only a subset of experiences within it, thus leading to confusing and at times seemingly contradictory conceptualizations of the group.36 To avoid this confusion, I employ an approach to the African

Diaspora that is heavily informed by Emmanuel Akyeampong’s phases of dispersal, which nuances the formation of this group by separating it into three distinct periods of movement: pre- nineteenth century (motivated by slavery), nineteenth century (motivated by imperialism), and twentieth century dispersal (motivated by labor, education and trade). This categorization is useful because it acknowledges the existence of multiple types of movement within the same group and draws out the significant effects such differences cultivate. Thus, it serves here as a useful starting point for a more productive and complete picture of the African Diaspora.

When speaking of the African Diaspora’s twentieth century phase of dispersal,

Akyeampong argues that this group is unique because it is marked by “the ties Africans outside

Africa retain with their home countries.”37 Evidence of this distinction is easily observable, such as, for example, in the formation of nation-based African immigrant communities in places like

New York and Los Angeles that took shape during this century. Although initially small, in the last forty years these communities have begun to grow rapidly, and currently show no signs of

36 For instance, in Paul Gilroy’s analysis of the Black Atlantic, he paints an image of the diaspora born from the Transatlantic Slave Trade, thereby excluding those who left the continent under different circumstances or who were internally displaced either as refugees or through rural to urban migration. Conversely, in their study of home associations, Claire Mercer, Ben Page and Martin Evans describe an African Diaspora composed of members with a clear sense of belonging and direct knowledge of their homeland and ethnic identity, which excludes nearly all those individuals who have lived for generations abroad, such as (although not exclusively limited to) those outlined in Gilroy’s group. 37 Emmanuel Akyeampong, “Africans in the Diaspora: The Diaspora and Africa,” African Affairs 99 (2000), 188.

44 slowing down. Thus, building on Akyeampong’s analysis, which was published in 2000 at the dawn of the new millennium, I extend this distinction to cover both the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, thereby separating the African Diaspora into two general categories: the “Old African

Diaspora” and the “New African Diaspora.”

Although not the focus of this study, the Old African Diaspora is nevertheless an important conceptual category, as it can be loosely equated with Paul Gilroy’s “Black Atlantic,” comprised of individuals whose African ancestors were forcibly dispersed through slavery across the Americas and Western Europe between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries. However, the

Old African Diaspora also includes other historical experiences of and reasons for diasporic movement, as well as recognizing the dispersal of Africans to other parts of the world. For example, Paul Manning details the circulation of slaves around the Indian Ocean prior to the

Transatlantic Slave Trade, while Akyeampong explains how African migration became more heavily informed by the pushes and pulls of imperialism during the nineteenth century.38 Under the concept of the Old African Diaspora all these groups are included. What makes their experiences similar then, is not the harrowing journey across the Atlantic Ocean or even the humiliations of slavery, but rather it is the irreconcilable fact that through these forms of movement ancestral homelands almost inevitably remained far away, both physically and metaphorically speaking. Thus, all members of the Old African Diaspora ultimately share a common point of disconnection (Africa), which is further augmented with each generation descendants remain abroad.

38 For other discussions that also gesture toward an expanded view of the African Diaspora, please see Tiffany Ruby Patterson & Robin D. G. Kelley, “Unfinished Migrations: Reflections on the African Diaspora and Making of the Modern World,” African Studies Review, vol. 43, no. 1 (April 2000), 11-45.

45 Members of the New African Diaspora, in contrast, tend to view their migration as temporary and thus, as noted above, are united by the stronger and more cogent ties they retain with both their home nations and the African continent. Recently, this experience of the African

Diaspora has become an increasingly popular topic of study, such as in Clair Mercer, Ben Page and Martin Evan’s analysis of diaspora contributions to African development through home associations, and in Donald Martin Carter’s examination of the experiences of Senegalese immigrant communities in Italy. In these articulations, the African Diaspora often appears first and foremost as an immigrant community, thereby aligning their experiences more closely with other non-African migrants than with Old African Diaspora populations, the latter of whose time abroad and national identities accentuate vast differences between the two groups despite their ancestral connections.

Extending Akyeampong’s analysis of twentieth century dispersal, which characterizes

African movement in this period by the pursuit of new opportunities following paths informed by colonialism, the New African Diaspora embraces this general trajectory, yet delineates an important shift that took place during the final quarter of the twentieth century. Beginning around the end of the 1970s, in response to the emerging challenges of the Lost Decade, the rate of African dispersal rose significantly and the socioeconomic status of those who were going abroad also began to change. Whereas earlier twentieth century dispersal (what I term the

“restricted” phase) had been largely characterized by elites leaving the continent to study at

Western universities or pursue new business endeavors, contracting economies, political instability and widespread famine during the late 1970s and early 1980s broadened the spectrum and augmented the pace of those Africans going abroad. Speaking of the Ghanaian Diaspora,

Akyeampong notes:

46 Ghanaian emigration from the late 1970s…encompassed the professional and non- professional classes, elites and commoners, male and female, on a scale that was stupendous. When Nigeria expelled illegal aliens in early 1983, official estimates put the number of Ghanaian ‘returnees’ at between 900,000 and 1.2 million. These included university and secondary school teachers, artisans, domestic servants, unskilled labourers, and prostitutes. The figure represented a tenth of Ghana’s total population at the time.39

Notably, this number also represented only those returning to Ghana from one nearby country, and therefore suggests the probability of a much larger number still residing in diaspora elsewhere. Additionally, rather than diminish such trends, the gradual shift toward growth that many African economies began to exhibit during the early 1990s has continued to enable an ever-increasing number of Africans to go abroad. This trend is due not only to the improved economic circumstances in several countries that has expanded the middleclass and made the formerly elite privilege of migration for school or work more accessible, but also to the unevenness of such growth and the frequent setbacks in many areas that have continued to push large numbers of Africans abroad.

The effect of this expansion was to increase the embrace of an Afropolitan worldview. As the number of Africans entering diaspora increased, so too did their familiarity and comfortability with difference. Often, these moves necessitated the acquisition of a second or third language, for example, and the ability to learn and adapt to new cultures. In response, a growing penchant for cultural mixing and hybridity began to surface, which gradually flowered into a full embrace of Afropolitanism.

The notable shift in experiences of Africans entering diaspora during this forth dispersal period—what I term the “rising” phase—has also been aided by the emerging trends of globalization, which is marked by the increased fluidity of national boundaries and global interconnectivity. One of the key characteristics of this development has been the role new

39 Akyeampong, “Africans in the Diaspora,” 206.

47 communications and transportation technologies have played in facilitating these global culture flows, the former of which is examined more specifically in Chapter 3. Due to the higher levels of both real and virtual access to the homeland these technologies afford, Africans have once again changed the way they move and experience diaspora. The result has been the rising phase of diaspora, which has grown even more interconnected with the African homeland, blurring the boundaries between the continent and its diaspora almost beyond recognition. Indeed, evidence of this shift can be found in the increasingly common inclusion of diaspora populations in these imagined national and continental communities, such as, for example, the African Union’s recognition of the African Diaspora as the sixth region of the continent in 2003.40

Therefore, this label “New African Diaspora” (as well as its “Old African Diaspora” counterpart) represents an attempt to expand and clarify Akyeampong’s categorization of the

African Diaspora. As in his original analysis, this approach continues to delineate experiences in the diaspora by drawing distinctions between different phases of diasporic movement and acknowledging the varied effects such differences have on contemporary understandings of the group. However, whereas Akyeampong perceived twentieth century migration as a single coherent wave of dispersal, it has now become evident that the transformations he describes during the 1970s and 1980s were in fact markers of a shift in dispersal patterns that have once again resulted in the emergence of a new and distinct phase of experiences within the group.41

By acknowledging this break, the New African Diaspora continues to underscore the commonalities among diasporans going abroad since the turn of the twentieth century, while at

40 The formation of home associations, which are informal diaspora groups comprised of members from a specific town, region or ethnic community on the continent, is another clear example of this trend. 41 Significantly, Akyeampong does note the arbitrary nature of these century markers in his work, which suggests that perhaps he too might choose to modify his categories based on current trends in African migration patterns. However, as he argues, such distinctions serve as useful (and necessary) guidelines to delineate general shifts and trends, despite their imperfections.

48 the same time also pointing out important differences between experiences that have grown apparent over the last forty years. In doing so, this conceptualization aims to provide an updated and more useful framework with which to approach the African Diaspora in its entirety, while at the same time also leaving the door open for further refinements and modifications in the future.

Diaspora, its Practice & the Rise of African Hip Hop

These distinctions in diasporic dispersal are fundamental to understanding the emergence of hip hop in Africa as well as the complexities surrounding the practice of diaspora occurring through AHH. As Eric Charry describes in his introduction to Hip Hop Africa (2012), in contrast with the United States, hip hop initially grew popular on the continent among a small, “elite

Westernized segment of African youth,”42 whose embrace of the foreign culture is highly indicative of the budding Afropolitan. This characterization is also in line with restricted phase diasporans because, as detailed earlier, it was this group who left the continent in small numbers to pursue education or better earnings through trade or employment, which in all cases, were opportunities only available to those Africans who possessed connections and/or money. And because many of those individuals continued to stay abroad or at the very least traveled back and forth between the West and the continent frequently, in the 1980s when hip hop began to emerge, their children—or in some cases their children’s children—were in the unique position of straddling both African and Western worlds, and thus also of holding a more thorough knowledge of Western culture than their continental counterparts. Of course, not all African youth who embraced early hip hop resided in diaspora; however, the westernization they exhibited regardless of their location typically resulted in their marginalization on the continent,

42 Eric Charry, “A Capsule History of African Rap,” in Hip Hop Africa: New African Music in a Globalizing World, ed. Eric Charry (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2012), 3.

49 which created a sense of cultural dislocation that was much like that experienced by Africans who did go abroad.43

In addition to their special association with Western culture, restricted phase diasporans also played a key role in the early circulation of hip hop into Africa. First, during hip hop’s initial decade on the continent, circulation occurred mainly through the costly means of physical transportation, as most radio and television stations, where present in Africa, typically did not play hip hop music. As Charry explains, “[hip hop] had to be physically imported in the form of audio and video cassettes and vinyl records. Because there was no significant market yet, it was literally brought over in bits and pieces by Africans traveling abroad.”44 Due to the expense of this process, restricted phase diasporan youth were once again uniquely positioned to access and circulate early hip hop music, as it was mainly these individuals who possessed the means to international travel or connections to someone else who did.45

Because of their unique positions and higher levels of access, restricted phase diasporans were also often among the first African youths to produce their own hip hop music. Again, this ordering was due in large part to their elite socioeconomic status, which meant they were more likely to possess the funds to pay for things like professional studio time or other resources

43 Notably, for those individuals who were living outside of the continent, this cultural dislocation was two-fold, as they too, were often marginalized for their Western characteristics when in Africa, and again for their African cultural practices and identities when abroad. 44 Charry, “A Capsule History,” 4. 45 Although Charry emphasizes the important role that African travelers played in the early circulation and distribution of hip hop to the continent, individuals residing in diaspora were also, undeniably, an essential element in this complex process. Oftentimes, an African traveler’s introduction to hip hop was facilitated by a diasporic contact living abroad, who had more knowledge of and access to the cassette tapes and vinyl records than the temporary visitor, who would then bring them back with him or her (but usually him) to Africa. Additionally, once knowledge of hip hop music began to permeate the continent, diasporic contacts currently residing in Western countries became indispensable resources for hip hop fans on the continent who were less able to travel. For these individuals, the postal service was often the primary means through which to gain access to new materials, which again relied on the participation of contacts in the West to attain and ship such items back to them. Thus, while certainly not all transactions of this nature occurred between diasporic members, such relationships were a significant component of these early hip hop networks, once again underscoring the role of restricted phase diasporans as key facilitators of hip hop’s entry into Africa.

50 necessary for music production. In addition, these individuals were also more likely to have connections with resources abroad, which aided in the expanding circulation of African hip hop music and often became an important step in the professionalization and success of individual artists and groups. Much as was the case with the early circulation of hip hop from the West into

Africa, early circulation of hip hop out of Africa to the West was also heavily reliant on the physical transportation of cassette tapes. In this way, once again restricted phase diasporans played an important role in the birth and growth of the genre. However, as African hip hop music became more accessible to both consume and produce for African youth in the 1990s and 2000s, these limitations relaxed, allowing rising phase diasporans to play an increasingly significant role in the production and circulation of the growing music culture.

As noted above, many young Africans who embraced early hip hop shared a common sense of cultural marginalization because of their Afropolitan worldview and cultural hybridity, whether they lived somewhere on the continent or elsewhere in the world. Because of their shared experiences of marginalization, both groups found themselves in a perpetual state of limbo that, as anthropologist Donald Martin Carter describes, “encompass[ed] the possibility of never arriving, of drifting endlessly betwixt and between the new world’s boundaries.”46 Often, these young Africans came to serve as a kind of human border unto themselves, pressed together somewhere between “the West” and “Africa,” yet not fully belonging in either place. In response, many retreated to a home of the mind, engaging in what Carter refers to as “diasporic nostalgia,” or “a desire for an imagined world that has not yet come into being.”47 More specifically, this nostalgia centered on an imagined world in which they could move freely both

46 Donald Martin Carter, Navigating the African Diaspora: The Anthropology of Invisibility (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010), 72. 47 Ibid., 18.

51 physically and metaphorically, where boundaries between what is African and what is not is fluid and highly negotiable.

Hip hop, in many ways, became this world for young New African Diasporans. The frustrated voices of disenfranchised Black and Brown youth in America reverberated across the

Atlantic Ocean and became a tool through which these budding Afropolitans created a place of their own to belong. Initially, these hip hoppers were drawn to the marginalized voices they heard in the music, which reflected many of their own experiences of nonbelonging and framed them with a Black identity that was easily relatable to their own African diasporic contexts. In response, the early hip hop these individuals produced was often highly Americanized, featuring

English rhymes over top-forty instrumentals, and frequently mimicking American accents and at times even lyrics.48 During the 1990s, however, this mimicry began to give way to experimentation with local languages and instruments, which expanded hip hop’s fan base on the continent. The use of local languages was particularly significant to this expansion, as it made the music more readily accessible to individuals who did not speak English. These experiments resulted in the emergence of several new hybrid genres, such as, for example, hiplife in Ghana, in South Africa and in Tanzania (the last of which is foreshadowed by Saleh

J’s single Ice Ice Baby discussed earlier).

During this same transitional period, African hip hop practitioners also began expressing thoughts and concerns in the music that more accurately reflected their own unique identities as

Africans, thereby transforming African hip hop into a medium of communication that allowed

48 The Arusha-based 1990s group Niggaz With Power (N.W.P.) is a productive illustration of these early characteristics, as their name is an unmistakable reference to the American rap group Niggaz Wit Attitudes (N.W.A.), and their first cassette tape included instrumentals from popular American East Coast rapper KRS-One. J4, “Tanzanian Hip Hop: The Old School (1991-1999),” Africanhiphop.com, Accessed February 13, 2017, http://archive.africanhiphop.com/index.php?module=subjects&func=viewpage&pageid=100

52 disparate participants throughout the African world to develop a shared sense of community. Of course, as is the nature of diaspora, this imagined community was not monolithic, but rather, a highly eclectic and fluid conglomeration of people with different cultural, national, religious, historical, linguistic, socioeconomic and geopolitical backgrounds. As such, although the umbrellas of African and Black identities provided points of commonality for members of the diaspora to congregate under, such umbrellas did not fully mask the important points of disconnections and difference that are always present in diaspora.49 Thus, members of the

African hip hop community had to continually strive toward, or “practice,” a unified group identity and sense of belonging that could bridge these often significant gaps and allow group members to unite across them.

To this end, the launch of Gesthuizen’s website in the late 1990s was a well-timed and significant development for the African hip hop community. As noted above, despite its early

Tanzanian centered content, Rumba-Kali and later AHH attracted a diverse following of African youth from all around the world. Initially, most visitors who accessed the website did so from

Western countries like the United States and England, which further supports the link between restricted phase diasporans and early hip hop music. However, as time progressed more continent-based users also began to participate in the online community, thus revealing expanded interests in and access to hip hop music in continental Africa.

Throughout its life, AHH has consistently served as an important platform for diasporic practice, in large part because it facilitates the solidification of the larger diaspora community.

The most apparent of methods through which this process has been achieved has been the

49 As Stuart Hall rightly argues, such masking is not only impossible, but also, ultimately undesirable, as such distinctions between diaspora identities represent “a profound difference of culture and history. And the different matters.” Stuart Hall, “Cultural Identity and Diaspora,” in Identity: Community, Culture, Difference, ed. Jonathan Rutherford, (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1990), 227.

53 Articles in AHH Country Library 1997-2008

ALGERIA 1 ANGOLA 8 BENIN 1 BOTSWANA 3 CAMEROON 1 CAPE VERDE 3 CHAD 1 COMOROS 2 CONGO 8 GAMBIA 2 GHANA 19 GUINEA 2 IVORY COAST 2 10 LIBERIA 1 MADAGASCAR 1 MALAWI 2 MALI 1 MOROCCO 1 MOZAMBIQUE 1 NIGERIA 35 RWANDA 1 SENEGAL 25 SOMOLIA 2 SOUTH AFRICA 35 SWAZILAND 1 TANZANIA 55 TOGO 1 TUNISIA 1 UGANDA 2 ZAMBIA 2 ZIMBABWE 4 0 10 20 30 40 50 60

Figure 2.350 representation of African nations and diaspora locations on the website via hip hop music. As is illustrated in Figure 2.3, AHH has posted numerous articles over the years tied to the music or culture of a specific country, ranging from those with more established hip hop scenes like Nigeria and Senegal, to lesser-known producers like Swaziland and Togo. In all cases, these

50 Data obtained through the old Africanhiphop.com website “Africanhiphop.com – The Foundation of African Hiphop Culture Online,” African Hip Hop Foundation. Accessed April 25, 2017, http://archive.africanhiphop.com/

54 inclusions served two parallel purposes, first to create a sense of belonging among visitors from the named regions, and second to encourage visitors from other regions to embrace this belonging by presenting each as part of the same diasporic world. Although the amount of coverage given to various national scenes has been highly uneven, Gesthuizen and later the AHH team made it clear that these discrepancies were a product of the website’s unequal access to information and materials rather than different levels of belonging. To underscore this view, visitors were encouraged to contribute whatever information they felt was missing from the website, thereby further enhancing the sense of shared ownership and belonging within the online African hip hop community.

The ability to listen to music through AHH has been particularly significant to its successful facilitation of diasporic practice among community members. As Tia DeNora argues, music functions as an artifact of memory, explaining, “[l]ike an article of clothing or an aroma, music is part of the material and aesthetic environment in which it was once playing…[R]eheard and recalled [later, it] provides a device for unfolding, for replaying, the temporal structure of that moment.”51 For members of the AHH community, a familiar song is thus a means of transporting oneself to an earlier time and place, while at the same time also connecting with other diasporans who share a similar nostalgic relationship to the song. In the case of new music, this collective listening serves as a major step in building new points of commonality through which diaspora community members can unite across their physical separation. Thus, in all cases, listening to music through AHH is an essential act in the process of cultivating a collective group identity, as familiarity with the music becomes highly symbolic of membership to the group.

51 Tia DeNora, Music in Everyday Life (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 67.

55

Figure 2.452 In addition to the music, AHH also solidified the African diaspora community through the visible participation of diasporic members in the production of the website. As was stated on the “About” page in a 2011 version of AHH, these participants hailed from “various origins in

Africa and the diaspora,”53 and thus, through the process of this website production, inherently participated in the cultivation of a transnational diasporic community. The team of DJs featured on AfricanHipHopRadio.com in 2008 is a particularly visible illustration of this point. As pictured above in Figure 2.4, the seventeen participants collectively outlined the parameters of the African diasporic world as imagined through AHH, with nearly all individuals claiming origins in at least one African nation, and several also drawing connections with secondary countries in Europe, the Americas, or elsewhere on the African continent. Significantly, only three DJs do not identify a specific African nation as their point of origin, and only J4 (a.k.a. DJ

52 Screenshot taken from “AfricanHipHopRadio.com – monthly African hip hop radio shows,” African Hip Hop Foundation (1997-2005), Wayback Machine, Accessed April 26, 2017, https://web- beta.archive.org/web/20080828232533/africanhiphopradio.com 53 “About,” Africanhiphop.com, Accessed December 2, 2016, http://www.africanhiphop.com/about/

56 Jumanne, a.k.a. Thomas Gesthuizen) appears to have no ancestral roots in Africa. Thus,

AfricanHipHopRadio.com and the AHH website in general conveys a strong image of diaspora practice, as these participants come together from various parts of the African Diasporic world to form this African hip hop community.

As with most diaspora communities, this focus on a common ancestral homeland is a central element of the African hip hop world, which in this case is represented by the African continent. This homeland, however, embodies more than just a geographical space, and as David

Morley has noted, is most accurately described by the German notion of heimat, which he explains as both home and homeland, where community is imagined and belonging is experienced.54 In the case of African hip hop, Africa is positioned as this heimat, and through

AHH it functions as the link connecting those in diaspora to their point of origin as well as each other. For those still residing on the continent, this heimat is often situated in the future, built upon the aspirations of overcoming current hardships and righting wrongs.55 In contrast, those in diaspora tend to articulate an Africa of the past or present, often framing it as an idyllic (or at the very least a preferable) alternative to life abroad.56 In this way, both groups engage the music as a vehicle through which to create an imaginary African world to which they can all belong, thereby cultivating a sense of community amongst all those dispersed either physically or metaphorically from a homeland that has, as Carter argues, not yet fully materialized.

Hence, the strong focus on Africa found on AHH is not surprising. In addition to statements identifying “hip hop in the Motherland” as the core interest responsible for unifying

54 David Morley, Home Territories: Media, Mobility & Identity (New York: Routledge, 2000), 32. 55 For example, please see video for “Coup 2 Gueule” (Let’s Act on our Words) by Senegalese duo Gelongal, as discussed on “Conscious Senegalese rap is not dead,” Africanhiphop.com, September 9, 2010, Accessed August 26, 2017, http://www.africanhiphop.com/conscious-senegalese-rap-is-not-dead 56 For example, please consider “Motherland” by M.anifest on Immigrant Chronicles: Coming to America (2011)

57 all visitors to the website, visual content like music videos and still images also reference the

African continent frequently. For example, in this picture from a news article posted in

November 2013 about a new release from Burkina Faso MC Smarty, the artist is shown with his band in the middle of an unpaved street in an African village, with other villagers in the shot presumably going about their daily lives (Figure 2.5). Through this image Smarty is firmly situated within this African homeland and thus also as a member of the global African community. At the same time, the AHH visitor is also reminded of his or her own continental

“home,” thereby encouraging a sense of connection with the artist and reaffirming personal belonging to the online African hip hop community.

Figure 2.557 In addition to these visual references, the African continent also served as the focal point and primary lens through which all content on AHH was filtered. As one community member put it, “[t]hey always focused only on one thing, and that was either the diaspora or the artists on the continent. And that was it, end of story.”58 Examples of this practice can be found throughout the

57 Image obtained from Juma4, “Smarty – Afrikan Kouleur video,” Africanhiphop.com, November 9, 2013, Accessed April 26, 2017, http://www.africanhiphop.com/smarty-afrikan-kouleur-video/ 58 Milk, interview by author, Johannesburg, South Africa, April 7, 2014.

58 website, such as in a 2011 article addressing the recent passing of American rapper Heavy D. To commemorate him, this article included audio of Heavy D’s popular song “Now That We Found

Love;” however, rather than the original version the article featured the Swahili arrangement recorded by Saleh J for his album Ice Ice Baby described in the opening of this chapter.59 In a similar fashion, when Kanye West and Jay-Z’s collaboration album Watch the Throne (2011) was released, AHH discussed the album in an article titled “Watch the Throne Turn Purple,” in which the primary focus was on the album’s sampling of South African musician Caiphus

Semenya, and whether or not the artist would be appropriately compensated.60

Finally, although perhaps it goes without saying, continental Africa is also engaged frequently through the hip hop music found on AHH. Returning to DeNora’s argument regarding the ties between music and memory, here again, streaming both new and old songs is central to visitors’ ability to access a sense of connection with the community via the music. For new music especially, which has grown increasingly inclusive of indigenous sounds and local languages, visitors are provided with a rich tapestry of aural markers that call upon the African continent and thus, articulate a notion of home.61 To this end, even the African accented voices of presenters whose commentary began appearing in the radio webcasts aided in this process, which continued to grow increasingly present as more presenters were included as regular parts of the show, and more content shared through the website.

In this way, over the last twenty years AHH has consistently served as a central platform through which the New African Diaspora’s Rising Generation has been encouraged to engage in

59 Please see Juma4, “Swahili version of ‘Now that we found love’ – Heavy D rest in peace,” Africanhiphop.com, November 9, 2011, Accessed April 26, 2017, http://www.africanhiphop.com/swahili-version-of-now-that-we-found- love-heavy-d-rest-in-peace/ 60 Please see Juma4, “Watch the Throne Turn Purple,” Africanhiphop.com, August 16, 2011, Accessed April 26, 2017, http://www.africanhiphop.com/watch-the-throne-turn-purple/ 61 For example, as is evident in Blitz the Ambassador’s album Afropolitan Dreams (2014) detailed in Chapter 1

59 the practice of diaspora. Most notably, this practice has been undertaken through the clear demarcation of diaspora group parameters, as well as the cultivation of a collective identity through news and a common identification with the heimat. In these ways, members have successfully bridged across the gaps that lie between their experiences, to connect and develop a sense of a shared African hip hop community with one another. Although AHH has not been the only place through which such relationships have occurred, it is nevertheless an important space where such diasporic practice transpires.

Surrogating in the Netherlands

NETHERLANDS POPULATION ORIGINS 2016 Asia Americas Oceania 4.87% 3.89% 0.13% Africa 3.78%

Europe (not Netherlands) 9.44%

Netherlands 77.90%

Figure 2.662 The Netherlands is, perhaps a first, a surprising location for the launch of the AHH website.

Presently, its population is moderately diverse, with nearly 78% of the Netherlands’s 17 million residents of Dutch origin, and 22% from various other parts of the world (please see Figure 2.6).

Significantly, other Europeans account for nearly half of these “non-Dutch” residents, thereby

62 CBS Statistics Netherlands, “Population; sex, age, origin and generation, 1 January,” August 1, 2017, Accessed August 26, 2017, http://statline.cbs.nl/Statweb/publication/?DM=SLEN&PA=37325ENG&D1=0&D2=0&D3=0&D4=0&D5=1,5- 9&D6=13-20&LA=EN&HDR=G2,G3,G4,T&STB=G1,G5&VW=T

60 leaving the non-White63 population of the Netherlands at just under 13%. For the African

Diaspora, their current numbers sit at roughly 7% of the Netherlands’s total population, composed of approximately 22% New African Diasporans, along with 30% Surinamese (349,

022), 13% Dutch Antilles (150,981), 2% Cape Verdean (22,1257) and 33% Moroccan (385,761) immigrants (please see Figure 2.7). However, as is detailed below, until recently the African

Diaspora population in the Netherlands remained quite small, and the group’s specific patterns of migration into the country have been dominated by members of the Old African Diaspora. Thus, during the early stages of African hip hop’s development, the Netherlands lacked a significant number of restricted phase diasporans, which is the group shown above to have been so central to the early circulation and production of the music. To overcome this lack, outsiders like

Thomas Gesthuizen played a crucial role in its early development, as they served as surrogates to the formation of African hip hop communities and helped to facilitate diasporic practice.

African Diaspora Population 2016

New African Diasporan Moroccan Dutch Antillean Surinamese Cape Verdean

Figure 2.764

63 While nationality is distinct from race and does not always equate directly with it, the numbers still provide a rough indication of general trends within the Netherlands. 64 CBS Statistics Netherlands, “Population.”

61 Although in his introduction to Hip Hop Africa, Charry details the important role Western

European countries played in the early circulation of hip hop music, his focus on France—and

Paris in particular—is due to the strong relationship between Francophone African countries and their European metropole that emerged during the colonial era and continued to persist long after independence.65 However, unlike France and England, and to a lesser extent also Portugal, Italy,

Spain and Belgium, the Netherlands did not maintain a significant colonial presence on the

African continent following its loss of the Cape territories to the British in the early 1800s.

Instead, the Dutch colonial empire was concentrated in the East and West Indies—what is today

Indonesia and the Caribbean nations of Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao, Saba, St. Estatius, St. Martin and Surinam. Due to this distinction, African migrants did not have the same direct lines of access to the Netherlands that French and English colonial histories proffered, which resulted in significantly smaller numbers of restricted phase migrants arriving there directly from the continent. Instead, post-WWII immigration flows into the Netherlands were largely populated by returning Dutch nationals and Moluccans until the early 1960s, and the Surinamese and Dutch

Antilleans, as well as Turkish, Moroccan and Cape Verdean guestworkers, from the 1960s through the early 1970s.

As stated above, because of its unique colonial history, restricted phase diasporans were relatively absent in the Netherlands during African hip hop’s formative years. Much like other

European countries, the Netherlands experienced an influx of elite African Diasporans from its colonial holdings in the mid-twentieth century; however, because these colonies were located far

65 For example, Paris became a particularly central hub for hip hop related activity in the early years, as s evidenced by the debut of H.I.P.H.O.P. in 1984, which was the first regular program dedicated to hip hop to be aired on national television anywhere. In response to this hub, and as further evidence of its connection, Dakar, Senegal, which, like most former colonial capitals, continued to maintain strong ties with its colonial parent, developed one of the first hip hop scenes on the African continent.

62 away from the African continent, the arriving migrants who belonged to the African Diaspora were members of the Old rather than the New, which meant they had far weaker ties to the continent than those arriving migrants in other Western European nations. In contrast, the guestworkers that immigrated to the Netherlands from Morocco and Cape Verde in the 1960s and 1970s did possess these stronger continental ties; however, they were typically unskilled workers with low levels of education, thus aligning them more closely with rising phase diasporans who began to go abroad in greater numbers in the second half of the 1970s.66 Thus, in both cases, African Diaspora groups in the Netherlands lacked the unique social and economic characteristics necessary for early hip hop consumption, thereby necessitating the participation of an outsider from the Netherlands to perform the restricted phase diasporan role, and spark the formation of a Netherlands-based African hip hop community.

Much like the westernized African youths who first embraced American hip hop on the continent in the early 1980s, Thomas Gesthuizen was also uniquely positioned to serve as this conduit of African hip hop in the Netherlands during the early 1990s. Although Gesthuizen did not experience the cultural marginalization early African practitioners did for their affinity toward Western culture,67 his familiarity with African cultures though his studies at Leiden

University had a similar effect to that of these young Africans’ westernization, in that it too positioned him as a prime entry point for African hip hop music in the West. Although

Gesthuizen may not have been considered “elite” by Dutch standards, he possessed many of the most important attributes necessary to fulfill the role of a restricted phase diasporan. In addition to being the appropriate age and residing in the Netherlands, he also spoke Swahili as well as

66 Significantly, the flows of these two migratory groups into the Netherlands lasted until the “immigration stop” took place in Northwestern Europe during the mid 1970s. 67 As described by Charry, these individuals had “little relationship with the traditional performance genres of their home countries and were often more culturally allied with the United States.” Charry, “A Capsule History,” 4.

63 Dutch and English, which allowed him greater access to the music he came across in Tanzania than most other Dutch residents enjoyed. Furthermore, Gesthuizen also had personal contacts on the continent and managed to travel back and forth between Africa and the Netherlands multiple times, thereby enabling him to transport hip hop cassette recordings out of the continent, which, as noted earlier, was an essential part of the early circulation of African hip hop abroad. In this way, Gesthuizen served as a cultural bridge between the Netherlands and Africa, facilitating the circulation of African hip hop music beyond the continent and enabling the growth of a small

African hip hop community in the Netherlands.

Gesthuizen also facilitated the practice of diaspora through his launch of AHH in the late

1990s. Although he relied heavily on free resources to build and maintain this hip hop website, as is detailed in Chapter 3, such a process is still a relatively privileged act, as it requires access to both the tools of production (i.e. computer, Internet connection, etc.), as well as the knowledge of how to use them. Thus, in the Netherlands, where restricted phase diasporans (who would normally be well positioned to fill such a role) were relatively scarce, Gesthuizen once again stood in as surrogate to this diasporic practice. Much as his physical movement between Europe and Africa aided the transportation of cassette tapes in the early 1990s, his virtual platform further assisted the circulation of African hip hop music throughout the diasporic world in the late 1990s and going forward, thereby further expanding the formation of diaspora networks and facilitating increased African hip hop-centered community building around the world.

In addition to running AHH, Gesthuizen also performed the surrogate’s role through his efforts to promote specific African hip hop artists. The most prominent illustration of these efforts can be found in the Tanzanian hip hop group X Plastaz (Figure 2.8), whom he met while

64 conducting his fieldwork in Arusha, and subsequently became the group’s de facto manager.68

Because of his efforts, X Plastaz became one of the first internationally recognized African hip hop groups, performing in the Netherlands first in 2001, and then again as the headliners for

World AIDS Day in 2002. In addition, the group was also featured in several compilation albums, including two separate projects in the Rough Guides series as well as a piece put together by National Geographic. The positive attention generated from these projects also led to the production of the group’s first full-length album Maasai Hip Hop, released on the German record label Out Here in 2004. Although sadly, in 2006 one of the group’s original members

Faza Nelly died unexpectedly, the remaining members continued to make music together. In

2009 Gsan was invited to participate in the annual BET Cypher in New York, where he freestyled alongside other well-known MCs such as Wale and KRS-One. Also in 2009, the five remaining members released a new single “Furaha,” which was followed by another single

“Afrika” in 2010. Today, per the group’s Facebook page they continue to make music together, despite now being spread out across several different continents.

Figure 2.869

68 Initially, when Gesthuizen met the members of X Plastaz, the group had three members: Nelly, Ziggy, and Gsan. However, they met Yamat shortly thereafter, when traveling out to a remote Maasai village south of Arusha. The youngest two members of the group, who were siblings to one of the group’s members were added later in the X Plastaz career. Katrina Daly Thompson, “Bongo flava, hip-hop and ‘local maasai flavors’: interview with x plastaz,” in Native Tongues: An African Hip Hop Reader, ed. P. Khalil Saucier (Trenton: Africa World Press, 2011), 288. 69 Image from “X PLASTAZ | Out | here records,” Out Here Records, Accessed December 3, 2016, http://outhere.de/outhere/x-plastaz/

65 A careful examination of this narrative reveals the extent to which the success of X

Plastaz was tied to Gesthuizen’s engagement with the group. First and foremost, X Plastaz was one of the most frequently mentioned hip hop groups on AHH, which strongly reflects

Gesthuizen’s connection and his efforts to increase the group’s visibility.70 Similarly, X Plastaz also received exposure through other online media outlets Gesthuizen had cultivated relationships with, such as, for example, AfricasGateway.com.71 Additionally, the Netherlands locations for some of X Plastaz earliest international performances can also be understood as the result of his efforts and connections in that country, which subsequently led to opportunities of participation in other major projects, including Rough Guides and National Geographic as noted above. Ultimately, these events were responsible for X Plastaz’s positive recognition in Europe and elsewhere in the world, which further opened the door to new opportunities, including their

2004 record deal in Germany and Gsan’s BET Cypher participation in 2009.

1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 Angola 289 75 207 258 159 119 541 * * * * * Ethiopia 543 682 885 1017 816 298 447 * * * * * Ghana 2515 920 812 715 465 140 73 * * * * * Liberia 25 19 17 164 335 342 702 411 343 635 471 193 Nigeria 167 131 417 901 740 233 245 * * * * * Somalia 213 395 2382 1690 1710 4246 4330 5393 3977 1461 1280 2775 Sudan - - - - - 94 160 258 604 658 678 1875 DRC 1356 448 680 196 297 477 1305 2180 771 435 592 411 * Annual refugee and asylum seeker data not available

Figure 2.972

70 For example, when Gsan participated in the BET Cypher in 2009, the event was noted in two separate posts to the website, the first in Juma4, “Tanzanian emcee in BET Hip Hop Awards cypher,” Africanhiphop.com, October 26, 2009, Accessed April 28, 2017, http://www.africanhiphop.com/tanzanian-emcee-in-bet-hip-hop-awards-cypher/; and the second in Juma4, “Gsan (X Plastaz) in BET hip hop awards cypher 2009,” Africanhiphop.com, October 29, 2009, Accessed April 28, 2017, http://www.africanhiphop.com/gsan-x-plastaz-in-bet-hip-hop-awards-cypher-2009/ 71 For example, please see “X Platsaz – Maasai Hip Hop – New Release 16 Aug 2004,” AfricasGateway.com July 20, 2004, Accessed April 28, 2017, http://www.africasgateway.com/2004/07/20/x-plastaz-maasai-hip-hop-new- release-16-aug-2004/ 72 Data from Philip J. Muss, Migration, Minorities and Policy in the Netherlands: Recent Trends and Developments, Department of Human Geography, University of Amsterdam Centre for Migration Research (1992), 13; Philip J. Muss, Migration, Minorities and Policy in the Netherlands: Recent Trends and Developments, Department of Human Geography, University of Amsterdam Centre for Migration Research (1993), 10; Philip J. Muss, Migration,

66 Despite the lack of restricted phase diasporans residing in the Netherlands during African hip hop’s formative years, by the early 2000s the New African Diaspora had established a significant presence in the country. Although undoubtedly, a few of these new residents were restricted phase diasporans, the clear majority belonged to the rising phase, many of who had begun immigrating to the Netherlands as refugees and asylum seekers in significant numbers during the late 1980s. As is evident in Figure 2.9 above, which shows the asylum requests from the six most significant flows of seekers origination from sub-Saharan Africa during this period, each of these groups followed their own individual migratory patterns, which in all cases, were mainly in response to the challenges of the Lost Decade.73 Thus, much like the Moroccan and

Cape Verdean guestworkers who came to the Netherlands in the 1960s and 1970s, most of these new immigrants arrived with relatively little, and often lacked the means to facilitate a smooth transition to Dutch society.

However, because of African hip hop’s growing availability in the Netherlands and increasingly strong aesthetic ties to Africa, New African Diaspora youth residing in the country during this period often expressed a growing interest in the Netherlands-based community. Over time, due to its rising popularity, these youths, as well as members of the Old African Diaspora, began to participate in the community in increasingly active roles.74 These trends, combined with the greater connectivity of the Internet and the maturation and professionalization of the Rising

Generation’s restricted phase diasporans (detailed in Chapters 3 and 4 respectively), resulted in

Minorities and Policy in the Netherlands: Recent Trends and Developments, Department of Human Geography, University of Amsterdam Centre for Migration Research (1999), 4. 73 As one example, Somalian asylum requests began to spike in 1989, which was the year following violence that erupted across several northern Somalian cities and a signed peace agreement with Ethiopia that pushed many Somalis out of their homes. 74 Evidence of this trend can also be seen on AHH, as the visibility of African Diasporans rose significantly over the 2000s and 2010s. For example, please see the listed DJs for African Hip Hop Radio in 2008 shown in Figure 2.4 above.

67 the declining need for diaspora surrogates like Gesthuizen to lead community formation. Thus, while he continues to participate in AHH and the diaspora community it created, neither

Gesthuizen nor his website occupy the same central role in the world of African hip hop as they once did in the 1990s.75

Identity in Diaspora

The construction of African identity animated through AHH is heavily influenced by this history of diaspora. As detailed above, much like African hip hop music itself, AHH was quickly embraced by members of both the physical and metaphorical branches of the group as an important space to (re)imagine their collective homeland and build a sense of community. In response, the African identity presented through AHH was heavily diasporic. This identity was conveyed not only through the emphasis on diaspora experiences in much of the content posted to the website, but also, as noted above, through the nostalgic and sometimes utopic engagement with the African continent as the ultimate place of belonging for all members of the group. In this way, AHH clearly reflects the music’s historical path of development, as well as the website’s own diasporic location.

First, AHH places a strong emphasis on diaspora experiences, which is also indicative of its connection with the expansion of Afropolitanism. Throughout its lifespan, much of AHH’s content has featured stories about events and artists living abroad. As one example, in a 2011 article titled “Rema Major’s Ongoing Journey – Sudan to Miami,” the author conveys a strong sense of perpetual diaspora movement in the life experiences of young rising female rapper

Reema Major:

75 For example, a young Nigerian man going by the name AK who once participated as a community member of the AHH website is now playing a central role in its administration. In addition, whereas AHH was one of the only websites focused on African hip hop at the time of its launch in 1997, today it is joined by many other websites focusing on African hip hop music and culture.

68 Reema was born in 1995 in Khartoum […] from a Sudanese mother and a father from Dubai. When she was young her family fled the war to Kenya and later Uganda, before moving to Canada in 1998 – most of her young life was spent moving from one place to the next. At the age of five, Reema was first exposed to by her older cousin in Canada.

Ten years down the line – she had moved to Kansas, USA by then – her talent was exposed through radio appearances and a mixtape ‘Youngest in charge’. She moved back to Canada, started working with Canadian management and performed at the Honey Jam, then at the 2010 BET Cypher. That same year she signed a record deal with G7/Universal/Interscope, resulting in a new mixtape and the current single ‘I’m the one’ with its video partly shot in Miami in the presence of Rick Ross.76

By charting these diaspora movements in detail, the author not only clearly presents Reema as a diaspora subject, but also encourages the cultivation of AHH group identity through such diasporic movement, as it is a common experience shared by many participants in the AHH community. As further evidence of this trend, other diaspora-centered articles also include

“Gabriel Teodros about his new album Children of the Dragon,”77 “Tripple 2: From Accra with

Love,”78 and “Congo Grove,”79 which in all cases either implicitly or explicitly articulate diasporic movement.

Also in the written content of the website, Africa is frequently situated as an ideal homeland, although in many instances shown as an ideal not yet fully realized. The opening remarks displayed on the early Rumba-Kali website described in the beginning of this chapter are a prime illustration of this practice (“Africa must be one”), as they focus heavily on the

African continent in its entirety as the common point of origin, but at the same time also expresses a longing for its yet unrealized unity. Thus, in true diasporic fashion, this unity is taken

76 Juma4, “Reema Major’s Ongoing Journey – Sudan to Miami,” Africanhiphop.com, November 1, 2011, Accessed December 3, 2011, http://www.africanhiphop.com/musicvideos/reema-major-ongoing-journey-sudan-to-miami/ 77 Ado, “Gabriel Teodros about his new album Children of the Dragon,” Africanhiphop.com, July 6, 2014, Accessed April 30, 2017, http://www.africanhiphop.com/gabriel-teodros-about-his-new-album-children-of-the-dragon/ 78 AK, “Tripple 2: From Accra with Love,” Africanhiphop.com, July 7, 2013, Accessed April 30, 2017, http://www.africanhiphop.com/tripple-2-from-accra-with-love/ 79 Juma4, “Congo Grove,” Africanhiphop.com, May 26, 2010, Accessed April 30, 2017, http://www.africanhiphop.com/congo-groove/

69 up as one of the primary goals on AHH, which is carried out through the visible construction of a diaspora community on the website. Not only is the national and cultural diversity of its board members, radio team, writers and editing staff underscored several times throughout the description of the site,80 but, as noted above, it is also made clear that their unity is achieved through a shared interest in “hip hop in the Motherland.”81 By noting this unity and framing it as the ideal to which all Africans should strive, AHH itself also engages in diaspora nostalgia, thereby affirming its presentation of a clear diasporic identity.

Figure 2.1082 In addition to its written content, AHH also articulates a diasporic identity through the music it shares. One of the most overt examples of this practice is Ghanaian MC M.anifest’s for “Coming to America.” In this video, M.anifest articulates common experiences in diaspora—the sensation of being endlessly in motion—not only through the lyrics he rhymes in the chorus (“I’m going, going/I’m coming, coming/What tomorrow holds, nobody knows”),

80 This is evident, not only on the “About” section on the webpage, but also in the “Bio” section on the Africanhihop.com Myspace page. Africanhiphop.com, “About,” Africanhiphop.com, Accessed December 3, 2011, http://www.africanhiphop.com/about/; “Africanhiphop.com,” Myspace, Accessed December 3, 2011, http://www.myspace.com/africanhiphop 81 Africanhiphop.com, “About.” 82 Screenshot from M.anifest, “Coming to America,” Wally Agboola (dir), (2011); accessed through Ado, “M.anifest: Coming to America,” Africanhiphop.com, Accessed April 30, 2017, http://www.africanhiphop.com/africanhiphopnews/m-anifest/

70 but also through the representation of common diasporic troupes, such as images of flying airplanes, moving trains, and he himself as he navigates through a foreign Western city (please see Figure 2.10 above).83 Similarly, in a song by Ritchy Pitch, singer Yasmeen is heard describing the dilemma faced by many Africans today who enter into diaspora, noting both the desire to stay “in the Motherland,” and the conflicting reality of “suffering mothers” that ultimately persuades many to go abroad.84 Inherent in this dilemma, and also presented in other songs and videos, is again this implicit longing for the African homeland, thus, further underscoring AHH’s articulation of diaspora.

Lastly, the physical location of AHH in Amsterdam, Netherlands is also frequently made apparent in its content, thereby rooting the website itself in a perpetual state of diaspora.

Although most activity on AHH is heavily focused on African hip hop music, several projects and events that involve physical community gatherings and which are referenced through the website have taken place in Amsterdam. The two most prominent of these events have been the annual documentary film and African music festivals organized in association with the African

Hip Hop Foundation, which both took place in Amsterdam between the 2000s and 2010s as discussed earlier. Similarly, many of AHH’s published articles have also focused on community events that took place or were scheduled to take place in the region, such as the South African play (or “hip hopera”) “Afrikaaps,” and the annual African film festival “Africa in the Picture.”85

Furthermore, the inclusion of a Dutch edition of African Hip Hop Radio also firmly located the program and the website in its physical space abroad, thereby, in all cases, reminding visitors yet

83 Ibid. 84 Dey Suffer, Richy Pitch feat. Yasmeen; as embedded in Juma4, “Ye Fre Mi Richy Pitch,” Africanhiphop.com, Accessed December 9, 2011, http://www.africanhiphop.com/africanhiphopnews/ye-fre-mi-richy-pitch/ 85 Please see Juma4, “Afrikaaps: Hip Hopera and Documentary,” Africanhiphop.com, Accessed December 3, 2016, http://www.africanhiphop.com/africanhiphopnews/afrikaaps-hip-hopera-an-documentary/; and Juma4, “Jazz Mama,” Africanhiphop.com, Accessed December 3, 2016, http://www.africanhiphop.com/africanhiphopnews/jazz- mama/, respectively.

71 again of the geographic center of this diasporic community, and further underscoring AHH’s own diaspora identity.

Figure 2.1186 Notably, Gesthuizen’s background and the trajectory of his relationship to this diaspora community also affected the unique construction of the identity articulated through the website.

First, it is important to recall that Gesthuizen began this project as an alternative outlet for the findings of his academic research. Although his initial intent was only to make the data he had already gathered on Tanzanian hip hop more widely available, as it drew visitors from all over the diaspora world, this approach shifted into the employment of Rumba-Kali (and later AHH) as a tool with which to build and display a comprehensive list of African hip hop musicians.

Although Gesthuizen openly acknowledged the challenges of compiling such a list (as well as

86 Screen capture of early Rumba-Kali webpage, accessed through “Rumba-Kali Home of African Hip Hop (original page as it appeared in 1997),” Africanhiphop.com, Accessed January 14, 2017, http://www.africanhiphop.com/rumba-kali.htm

72 the inevitability of its ongoing incompleteness), he continued to encourage all visitors to contribute. This practice is alluded to in a brief explanation posted to a section of the early

Rumba-Kali website labeled “The crews” (shown above in Figure 2.11), in which Gesthuizen explained, “Crews are listed with the names of their members, a discography and additional information. Since almost daily somewhere in Africa an MC and a DJ meet up and form a new group, this list is updated weekly. […] If you have any names or facts to add just let us know!”

As time went on, the archive of African hip hop on the website continued to grow and evolve, and by 2008 had blossomed into the “African Hip Hop Library” referenced earlier, before it transformed again into the official African Hip Hop Archive in 2009. By that point, AHH claimed to have “[perhaps] the largest collection in the world”87 of cassettes and other African hip hop-related materials, which it made available through outlets like AHH’s Red Light Radio, as well as in news and featured articles posted to the website.88

Through this process, the world of both African hip hop and the African Diaspora came into focus on AHH. Even in the beginning, as is evinced in the “African Rappers Abroad” section shown above in Figure 2.11, Gesthuizen’s archival efforts resulted in the mapping of the diasporic world through his website, which also contributed to the presentation of an African

Diaspora identity on AHH. Although in many ways this process took place organically in response to the information that became available to him, his conceptualization should also be understood in relation to his vantage point in the Netherlands. The significant flows of African immigrants that began arriving there from the continent during the late 1980s and early 1990s encouraged an understanding of African identity that allowed for movement away from the

87 “African Hip Hop Archive ,” Africanhiphop.com, Wayback Machine, October 10, 2011, Accessed August 26, 2017, http://web.archive.org/web/20111010193035/http://www.africanhiphop.com/projects/african-hip-hop-archive/ 88 For example, the audio file of Saleh J’s recording of “Now that We Found Love” featured in “Swahili version of ‘Now that we found love’ – Heavy D rest in peace” discussed earlier (please see note 26 for citation information).

73 continent but maintained emphasis on a strong and direct connection to Africa reflective of the

New African Diaspora. Thus, although the promotion of a broad Pan-Africanism was heavily visible in the early iterations of the website, it ultimately gave way to the more focused emphasis on experiences and music of the New African Diaspora, which now forms the basis of the

African identity promoted through the website.

Conclusions on Diasporization

Ultimately, this diasporic African identity found within the virtual pages of AHH can and should be understood as a product of globalization. As V. Y. Mudimbe explains, for Africa this process has been largely centered on the “integration of the continent into a global international structure,”89 which can be charted along several different paths, including those carved out by the flows of both people and culture. The emergence of African hip hop as well as AHH is a clear illustration of these flows—what I refer to as diasporization—as they both depended upon on the circulatory patterns of these two entities. As shown above, the movement of people away from the African continent toward the West during the twentieth century helped to establish the New

African Diaspora, whose members continued to maintain strong ties with the continent both physically and emotionally. These connections helped facilitate the embrace and circulation of hip hop music from the West, which was gradually adapted and transformed into several new hybrid African music genres. While at first these hybrid products were met with frequent critiques of inauthenticity on both sides of the spectrum, over time they won a growing acceptance and are now broadly recognized as valid expressions of African culture.

Significantly, this evolutionary process also reveals the effects diasporization has had on understandings of contemporary African identity. First and foremost, this identity has become

89 V. Y. Mudimbe, “Globalization and African Identity,” CR: The New Centennial Review, vol. 3, no. 2 (Summer 2003), 206.

74 more abstract, as the increased interconnectedness of New African Diaspora members with the continent afforded through globalization has greatly reduced the emphasis placed on physical residence as a criterion of belonging. Whereas prior to the rising phase of the African Diaspora most individuals who considered themselves to be African resided somewhere on the continent, due to recent diasporization this correlation can no longer be assumed. Instead, African identity has become far more complicated and difficult to discern, as it is now ultimately more a question of personal emotional connection rather than one of address. Unsurprisingly, this shift has been met by some individuals with anxiety and skepticism, such as is voiced by Bonachristus

Umeogu, who decries it as a loss of identity in his 2012 article “The Aftermath of Globalization on African Identity.” In a similar fashion, early discussions of Africa hip hop also garnered cautionary responses, like from one AHH visitor who described it as the product of Africans

“follow[ing] the wrong examples, the negative examples[,] in places like America[,] and replac[ing] our culture with theirs.”90 However, contrary to these concerns, as has been exemplified through the trajectory of African hip hop’s development, this abstraction has not weakened or diluted African identity, but rather has merely transformed it.

In close association with this abstraction, African identity has also grown more diverse in response to diasporization. The most visible illustration of this trend has been the increased presence of mixed-race people within the African community, such as, for example, the young

Sudanese-Emirati woman Reema Major, who was discussed previously in this chapter through an AHH article as an up-and-coming African MC. Notably, Major was also labeled as a hyphenated Canadian in this same article, which reveals a second layer of diversity now common to African identities. Thus, while expansion of the diaspora community through ethnic and

90 Freelivin, “Re: Different Between African Rappers in U.S. N Home,” Africanhiphop.com, Accessed December 8, 2011, http://www.africanhiphop.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=16847

75 national hybridization can in no way be tied to this most recent iteration of diasporization exclusively, the extent to which today hybridized individuals continue to identify and be identified as African is a pattern that is a unique to this current moment.

Finally, diasporization has also resulted in the increased visibility of African identity.

Quite simply, as more Africans have gone abroad, they have grown more visible in communities beyond the continent. Again, this is particularly true of members of the New African Diaspora, whose relationship with Africa often remains stronger and more concrete than their Old African

Diasporan counterparts. For the former group, the visibility of their African identity is thus not simply achieved through skin pigmentation, but also through other cultural markers like music, food, clothing, language, religion, etc. African hip hop, once again, is a clear illustration of this trend, as it too has grown increasingly visible in the West, not only through the physical circulation of it into the West via New African Diasporans, but also through its virtual circulation via media outlets like radio, television and the Internet, the last of which will be examined in greater detail next in Chapter 3.

76 Chapter 3 Live from South Africa: The Role of Digitization in Community Formation

The dawn of digitization began to take shape in the early 1990s, when the final events of the Lost Decade were unfolding around the continent. Although, as outlined in the introduction, the two most significant of these events were the end of the Cold War and the fall of Apartheid, the introduction of digital technologies also played a key role in the subsequent turnaround known as Africa Rising. Notably, these technologies did not have a major presence in Africa during its initial improvement period; however, beginning with the dawn of the new millennium they exerted an increasingly heavy influence on the continued progress of Africa’s success and development. For this reason, this chapter focuses specifically on digitization as it occurred within Africa, where both these developments and their effects on African life and identity can be most clearly illuminated and understood.

South Africa is perhaps at first, a somewhat peculiar selection for this examination of digitization on the continent because it is distinct from the rest of sub-Saharan Africa in many ways. However, above all others, South Africa is particularly well suited for this examination for several reasons. First, South Africa was one of the earliest African countries to begin the process of digitization, and since this time, has arguably advanced in this process the furthest. Second, other Africa Rising characteristics such as a growing economy, a burgeoning middleclass and the ongoing advancement of national infrastructures have continued to remain prominent features within the country, and all of which are important factors in the successful entrenchment of digital technologies. In large part, these developments are due to South Africa’s unique social, political and economic histories, which have all been heavily influenced by the legacy of

Apartheid. While this legacy has indeed been one of the most prominent in setting South Africa apart from other Sub-Saharan nations, it has often done so in such a manner that augments rather

77 than undermines questions of identity now surfacing elsewhere on the continent. Therefore, this chapter mobilizes the unique history of South Africa to reveal the effects of digitization on contemporary identity in Africa more generally.

South Africa Penetration Rates per 100 People

160 140 120 100 80 Internet Users 60 Mobile Subscriptions 40 20 0

Figure 3.191 One of the key elements in this digital transformation has been the adaption and development of information and communications technologies (ICTs). The incorporation of both the Internet and the mobile telephone especially, have altered the way many Africans experience their everyday lives, affecting everything from managing finances to maintaining relationships to participating in national politics. Although both technologies were first introduced to the country in the early 1990s, South African ICT policy, the slow development of digital infrastructure and the inaccessibility of technological hardware all contributed to extremely high service prices, which severely restricted the ability of South Africans to fully engage the potential of these tools.

However, many of these obstacles began to dissipate in the new millennium, resulting in a dramatic growth in the consumption of both mobile and Internet services seen in recent years

91 The World Bank, “Internet users (per 100) people),” World Bank Group (2015) http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IT.NET.USER.P2/countries accessed 11/9/2015; and, The World Bank, “Mobile cellular subscriptions (per 100 people),” World Bank Group (2015) http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IT.CEL.SETS.P2/countries accessed 11/9/2015

78 (see Figure 3.1). While the expansion and effects of the Internet are the primary concerns of this chapter, as will be shown below, one cannot be fully understood without recognition of the other.

Over the course of this period, digitization has improved African access in two major areas: resources and representation. First, much as was the case with diasporization in Chapter 2, digitization made resources more available to African people. However, whereas gains in access made through diasporization were attained primarily through physical movement, digitization expanded these processes into the virtual realm. Not only did this expansion increase the speed at which community members could gain access to new music, trends, etc., but also it broadened the potential reach of their circulation. ICTs particularly, expanded individual access to information, which proved instrumental in the development and expansion of a national hip hop community in South Africa.

Arguably one of the most important resources digitization has expanded access to among

Africans is the tools of representation. Prior to digitization, image production had been a relatively exclusive privilege reserved for a small handful of elite individuals, remaining largely inaccessible to most other Africans due to the high cost of production tools and training necessary to utilize them effectively. However, the expansion of digital technologies across

Africa made self-representation less expensive and more available, which allowed voices and perspectives that had previously been sublimated to gain visibility. Thus, whereas before

“African” had been presented in relatively narrow terms (i.e. black skin, traditional customs, anti-Western/colonial values, etc.), over time digitization allowed this definition to expand. In doing so, the very presence of these voices and perspectives helped to redefine “African” in increasingly complex ways, ultimately generating a more diverse, more abstract and increasingly visible articulation of the identity.

79 The process of digitization also served to increase the visibility of Afropolitans, who had grown substantially as a segment of the Rising Generation population due to the advances made by diasporization described in Chapter 2. Although, as noted above, the process of digitization did expand access to representation among all African people to varying degrees, elites at the top—which included young Afropolitans—still enjoyed the earliest and most significant gains in this area. Therefore, as digitization expanded, the Afropolitan identity grew particularly more visible, in comparison to (although not in complete obfuscation of) the growth in visibility of other African sub-groups.

Notably, this expanding inclusivity had mixed results on the development of South

Africa’s hip hop community. On one hand, increased access to information and music was essential to the solidification and expansion of the national scene. However, at the same time the greater diversity within the scene that began to take shape in response to growing access to representation, often led to friction and ruptures within the community. In this way, what began in the 1980s as disorganized and disconnected pockets of hip hop activity in South Africa, evolved first in 1990s into a small, tight-knit and relatively monolithic hip hop community of

Afropolitans. However, as the community continued to grow and evolve into the twenty-first century, conflicting views and divergent experiences led to widening fractures, which ultimately resulted in a national scene that is both diverse and noticeably more disconnected.

As one of South Africa’s earliest hip hop websites, AfricasGateway.com (AG) was an important part of this transformation. From its launch in 1997 until its fall in 2013, AG embodied both the successes and the challenges of digitization. Thus, through AG one can clearly chart the progressive attainment of access within the country, in addition to the effects this process has had on South Africa’s hip hop scene. By studying the content and exchanges found on the AG

80 website one finds specific evidence supporting the view that the digitization of the African experience has led to broader access to both resources and representation, particularly—although not exclusively—for Afropolitans. In this way, through digitization, once again, the image and experience of the Afropolitan grows increasingly visible in African hip hop music.

Building a Hip Hop Community

Prior to AG, hip hop was a relatively small and scattered sub-culture in South Africa. The music first made its way to the country in the early 1980s on VHS and audiocassette tapes, gaining the most visibility in major ports of entry like Johannesburg and especially Cape Town.

Although both cities were—and continue to be—incredibly central to the development of South

African hip hop, they were not alone. Many other small communities also sprung up during the

Lost Decade, primarily in areas located near urban centers such as Durban, Port Elizabeth and

Grahamstown.

During this introductory period, much as was the case in other nascent hip hop communities, the bulk of activity in South Africa centered on the distribution and consumption of foreign (mostly American) hip hop, because there was no local hip hop music being produced the first decade. As noted in Chapter 2, cassette tapes were the primary medium through which this music was circulated into the country, and just as in elsewhere, tape trading was a particularly common practice among early heads, many of who would meet at school or a local community center to trade music, compare collections, and discuss the latest hip hop news.92

These informal meetings were hugely significant to the dissemination and growth of early hip hop culture in South Africa because it was the primary means of distribution. When one community member acquired a new tape, it would quickly be copied and turned into multiple

92 Over half of the respondents referenced this practice during their interviews, including Milk, R7, R10, R11, R12, R15, R18, R19 and R20.

81 tapes that could then be passed on to other members during such encounters. Pen pals residing in

North America or Europe were also a central element of this early distribution process, as it was typically through an international contact that, via post, new music would first make its way into a community.

Another common practice of early hip hop fans in South Africa was the development and circulation of hip hop newsletters and magazines. For example, Mob Shop magazine in Cape

Town featured articles and reviews of the local scene, which grew quite popular among hip hoppers living in the area as a source of information. Around the same time Emile YX of the group Black Noise was also running a newsletter in Cape Town, which covered similar local content and related concerns. Much like the hip hop magazines that had already begun to appear in the United States, these South African-based projects were typically initiated by dedicated fans or practitioners and motivated by a desire to share information and promote the culture.

However, in contrast to well-known American titles like The Source and XXL, in South Africa these projects were not supported by a well-established commercial industry. Thus, while these emerging texts did provide the opportunity to increase access to information about a specific local community, they were usually limited to only a few hundred printed copies, which rarely made it much beyond their originating location.

There were several challenges related to hip hop’s distribution and consumption in South

Africa that stifled the early development of the culture. Not surprisingly, the first obstacle most early-fans faced was limited access. Even in Cape Town and Johannesburg it was not only difficult for fans to put their hands on new music, but it was also hard for them to get hold of information about the culture. One early memory of R17 illuminates this point well:

For me…as a [younger] hip hop head I didn’t have access to all of this shit. All I had access to was a couple of tapes that […] someone posted from the States. The couple of

82 grainy Yo! MTV Raps videos, you know? That was all. It could all fit into one box, the hip hop I had access to growing up!93

Because of this limitation, these early materials were highly sought after and frequently shared within whichever burgeoning local South African communities they happened to enter. For example, R11 recalled an occasion when a new photograph made its way to the Cape Flats:

So I get a call that [a friend] has got some that someone sent him by post. We hike [to] Mitchells Plain from Grassy Park – fucking the whole day it takes us to get there [because] we walk! We eventually get to his house [and] he’s like “Yoh! I told you [about the picture] this morning and you only come now?!” There were a whole lot of kids that [came] from elsewhere, and when we see it…he’s got a picture that’s [quite] small, and everybody is sitting around [going] “Yoohhhh! How did they get [the graffiti like] that?” [laughs] And we study that picture the whole day.94

The severe lack of (and thirst for) information about hip hop is highly visible in this recollection, which is demonstrated in both the length of the journey made by the speaker, as well as the number of other people who had presumably made comparable journeys.

One of the biggest causes for this limited access in South Africa was the second major obstacle fans faced during this early period: isolation. This isolation was experienced on both the local and national levels, and was the combined result of several important geographic, social, economic and political factors. Firstly, South Africa is geographically isolated because it is, quite simply, “the southernmost fucking tip of Africa.”95 Particularly during the 1980s and early 1990s when nearly all hip hop was coming out of the United States and Europe, this location was significantly removed from the flows of cultural products. Thus, fans in South Africa often experienced a delay in both the information and the music available to them. Once again, an early memory of R11 is illustrative of this point:

I always wondered what happened to the guys from Beat Street (1984), and so one day I wrote to a magazine and I asked that question. […] We felt so isolated over here […] I

93 R17, interview by author, Cape Town, South Africa, April 15, 2014. 94 R11, interview by author, Cape Town, South Africa, March 13, 2014. 95 Ibid.

83 needed to ask someone, “What happened to the Rock Steady Crew,” because we couldn’t find information. […] So I wrote this letter and […] I only found the magazine printed my story like maybe two months later because to my home address came […] batches of letters from people […] all over the US. […] [The magazine] had printed my article and my address, and so people were just like sending me all these letters.96

Local geography also impeded movement within South Africa, which further underscored the isolation experienced by its residents and hampered the growth of hip hop culture in the country. These features include the Kalahari Desert, which occupies much of the

Namibia and Botswana borders in the north; a second, smaller desert in South Africa’s southwest region called the Karoo; the Great Escarpment, which is a collection of mountain ranges running from the northwest, through the south, to the northeast part of the country; and the Cape Fold mountains, which occupy much of the southwest coastal plain (see Figure 3.2). Although both the highway and railway systems in South Africa were far better developed than in most other

African countries, the transportation options these systems supported were still relatively time consuming and/or expensive, thus making them largely inaccessible to the teenagers and young adults who made up these hip hop communities. Therefore, most individuals were relatively confined by the terrain, which further ensured that these early hip hop scenes remained isolated from one another.

Figure 3.297

96 Ibid. 97 “Southern African Central Plateau” by Oggmus - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons, Accessed July 28, 2015, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Southern_African_Central_Plateau.jpg#/media/File:Southern_African_Ce ntral_Plateau.jpg

84 Another reason that early hip hop fans were isolated in South Africa was because of the restrictions imposed upon them under Apartheid. The Apartheid system, which dominated South

African political policy from 1948-1994, was a complex series of laws and practices that facilitated the oppression of over 90% of the country’s (non-White) population. One of the most important laws in this system was the Population Registration Act, which, after it passed in 1950, required all South Africans to register and receive a designation based on their perceived racial features and characteristics. In conjunction with this law, later that same year the Group Areas

Act mandated those registered as either “Black” or “Coloured”98 to relocate to segregated zones on the outskirts of town, which successfully forced the social separation of these two groups from Whites as well as from each other. In addition to mitigating the perceived threat these populations posed to the National Party’s (NP) minority rule, this forced separation also severely limited cultural exchange between the different racial groups, which further hampered the circulation and development opportunities of South African hip hop.

As part of the Apartheid system, those who were identified as “Coloured” were granted certain privileges. These privileges touched on several aspects of life, including voting rights, better housing and higher-paying jobs. The purpose of this preferential treatment was to encourage these individuals to support the NP rather than (“Black”) oppositional groups like the

African National Congress (ANC) or the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC). Although this tactic

98 In Apartheid South Africa, there were three main racial categories, which included “Black,” “Coloured” and White. “Black” refers to what were perceived as indigenous Africans, which includes ethnic identities such as Bapedi, Basotho, Ndebele, Swazi, Tsonga, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa and Zulu. “Coloured” is a more complicated term, as it was essentially invented as a middle designation to encompass everyone in South Africa who was deemed neither “Black” nor White. However, these individuals typically shared common characteristics of mixed racial heritage, often an amalgam of European, Indian, Malaysian, West African and Khoi-San heritage, the middle three of which were forcibly brought to South Africa as slaves or indentured servants by Europeans. I have chosen to place both “Black” and “Coloured” in quotes to underscore the imposed rather than self-elected status of the individuals identified as such under Apartheid. In contrast, White was a self-designated term, as they were the individuals responsible for developing and assigning racial designations through that system. In a similar vein, I have opted to use Black without quotation marks to indicate when it is a self-elected identity.

85 had become significantly less successful by the start of the 1980s, it had, nevertheless, created a highly stratified society where racial lines also denoted economic standing. This stratification is key to understanding the development of early South African hip hop communities because it meant that mostly those young people designated as “Coloured” had access to the tools and the means of participation.99 For example, “Coloured” youth were more likely than their “Black” counterparts to live in a home with electricity, and to have access to a small disposable income that could be used to purchase music or magazines, mail letters, attend shows or participate in other hip hop related activities. In addition, these youngsters were also more likely to live in a household that had an audiocassette player, a VHS player and/or a TV, or to know someone in their neighborhood who did. Similarly, these families were also more likely to have friends or family members living in North America or Europe who could send new materials or music back to them in South Africa.

While these privileges did make it easier for “Coloured” youth to participate in early hip hop, their economic advantages were only advantages relative to the circumstances of all non-

White people living in South Africa during this period. Particularly as the Lost Decade wore on and the international community grew increasingly critical of Apartheid, global economic and political policies began to apply pressure on the South African government to dismantle its oppressive system. Although this shift was encouraging because it signified international recognition of the struggle against Apartheid, it also enhanced the economic and political

99 Thus, much of the work on hip hop in South Africa has focused specifically on the embrace of the culture and music by the “Coloured” community. For example, please see Daniel Hammett, “Local Beats to Global Rhythms: Coloured Student Identity and Negotiations of Global Cultural Imports in Cape Town, South Africa,” Social & Cultural Geography, vol. 10, no. 4 (June 2009), 403-19; Marc D. Perry, “Global Black Self-Fashionings: Hip Hop as Diasporic Space,” Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power, vol. 15, no. 6, 635-64; and, Jane Battersby, “Sometimes it feels like I’m not Black enough”: Recast(e)ing Coloured through South African Hip-Hop as a Postcolonial Text,” Shifting Selves: Post-Apartheid Essays on Mass Media, Culture and Identity, edited by Herman Wasserman and Sean Jacobs (Cape Town: Books, 2003), 109-29.

86 isolation of those on the ground in South Africa by increasingly limiting their sense of connection with the rest of the world. In doing so, this political isolation not only hampered cultural flows of hip hop by making it harder to access the music and communities from abroad, but it also helped to augment the feelings of marginality common within these local communities of hip hop heads.

These feelings of marginality were also closely linked to the third major obstacle early- fans faced, which was their invisibility. At the time, there were few media representations of

South African life that accurately reflected the experiences of the country’s non-White populations because these individuals did not have access to the tools of representation. As a result, many youth, particularly in the “Coloured” communities, embraced hip hop in part because it reflected the life experiences of African Americans, which shared many similarities to their own, such as a history of slavery, a loss of cultural identity, ongoing race-based oppression, poverty and marginalization. As R7, one of the moderators on AG explained, “the nearest thing that we could cling to that represented us was African American culture. So [hip hop] music spoke […] to us, and I think that was the crux.”100 Particularly as the decade wore on and resistance against Apartheid grew more militant, the sub-genre known as “political” or

“conscious” hip hop, featuring groups like Public Enemy and artists like KRS-One, became especially popular among many South African fans.

This appropriation of African American cultural products as a means of expressing South

African (especially “Coloured”) identity became an attractive alternative for many heads in these early communities. Going on to discuss his own personal engagement with hip hop culture R7 continued:

100 R7, interview by author, Port Elizabeth, South Africa, February 7, 2014.

87 I wanted the world to know about us because our voices were not visible. We were not on your TV where you can just switch on and be like, “Hey, there’s Days of our Lives tell[ing] the story of people in South Africa.” [So] I’ve always been on this mission. I want people to know that we make music.101

This last statement is particularly significant because it reveals not only a sense of invisibility, but also a corresponding desire to be seen (and heard), which was a common reaction to this experience among non-White South Africans at the time and later became the key transformation of the Afropolitan occurring through digitization. In addition, this thirst for visibility was also often, for many early practitioners, characteristic of their motivation to produce and participate in hip hop culture, which became more common in the following decade.102

However, this problem of invisibility was not easily alleviated. First, as demonstrated in the discussion above, limited access to hip hop and isolation from other communities were not simply external problems between South African hip hoppers and the international community.

On the contrary, both issues posed serious obstacles to the cultivation and circulation of early culture within the country. Thus, South African fans and practitioners were often also largely unknown to each other, particularly if those individuals came from two geographically disparate communities.103

Additionally, the act of embracing hip hop culture itself, which was highly indicative of the Afropolitan worldview of acceptance and hybridity, also contributed to the invisibility of

101 Ibid. 102 Another AG member, R10, supported this view: “I think that the driving force for a lot of [South African] artists is still that, there is a voice that can be had with hip hop that may not be had in other mechanism or other channels. And so it gives them an opportunity to address social economic inequities in the South African context. I think that hip hop continues to be a valuable tool to do that.” R10, interview by author, Cape Town, South Africa, March 12, 2014. 103 This was also true of hip hop heads residing in the same community. For example, R20 recalled that he did not meet one of his “hip hop friends” until later in life, despite having grown up near one another: “I was talking with somebody yesterday—the guy I came here with, the tall guy that was with me—and I was saying [this] to him, [and] you know, he’s the same. We were relating to each other, like our influences are the same. And ironically he lives like a street away from me, where my grandmother lives and where I fell in love with hip hop. And [but?] we didn’t know each other, right? We met each other later in life.” R20, interview by author, Port Elizabeth, South Africa, April 27, 2014.

88 early South African fans because, as noted in Chapter 1, the genre was perceived as a Western rather than an African cultural practice. As R7 recalled, “even following hip hop at that point, people [in South Africa] frowned on you: ‘You are doing this American thing; it’s not

African.’”104 Thus, by identifying with this foreign sub-culture early hip hop heads often became somewhat marginalized from mainstream society, which only strengthened their desire to seek out one another.

Going Online

The emergence of the Internet in South Africa during the early 1990s was an important intervention in the evolution of this hip hop community because it alleviated many of these challenges early fans were struggling with. Most immediately, it provided improved access to music and more up-to-date information about various scenes. As one early fan recalled, “the first thing I wanted to do research on was the music—the whole hip hop thing. Cause now there’s

Internet.”105 In addition to improving access to information, the Internet also created new opportunities for visibility. As R7 described, his early engagement with the Internet was an effort to increase his sense of visibility online: “and I went on—there wasn’t Google at that point, it was like www.thesource.com and you are part of this community where, you know, you want your voice to be heard.”106 Significantly, through this statement R7 also reveals his perception of the Internet as a tool for community formation, which was the third and perhaps most significant contribution of the new tool.

Notably, the early Internet in South Africa was primarily available only in universities and large companies, which limited its user population to a relatively small group of educated

104 R7, interview by author, Port Elizabeth, South Africa, February 7, 2014. 105 Milk, interview by author, Johannesburg, South Africa, April 7, 2014. 106 R7, interview by author, Port Elizabeth, South Africa, February 7, 2014.

89 middle and upper class elites that were also more prone to embrace Afropolitan worldviews.

Even as the technology began to gain visibility and popularity in the country, during this early period it remained a privileged space due to the high cost of Internet service, the high cost of technical equipment necessary to access the service, such as a computer, software, and telephone landline, and the specialized skills required to use all the above. Significantly, for these reasons, the same group of Afropolitans who had historically had better access to the circulation of early hip hop were also the most likely to be privileged with access to this new virtual space. Thus, many hip hop heads in South Africa began to make their way online over the course of the

1990s, in search of new music, information, visibility and to connect with one another.

The first South African-based hip hop website to emerge online is a clear illustration of this history. HipHop.co.za (HH) was started in 1995 by “Hip Hop Headrush” radio show host

Mass Dosage as a supplement to his campus radio program at Rhodes University. As a computer science major, Mass Dosage managed to build the site and host it on the university servers until

1999 when, after landing a job with a multimedia company, he moved back to Johannesburg.

Rather than giving up the website, which had until that point functioned as a space for information about show playlists and the occasional downloadable audio clip, he decided to revamp and expand it to include interviews, video content of performances, and downloadable tracks used to promote the new music of interested artists. Although HH only averaged a few thousand visitors per year, most were accessing the website from within South Africa, which underscores both the thirst for hip hop related content in the country and the small number of individuals residing there who were privileged with early access to the space.

90

Figure 3.3107 Two years after the emergence of HH, and only a few months after Thomas Gesthuizen’s

African hip hop website went live in the Netherlands, Milk (a.k.a. Milk Daddy), who was born in

Namibia during the late 1970s and relocated to Cape Town in 1989, launched AG from his home in Cape Town, South Africa (Figure 3.3). Initially, AG was a static page much like HH, that had to be updated manually and did not allow much opportunity for direct community interactions.

However, like HH, AG nevertheless became a popular destination for heads living in southern

Africa because it provided relatively consistent access to information about the music and culture of hip hop communities from all over the region. Whereas previously these communities had been largely isolated from one another, through AG individuals in South Africa were finally able to stay informed and connected to what was happening in scenes all around the country. In response, through AG hip hop heads from all over South Africa began imagining themselves as part of a coherent national community.

107 Image courtesy of Milk

91

Figure 3.4108 As outlined above, one of the most immediate draws of the AG website was its ability to disseminate information. In the screenshot of AG shown in Figure 3.4 above, for example, the emphasis on information is evident in the prominent placement of news and updates on the website. Significantly, under the heading “Latest South African Hip Hop News” visitors could access information about the Johannesburg-based group Skwatta Camp as well as the Cape

Town-based group Black Noise. In addition, visitors were also able to access information about current music and culture news in the United States, as well as read reviews, look at photos, and find new resources by following the links in the “Breakdown” section found on the left-hand side of the page.

In addition, AG was also attractive to early heads because it functioned as a space where they could attain visibility as individuals and as a culture. As Milk explained, his initial

108 Screenshot of AG as it was on March 2, 2001, taken from “AfricasGateway.com,” Wayback Machine, Accessed April 21, 2015, http://web.archive.org/web/20010302033525/http://www.africasgateway.com:80/. Significantly, although this image shows the website as it was in 2001, the layout and content is largely the same as it was in 1997. The most notable differences in the 2001 version are a few more images, a slightly different font and the colors had changed from orange and yellow to purple and white.

92 motivation for creating AG was, in large part, due to the value he recognized in Cape Town’s

Mob Shop magazine as a platform that offered visibility to local South African artists:

And they would interview local people…it’s kind of how I got into that. “Okay, that’s a good thing to do.” Like you are now giving space for these artists—for everybody to know who is doing what and where. [Besides Mob Shop magazine and Emile YX’s newsletter] there wasn’t really any platform for artists to make themselves known.109

Because of this realization, Milk decided to develop AG as an “eZine” that featured local artists and gave them exposure in much the same way that these fanzines and print newsletters had done previously. In addition, Milk also included information on foreign (typically American) musicians, which was a deliberate juxtaposition meant to demonstrate the equality of local

African artists with the international stars so often admired by community members. Similarly,

R7 also discussed the inclusion of popular American artists on the site, explaining the practice as a sort of guerrilla marketing strategy used to drive traffic to the website. Someone doing a search for “Chuck D,” for example, might make their way to AG for a featured story on the American rapper, but stay after discovering the music of Skwatta Kamp or other local artists featured elsewhere on the page.

Formal v User-Generated Content 7000 6000 5000 4000 Forum Posts 3000 2000 Posts 1000 0

Figure 3.5110

109 Milk, interview by author, Johannesburg, South Africa, 4/7/2014. 110 Data based on information provided on AG. Formal content data located at: “Archives,” AfricasGateway.com (1997-2011), Accessed 12/3/2015, http://www.africasgateway.com/archives/. User-generated data located at:

93 Most importantly, however, AG encouraged the growth and cohesion of a South African hip hop community by providing a space where individuals from all around the country could interact and share experiences with one another. Although to a certain extent these relationships were first cultivated through the formal content and comment sections available on the website, the AG forums, which were introduced on February 7, 2001, quickly became the central focus of activity within the website. Following the introduction of the forums, new membership on AG increased significantly, and for many this feature became the primary purpose of their visits.111

To underscore the significance of AG’s forums section, Figure 3.5 above provides a visual comparison of the new posts per year in both the formal and user-generated sections of the website. As is evident through this comparison, the formal content—which includes many traditional music journalism items such as current event and news articles, album reviews, featured artist discussions and opinion columns—consisted of roughly a few hundred posts per year. In contrast, the user-generated content in the forums section retained significantly higher levels of activity, often reaching into the thousands rather than the hundreds of new posts each year.

Notably, the solidification of AGs early hip hop community was enabled in large part by the many commonalities that characterized the group, many of which strongly embodied the

Afropolitan worldview. Generally, these early individuals tended to be educated young heterosexual “Coloured” boys, who were historically, as detailed above, the first group of individuals to access and embrace hip hop music in South Africa. The country’s first

“General Discussion,” Africasgateway.com (1997-2011), Accessed 12/3/2015, http://www.africasgateway.com/forums/index.php?board=12.0 111 For example, one community member recalled, “If I was going on to the Internet it was that. I could have said like, ‘Yes I’m logging onto AfricasGateway,’ not ‘the Internet’ because I’d not do anything but read posts and interact with people [in the forums].” R20, interview by author, Port Elizabeth, South Africa, April 27, 2014.

94 commercially released hip hop album Our World (1990) is a prime illustration of this trend, as the group who released it—Prophets of Da City (POC)—fits well into this category. Other early groups like Black Noise also coincided with this trend, as did the first all-female group Godessa, whose visibility as the nation’s first female collective only serves to underscore women’s engagement with hip hop in this early period as the exception rather than the rule.

Frequently, such demographic similarities also translated into relatively uniform worldviews, which featured heavily in both the music and conversations that circulated in the community surrounding it. Knowledge of and love for politically conscious American hip hop, for example, was common amongst most early community members, which reflects the attraction and exposure to hip hop these individuals shared during the previous decade. Most early heads also tended to practice multiple elements within the culture, which included , graffiti writing, DJing, MCing, and a fifth element termed “knowledge of self.”

Significantly, among these individuals this fifth element was held in particularly high regard, and can be loosely understood as a political, social, cultural and historical self-awareness enacted through hip hop. As R10 explained:

To me, Knowledge of Self is the promotion of being self-aware, loving and respecting yourself and recognizing your status in the world – and not accepting where society has placed you. It is ultimately the critical cornerstone of hip hop. It says, “You don’t provide adequate recreational facilities and opportunities for young black people, well, we’ll go and make our own.” But this is not quite how it was explained to me. Mostly I engaged it through people like Emile (and his lyrics and other writings) and through Shamiel X. Their understanding of KOS is adopting a critical political stance, being oppositional, not accepting the status quo, using hip hop’s expressive tools to stand up for yourself.112

In addition, the Black Consciousness Movement, which was a social movement that first arose in

South Africa during the 1960s in opposition to Apartheid, also became a notable characteristic of young practitioners’ articulation of identity in early South African hip hop, as many opted to

112 R10, interview by author (via email), July 30, 2014.

95 define themselves as Black rather than either as “Coloured” or through tribal affiliations like

Xhosa, Ndebele or Zulu.

Notably, members of this early South African community also exhibited high levels of misogyny and homophobia, which were both engaged frequently to delineate belonging. On AG, for example, many early conversations in the forums section involved displays of masculine heterosexuality, which were most frequently articulated through discussions of sexual attraction to and/or encounters with women. Terms like “fag,” “bitch,” “hoe” and “homo” also littered the conversation boards, and were often employed as markers of non-belonging against visitors or artists viewed unfavorably by those within the community. For example, in a 2003 thread titled

“Is Ja Rule Gay?” one user responded to a comment assessing the artist’s music unfavorably by stating “fuck ja rule.. he mos def is gay..”113 Later that year another user employed femininity as a general insult to other artists, telling community members “[if] you wanna have a laugh, check out rotten.com, this is for all those fake ass femcees that claim to b hardcore. stomach that shit fuckaz.”114 While significantly, not all AG community members felt this way,115 it was, nevertheless, the established norm within the group, and was used frequently throughout AG’s lifespan as a standard means of communicating and articulating belonging to the community.

For these reasons, AG enjoyed a central role in the formation of South Africa’s national hip hop community. From its launch in 1997 until its initial descent in 2008, AG brought fans together by providing a space where they could share music and access information from disparate local scenes, gradually replacing their feelings of isolation, marginality and invisibility

113 briCK, Reply #3, “Is Ja Rule Gay?” (1/27/2003), Accessed July 24, 2017, http://www.africasgateway.com/forums/index.php/topic,45.0.html 114 Anonymous, “netcees = femcees” (9/12/2003), Accessed July 24, 2017, http://www.africasgateway.com/forums/index.php/topic,27987.0.html 115 Such as R10 revealed in his interview, for example, where he noted a discomfort with these discussions as they were occurring yet also feeling unable to protest them.

96 with a shared sense of belonging. As R7 recalled, “I’ve always been passionate about hip hop,

[but] there were no other avenues [before AG]. I didn’t know anybody else that loved hip hop like me.” Through the AG forums, however, “[t]here started [to be] more kids that were into hip hop. Like ‘Hey,’ you know? Sharing their music. So it formulated this community.”116 For nearly a decade, this community continued to grow, eventually situating AG as the online destination for hip hop in South Africa. In this way, much like its name suggests, AG functioned as a virtual gateway into the South African hip hop community, until the community eventually outgrew the space.

The Paradox of Success

Ironically, it was precisely the successfulness of AGs community formation that ultimately contributed to its eventual decline. As noted above, one of Milk’s primary goals in launching the AG website was to promote international and South African hip hop music to increase its visibility and popularity. However, as the number of fans increased and the community expanded, the feelings of marginality and isolation once associated with such fandom dissipated, reducing much of the incentive that had once driven early fans together. In addition, the process of digitization that had begun in the 1990s, accelerated significantly in the new millennium. This acceleration further expanded access to resources and representation among Africans, growing the middleclass and increasing their visibility. However, as this group expanded, diverging viewpoints also became more prominent. On AG, these fractures worked in tandem with the loss of marginality to further accelerate the dissolution of community and a unified identity.

116 R7, interview by author, Port Elizabeth, South Africa, February 7, 2014.

97 Year Internet Users in SA 2000 5.3% 2001 6.3% 2002 6.7% 2003 7.0% 2004 8.4% 2005 7.5% 2006 7.6% 2007 8.1% 2008 8.4% 2009 10.0%

Figure 3.6117 At the dawn of the new millennium the Internet was still a relatively small part of South

African life, with just over five percent of the national population involved in online activities.

This small number was due in large part to the high cost of Internet service, which resulted from the monopoly South Africa’s national communications company Telkom had been granted through the Telecommunications Act of 1996. However, over the course of this decade South

African ICT policy went through two significant changes, both of which helped to make the

Internet more affordable. First, the Telecommunications Amendment Act was passed in 2001, which ended the “exclusivity period” in South Africa, and marked the emergence of what

Lucienne Abrahams terms the era of “managed liberalization.” Over the next four years this policy helped facilitate a gradual opening of the ICT market by introducing the opportunity for modest competition in both the cellular and fixed-line sectors, which caused prices to become more reasonable. Significantly, however, competition and price reductions were rather limited during this period, and did not undergo meaningful transformation until the second major shift initiated by the Electronic Telecommunications Act in 2005. With this most recent act South

African ICT policy ushered in what Abrahams describes as the “information society period,”

117 The World Bank, “Internet users (per 100) people),” World Bank Group (2015), Accessed November 9, 2015, http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IT.NET.USER.P2/countries

98 which finally allowed extensive competition and further reduced prices. Thus, by the close of

2009 Internet service had become significantly more affordable, which contributed to a doubling of penetration rates, as is shown above in Figure 3.6.

Figure 3.7118

118 Images courtesy of Steven Song, “African Undersea Cables – A History,” SlideShare (March 1, 2011), Accessed November 24, 2015, http://www.slideshare.net/ssong/african-undersea-cables-a-history

99 The second major factor that contributed to falling Internet access prices was the development of ICT infrastructure. More specifically, the introduction of undersea cables to the

African continent dramatically expanded the capacity of the Internet available in that region, which ultimately led to lower service costs for users. As is illustrated through the images in

Figure 3.7 above, this development progressed rather slowly during the 2000s, with only four major cables going live over the course of the decade. However, the number of active undersea expanded substantially after 2010, jumping to sixteen in 2015 (please see Figure 3.7 below).

Thus far, the most significant of these new cables to the growth of penetration rates in South

Africa have been the Eastern Africa Submarine System (EASSy) and the West African Cable

System (WACS). EASSy came online west coast of the continent, connecting Highbridge in the

United Kingdom with Yzerfontein, South Africa, which is quite near to Cape Town. Together, these high-capacity cable systems offer an additional 15 Tbit/s of bandwidth, with EASSy contributing over 10 Tbit/s119 and WACS contributing 5.12 Tbit/s.120 Currently, a third cable, known as the Africa Coast to Europe (ACE) cable, which will add another 5.12 Tbit/s in bandwidth capacity, is under construction to connect Penmarch, France with Cape Town, South

Africa. The first phase of this project running from France to Gabon went live in December

2012; however, the second phase, which will run from Gabon to South Africa, is not yet complete.121

In addition to reducing service costs through the introduction of undersea cables, Internet penetration rates also improved in South Africa due to increases in public access locations. These

119 “Welcome to EASSy,” EASSy.org, Nairobi, Kenya (2010), Accessed November 29, 2015, http://www.eassy.org 120 “African consortium WACS to extend its submarine cable system from Portugal to the UK with Alcatel- Lucent’s 40G ultra-fast optical technology,” (Press Release), Alcatel-Lucent (August 24, 2010), Accessed November 29, 2015, https://www.alcatel-lucent.com/press/2010/002176 121 “Overview,” ACE – Africa Coast to Europe – Submarine Cable, Accessed November 29, 2015, https://www.ace- submarinecable.com/ace/default/EN/all/ace_en/the_project.htm

100

Figure 3.8122 public access locations include public libraries, Internet cafés and telecenters, the last of which are typically found in rural areas where access to ICT had historically been low. Significantly, the rise in the number of these facilities during the first decade of the millennium was due in large part to the government’s initiative of universal access, which strove to ensure all citizens had access to ICT. Consequently, telecenters typically housed a variety of telecommunications equipment, including telephone, fax, copy machine and computers, usually with Internet access.

The third major development that contributed to growth in South Africa’s Internet penetration rates was the introduction of social media, which pulled users online. The first of

122 Steven Song, “Sub-saharan Undersea Cables in 2018 – maybe (version 42),” Flickr (August 2015), Accessed November 28, 2015, https://www.flickr.com/photos/ssong/20854122318/in/album-72157625051406818/

101 these websites to gain mainstream appeal was Friendster, which was founded in March 2002 by

Jonathan Abrams and Peter Chin. The following year, MySpace was launched, and by 2006 had become the most popular social networking website in the world. Significantly, MySpace was particularly influential to the promotion of independent music, which is best underscored through its formation of a music label under the MySpace umbrella in 2005. Although both platforms were landmark developments in social media, the global availability of Facebook beginning in

2006 created the heaviest draw online for South Africans. In large part, this heavy influence was a product of timing, as the latter half of the decade saw considerable improvements in access due to factors like the Electronic Communications Act of 2005 as outlined above. Thus, South

Africans began to flood online in the latter half of the decade, often with the primary goal of interacting with friends and family on Facebook.

The draw of social media was significantly enhanced by the increased availability of

Smartphone technology, which helped to ease access and therefore expand penetration rates since 2010. Smartphones first gained popularity in the late 2000s with the release of the first- generation iPhone by Apple in 2007. This introduction was significant because it provided a less expensive and more convenient alternative to fixed-line service Internet access. However,

Smartphones like Apple’s iPhone were incredibly costly then, and even now have continued to remain a rather elite product with the most current models selling at roughly $1000 in South

Africa.123 However, on September 6, 2010 Chinese telecommunications equipment and services company Huawei released an Android Smartphone in Kenya that had a price tag of only $100.124

123 For example, when the iPhone 6s was first released in South Africa, Vodacom priced the device between R14,000 - R19,100, which, based on exchange rates at that time, equates to roughly $1000 - $1350. Staff Writer, “Apple iPhone 6s – first Vodacom pricing,” MyBroadband.co.za (October 9, 2015), Accessed November 29, 2015 http://mybroadband.co.za/news/smartphones/141422-apple-iphone-6s-first-vodacom-pricing.html 124 Wayan Vota, “$100 Huawei Android Mobile Phone is Bringing the Netbook Revolution to Smartphones,” ICT Works (September 7, 2010), Accessed November 29, 2015, http://www.ictworks.org/2010/09/07/100-huawei- android-mobile-phone-bringing-netbook-revolution-smartphones/

102 This event, which was specifically aimed at catering to consumers in the developing world, was revolutionary and highly effective in expanding cell phone accessibility in those markets.

Subsequently, several other companies also began manufacturing sub-$100 Smartphones, which strongly contributed to the growth in both mobile subscriptions and Internet penetration rates as shown below in Figure 3.9.

Year Internet Users in SA Cell Phone Subscriptions in SA 2010 24.0% 98.0% 2011 34.0% 123.0% 2012 41.0% 131.0% 2013 46.5% 146.0% 2014 49.0% 150.0% 2015 51.9% 164.5%

Figure 3.9125 Finally, this increase in mobile Internet technology also led to a rise in the demand for wireless broadband access, which consequently also rose significantly during this period. Much like the introduction of Smartphone technology, which had been initiated in 2007 through the introduction of Apple’s iPhone, this shift toward wireless broadband had also begun to take form during the previous decade.126 However, it was not until the advances in bandwidth capacity and sub-$100 Smartphone technology emerged in the 2010s, that the demand for wireless access grew dramatically. Significantly, this growth in wireless Internet availability allowed individuals

125 The World Bank, “Internet users (per 100) people),” World Bank Group (2015), Accessed November 9, 2015, http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IT.NET.USER.P2/countries; The World Bank, “Individuals using the Internet (% of population),” World Bank Group (2017), Accessed May 6, 2017 http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IT.NET.USER.ZS?locations=ZA&view=chart; The World Bank, “Mobile cellular subscriptions (per 100 people),” World Bank Group (2015), Accessed on November 9, 2015, http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IT.CEL.SETS.P2/countries; and, The Word Bank, “Mobile cellular subscriptions (per 100 people),” World Bank Group (2017), Accessed May 6, 2017 http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IT.CEL.SETS.P2?locations=ZA&view=chart 126 For example, the growing demand for wireless broadband is noted in an anonymous article published in a telecommunications trade journal in 2006. “South Africa Users Opt for Wireless Broadband.” Africa & Middle East Telecom 7, no. 7 (07, 2006), 16, Accessed November 29, 2015 http://search.proquest.com.libproxy2.usc.edu/docview/191684395?accountid=14749

103 to access the Web not only from their Smartphone devices, but also from other technologies like tablets and laptop computers. Thus, wireless broadband or “Wifi” has also increased accessibility during the current decade by transforming many businesses and public places like coffee shops and restaurants into inexpensive or free venues for Internet access.

Together, these advances in digital technology had a noticeable effect on the popularity of hip hop in South Africa, particularly in the production, distribution and consumption of the music. First, it is worth noting that the cost of personal computers decreased significantly in the new millennium, making the independent production of music far more accessible to everyday people.127 Similarly, other recording equipment also became less expensive and therefore more accessible, such as microphones, headphones, speakers, etc. In addition, the introduction of new tools that work in conjunction with personal computers often circumvented the need for costly processes previously done by professionals, such as a DAW/Audio Interface combo, which allows users to record, edit and mix music themselves all from a personal computer. At the same time, the Gross National Income (GNI) based on purchasing power parity (PPP) per capita in

South Africa also increased significantly since 2000, going from $7520 to $12,860 in 2016.128 In this way, these combined factors made it far easier for individuals to participate in the production of music, which resulted in a significant number of independent producers emerging in the country during this period.

However, the distribution and consumption of music were by far the most significantly altered practices during this decade. The emergence of Napster in 1999 allowed users to share mp3 music files directly with other users all around the world. Not surprisingly, this innovation,

127 For example, the iMac desktop computer dropped 33% over the decade, going from $1499 in 1999 to only $999 in 2009. 128 The World Bank, “GNI per capita, PPP (current international $),” World Bank Group (2017), Accessed July 26, 2017, http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GNP.PCAP.PP.CD/countries?display=default

104 which largely circumvented the formal music industry and denied it significant sums of capital, had a major impact on this industry, as has been widely charted through declining music sales since the turn of the new millennium. Therefore, record companies responded aggressively with anti-piracy campaigns and copyright infringement lawsuits, the latter of which, for example, was responsible for shutting down Napster in 2001. Although several other companies offering similar services like Kazaa and LimeWire also emerged during this brief period, they were met with a similar fate and thus did not have a long lifespan online.

In response to the emergence of these file-sharing practices, Apple released iTunes alongside its first iPod in 2001. Two years later Apple launched iTunes 4, which was the first version to be compatible with Microsoft Windows and the first to feature the iTunes Music

Store.129 This Music Store was significant because it was the first legal alternative to P2P file- sharing sites, and offered the opportunity for record companies to tap into this burgeoning mp3 market. Notably, iTunes was not available in South Africa until the following decade on

December 4, 2012;130 however, by this time more than half of all music sales were made through the platform, indicating a significant transformation in the distribution of music both inside and outside the music industry. Notably, subsequent music distribution websites like Soundcloud and

Bandcamp built upon the growing popularity of the mp3 format generated through platforms like iTunes, and provided alternative venues for distribution to independent artists in the latter half of the decade (both launched in 2007).

129 Julianne Pepitone and David Goldman, “The evolution of iTunes,” CNN Tech (April 23, 2013), Accessed November 25, 2015, http://money.cnn.com/gallery/technology/2013/04/25/itunes-history/ 130 “Apple Launches iTunes Store in Russia, Turkey, India, South Africa & 52 Additional Countries Today,” (Press Release), Apple Inc. (December 4, 2012), Accessed November 24, 2015, https://www.apple.com/pr/library/2012/12/04Apple-Launches-iTunes-Store-in-Russia-Turkey-India-South-Africa- 52-Additional-Countries-Today.html

105 The other major development to occur was the launch of YouTube, which took place on

February 14, 2005. Prior to this event it was difficult for everyday people to post video content online. However, YouTube’s interface made this process easy, which significantly opened the opportunities for independent artists to produce and release quality music videos outside the formal structure of the music industry. Additionally, as Cecilia H. Suhr notes in her study Social

Media and Music: The Digital Field of Cultural Production, YouTube also influenced both the consumption of music as well as its path to popularity. Whereas previously radio and music channels like South Africa’s Channel O had been the primary venues through which fans could access information on the latest music, YouTube provided an alternative space that allowed fans to be less reliant on formal structures. In doing so, YouTube also facilitated the development of niche markets and the further diversification of music genres by helping artists and audiences to connect with each other.

Alongside these changes occurring within the music industry, the music itself also expanded and transformed. As noted earlier in Chapter 2, the 2000s were a decade of experimentation in hip hop music on the continent. Whereas the 1990s had been a period of mimicry, when African hip hoppers produced music that borrowed heavily from American sounds, in the 2000s African artists began to develop their own sounds by rapping in local languages, incorporating local instrumentation and discussing local subject matter. In South

Africa, these changes began to appear somewhat earlier (POC began rapping in “vernac”131 in the early 1990s); however, in the second decade of South African hip hop these developments began to take root. Since 2010, while instrumentation and subject matter have also continued to grow more locally focused, lyrics performed in national languages other than English have been

131 Short for “vernacular,” used broadly to reference any language other than English.

106 the most heavily emphasized development in recent years. As one featured article published on

AHH in March of 2015 explains:

Unlike in the United States, where hip hop sub-genres are differentiated by their cities of origin and lyrical themes (i.e. – New York; trap – party rap), here in South Africa they are distinguished by the languages they represent. Each of the eleven official languages has its own specific hip hop movement. For instance, hip hop in isiXhosa is called Spaza, in Tshivenda it’s Venrap, and Sesotho rap is called Tshepe while isiZulu hip hop is better known as Kasi Rap.132

Significantly, this article is titled “Morumokwano and linguistic turf wars in South African hip hop [emphasis added],” which underscores the heightened emphasis placed on language in the nation’s hip hop culture in recent years, as well as the growing tensions surrounding these distinctions in response.

In conjunction with developing a more localized sound, hip hop also became more mainstream in South Africa in the new millennium, and with it so too did the Afropolitan identity. Whereas in the 1980s and 1990s hip hop culture and fans had been marginalized based on the perception that hip hop was an American rather than an African cultural practice, in the

2000s going forward, this perception started to change. As part of this shift, formal industries like record companies and marketing executives began to recognize the earning potential of hip hop culture, and in general more local hip hop started to be produced and sold. In this way, hip hop in South African became significantly more accessible for people to purchase and consume, thus providing the music and its fans with greater acceptance and visibility.

The development of hip hop competitions in South Africa is one clear example of hip hop’s shifting position in the country. Most notably, the emergence of the South African Hip

Hop Awards (SAHHA) in 2012 is a significant indicator of the institutionalization of hip hop, as

132 RS Tshesane, “Morumokwano and linguistic turf wars in South African hip hop,” Africanhiphop.com (March 17, 2015), Accessed November 30, 2015, http://www.africanhiphop.com/morumokwano-linguistic-turf-wars-south- african-hip-hop/

107 it is a highly publicized event, with a current total of thirty-one different award categories spanning everything from “Best Dance Crew” to “Best Local Brand” to “Best Graffiti Artist” to

“Best Digital Sales.”133 Much like similar awards ceremonies in other countries including the

United States, this event is primarily centered on the presentation of awards, sprinkled with a few performances by select artists. In contrast, the African Hip Hop Indaba, which was founded in

2000 by Emile of Black Noise, is far more competition and community-centered, featuring several days of dance competitions that culminate with a final awards ceremony.134

Figure 3.10135 Significantly, this mainstreaming is also evident through the incorporation of hip hop music and aesthetics in marketing of unrelated products, which has occurred in many international markets including South Africa. For example, Figure 3.10 above is a screenshot

133 For a full list of categories please see “South African Hip Hop Awards: Categories,” SA Hip Hop Awards, Accessed December 4, 2015, http://www.sahiphopawards.com/p/history.html 134 For example, please see the full 2015 schedule at “Program,” African Hip Hop Indaba (2015), Accessed December 4, 2015, http://www.africanhiphopindaba.co.za/program 135 Screenshot taken on December 2, 2015 from MTN television commercial with the tag line “New World” posted on YouTube. Significantly, the video was published on Janurary 12, 2013 with the phrase “Join the New World with MTN and live connected.” Youtube.com, Accessed December 2, 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IA6QSuHmNJQ

108 from a TV commercial for MTN that first aired in South Africa in December of 2012.136 In addition to the visible aesthetics of hip hop presented through the clothing, posture and stylization of the primary character (shown in the center of the frame on top of the plastic horse), the entire commercial is filmed like a hip hop music video, and the protagonist raps lyrics over a hip hop beat throughout. In the scene shown below, for example, he tells the audience: “Swag is something you hear us say a lot / Swag is something that we all got,” before the chorus breaks in telling the audience “Welcome to the new world.” The protagonist’s line is illustrative of this point because it features the term “swag,” meaning “swagger” or “style,” which was initially popularized through hip hop culture in the United States. By including it in this South African commercial for a cellular company, it not only demonstrates the ongoing influence of American popular culture in spaces outside the United States, but also reveals the increasingly mainstream appeal of hip hop culture in South Africa. Significantly, this ad was part of a new MTN campaign intended to suggest that, “emerging markets are on the cusp of a brand-new world.

This is a world where the distinction between the first and the third world no longer exists, thanks to digitization [emphasis added].”137

The effects of these developments on AG were a significant growth in registered users, but an overall decline in the cohesion of its community. Back in 2003, which was the first year of available data for AG’s general forum, the AG community was still relatively small, and most interactions taking place there were quite personal. Birthday wishes and death notifications were extremely common during this early period, and many members also used the boards as a kind of

136 “MTN launches global brand campaign to articulate new strategic direction,” Media Release, MTN (date unknown), Accessed December 2, 2015, http://www.mtn.co.rw/Content/Pages/188/MTN_launches_global_brand_campaign_to_articulate_new_strategic_dir ection 137 Ibid.

109 public text messaging system to get hold of one another. At the time, most AG regulars were hip hop practitioners, meaning that most everyone frequenting the site was actively participating in the creation of hip hop culture in some form or another, whether that be as a graffiti artist, an

MC, a producer, a DJ, a break dancer, or by performing some other related role that supported these early communities. In all cases, these regular participants were committed hip hop fans, and they used AG as an extension of the tape-trading meetings described earlier. Thus, most of the activities that took place in this forum in 2003 were about sharing information or music, and building or maintaining community connections.

To clarify these characteristics, Figure 3.11 shows a screenshot of the general forum in

2003 covering a handful of conversations that took place in August of that year. In addition to illustrating the small yet active nature of this online community (RuSh, in particular, starts and ends several conversation threads during this period), many of the threads also speak to the personal nature of these relationships. For example, in a thread ending on August 17 Milk discusses a drive by shooting that took place in his neighborhood. On a lighter note, in a thread titled “milkdaddy to star in pron ft petricia de lille and nkosazama” also ending on August 17,

RuSh teases site owner Milk by joking that he has discovered a sex tape the owner supposedly starred in. Although the topics addressed in these two posts are significantly different, the tone is similar, in that both cases allude to a high degree of familiarity among members. In addition, they also illuminate Milk’s involvement as site owner to be quite high, actively participating as a member of the community rather than merely functioning as an administrator of the website.

Furthermore, this collection of posts also illustrates the use of the general forum as a communal space for communication, in many ways extending the practices of tape-trading

110

Figure 3.11138 sessions into the virtual world. For example, in “I NEED A HOOK UP” ending on August 18, morph asks if community members have any hip hop films on DVD they are willing to share. In addition, he also indicates that he is still waiting to receive an item in the post from Rugged Man, who subsequently responds that he is himself still waiting for it to arrive in the mail from a third party. Through this exchange it is evident that AG functioned as a tool to augment rather than replace earlier tape-trading practices, allowing for faster and perhaps more reliable communication, yet not fully supplanting interactions in the real world.

Significantly, Figure 3.11 also reveals an emphasis on American hip hop in the AG community during this early period. It should be noted that the thread “who is ya favorite south

138 “General Forum,” AfricasGateway.com, Accessed April 23, 2015, http://www.africasgateway.com/forums/index.php/board,12.0.html

111 african rap artist or group?” demonstrates the presence of and interest in local South African hip hop at the time. However, “Methodman album (tical 0)” and “Race relations Part III : briCK

Goes to Ja rule in DBN” were far more typical of the hip hop news and topics discussed during this period. In addition, these three posts also underscore the significant differences between the visibility and accessibility of South African versus American musicians, as the former tended to be linked with questions like “does he have new stuff recorded?”139 and “somebody better get J

Bux a [hip hop] job,”140 whereas the latter focused on the release of commercial albums and major concert performances.

Two years later, in 2005, the AG community had continued to develop and transform. As the peak year of activity in both the formal and user-generated sections of the website (Figure

3.12), several noticeable changes had begun to take place. Not only were many of the active members from 2003 still visible, but they had also been joined by many new and energetic voices. Although these additions significantly expanded the size of the AG community, the conversations and interactions occurring in the general forum space continued to remain quite personal. For example, members continued to wish each other happy birthday and happy New

Year, and continued to post RIP notifications for fellow members who passed away. At the same time, many conversations also revealed a growth in local activity, suggesting a rise in the production and availability of local South African hip hop. Thus, while the thirst for connection was still the primary focus of the forums section during this period, the interest in and use of the space as a tool for visibility had noticeably increased.

139 fahfee, Reply #6, “who is ya favorite south african rap artist or group?” (August 9, 2003 02:26:00 AM), Accessed August 7, 2015, http://www.africasgateway.com/forums/index.php/topic,903.0.html 140 RuSh, Reply #7, “who is ya favorite south african rap artist or group?” (August 9, 200307:13:00 PM), August 7, 2015, http://www.africasgateway.com/forums/index.php/topic,903.0.html

112

Figure 3.12141 Figure 3.12 illustrates several aspects of this transformation. As noted above, AG members from 2003 like RuSh and briCK continued to appear in the message boards, and were joined by several new names like Dpleezy, MaddStone, mulmens and Tek. Rather than changing the culture of this forum, these new members adopted the already established cultural practices of existing members, mainly utilizing the general discussion section to cultivate and maintain personal relationships with each other. For example, much like in 2003, several threads in 2005 including “@Born,” “@Tate” and “ATT: SYN,” were addressed to specific AG members as a public means of communicating with one another. Similarly, in 2005 many new members also gave a general greeting upon joining the community, which usually received a warm response

141 “General Forum,” AfricasGateway.com, Accessed April 23, 2015, http://www.africasgateway.com/forums/index.php/board,12.0.html

113 from multiple existing community members (for example, please see Tek’s post “MAY I

INTRODUCE MYSELF,” ended on July 23). In addition, the high number of responses garnered by the death notification of AG members like “RIP ‘ill Ego Alien’ attn AG masses” ended on

July 19, further support the strong sense of community cultivated through the message boards.

In addition to cultivating community, in 2005 the general discussion forum also continued to function as an extension of earlier tape-trading practices. For example, on July 24

RuSh created a thread titled “dreams that turns out to be a nightmare,” which included a link that users could click to download the referenced song’s file. Similarly, on July 21 Ethix shared a video link in the conversation thread “Madlib video,” which was viewed 442 times and garnered a response by Token412 thanking Ethix for the share. Significantly, this file sharing also did, at times, translate into some members posting links or files to their own materials, such as in Tek’s introduction; however, this practice of self-promotion remained relatively rare at the time.

Perhaps the most noticeable shift between 2003 and 2005 was the rise in visibility of local South African hip hop. Several threads shown in the screenshot above in Figure 3.12 strongly underscore the growth and development of this culture. For example, in “Pro-Kid Heads

Or Tails” several members discuss the high quality of the music video produced in association with Pro Kid’s Heads and Tails (2005) album release. This high-quality video is significant because it signifies both the development of the music industry in South Africa, and its embrace of local hip hop culture. Similarly, the “wackest SA album covers” thread started by RuSh also alludes to the industry’s embrace of hip hop in a backhanded manner, given that most album covers discussed (and critiqued) were professionally designed and produced in conjunction with

South African projects. Most significantly, this institutional embrace of hip hop is also evident in the “Black Mist/ Writers Block on SABC’s Street Journal” thread, because in it Dpleezy (a.k.a.

114 Dplanet a.k.a. Black Mist) describes an interview he recently completed for the show, which gives visibility to South African hip hop through a national government media outlet (South

Africa Broadcasting Company). Although these conversations surrounding South African hip hop culture do not replace the interest in other national scenes (MaddStone, for example, still discusses Mos Def’s album New Danger (2005) in “Mos Def – New Danger….CNA”), they do clearly indicate a growth in the visibility of and interest in hip hop from the larger South African community.

By 2008, which was the most active year for new posts in the AG general discussion section, many of the changes that were percolating in 2005 had become far more pronounced.

The AG community had grown even larger by this time; however, visible fractures had also begun to develop. Whereas previously the community had been a relatively cohesive group with a shared identity and common values, by 2008 this closeness had noticeably unraveled.

Significantly, this shift coincided with a rise in the frequency of self-promotion occurring within the space, so that the emphasis in the forum had drifted even further away from connection toward visibility. Although many members continued to frequent AG to make and maintain connections, generally this sense of community had grown somewhat secondary to the pursuit of being seen and heard on the website.

The screenshot below, showing a collection of posts in the AG general forum during July

2008, is evidence of this trend (see Figure 3.13). First, once again, many new names appear in the space, such as Mad, A pimp named Sarkozy, Bondizzo, GHOSTRIDER, and modoe. At the same time, older members like Omero’s Daddy and Lord Deacon of Frost also remained active.

However, the sense of community and connection that was so evident in the 2003 forums had visibly dissipated. For example, the thread titled “You are a faggot” ending on July 24 is a

115 hostile post by The Angry Hand of God directed at “the person who mailed my post from the

‘Cocksuckers’ thread to my mother.”142 This exchange not only reveals the highly homophobic and misogynistic culture that had sadly always featured within this space, but it also illuminates the type of negative behavior and antagonistic interactions that many members had begun to exhibit toward each other. Whereas previously AG had functioned as a welcoming and supportive space for marginalized hip hop heads across the country, through this post it is made clear that this communal affinity and close, tight-knit culture in the AG forums had eroded significantly.

Figure 3.13143

142 The Angry Hand of God, “You are a faggot,” (July 22, 2008 10:53:28 AM), Accessed August 10, 2015, http://www.africasgateway.com/forums/index.php/topic,23537.0.html 143 “General Forum,” AfricasGateway.com, Accessed April 23, 2015, http://www.africasgateway.com/forums/index.php/board,12.0.html

116 The clearest illustration of this shift is the conflict that developed surrounding one of these new AG members, Mad. Mad (a.k.a. Madd Rapper), who identified himself as a male from

Queenstown, South Africa, registered with AG on July 22, 2008. That day, in his very first post, which was titled “FUCK CRACKBOYS!”, Mad publicly criticized the South African rap group

Crackboys, which another AG member named Cash belonged to. Over the next several months

Mad continued to antagonize several AG members including Cash, and many individuals within the community began to call for the moderators to ban him from the forums. However, instead of functioning as an act of solidarity against an outsider terrorizing the community,144 these calls more accurately reflected the promotion of personal rather than collective interests, and exhibited a continuation of the hostility that had begun to manifest within the forum space. Prior to Mad’s emergence, for example, many of these same members had been similarly critical of and hostile toward Cash, who himself also frequently presented himself in an aggressive and antagonistic manner.

Part of the hostility directed toward Cash in the general forum was due to the way in which he chose to engage the online space. Although AG members continued to use the site as a tool for circulating music, many, including Cash, had begun to approach the message boards more strategically as a means of circulating or promoting music that they themselves had a hand in creating. In doing so, this practice transformed the tape-trading culture that had previously been prominent on AG, which grew to function more as a virtual bulletin board where one would post items of self-promotion. For example, in the “Crackboys Gateway” thread started by

Bondizzo on July 23, several members noted the overabundance of recent topics featuring the

144 For example, please see the thread titled “Y’all waaaaaack” posted in 2003. Anonymous, “Y’all wackkkkkkkkkkk!,” (March 25, 2003 07:18:00 PM), Accessed August 27, 2017, http://www.africasgateway.com/forums/index.php/topic,263.0.html

117 group, and one respondent suggested that even this discussion itself was also a tool for acquiring visibility: “And your remedy for this ‘complaint’ is starting another [thread]? Seems like you guys like the attention? Don’t be shy it makes good business sense.”145

In addition to underscoring these specific transformations, this screenshot in Figure 3.13 also illuminates the further institutionalization of African hip hop, which had become far more mainstream in South African popular culture than it had been previously. Particularly, the

“Africa’s Premier Emcee Competition in South Africa” thread from July 25 signifies a major shift in the appropriation of hip hop by various African communities, given that ten years prior it was still considered a marginal subculture perceived as primarily American, rather than African.

In contrast, by 2008 hip hop had become a very visible music and aesthetic in mainstream

African popular culture, and was embraced rather than rejected by most society.

By 2010 the consequences of the changes set in motion during the previous decade began to surface. Rather than growing, the AG community had shrunk noticeably, with few regular members from previous years continuing to frequent the online space. Thus, the loss of connection that had begun to surface in 2008 was significantly more complete, and the use of

AG as a tool for visibility had become even more brazen and pervasive. In addition, many members also began to articulate a growing anxiety surrounding the death of AG, frequently lamenting the overall state of health of the website.

A screenshot of the AG general forum in January 2010 shown above (see Figure 3.14) once again helps to animate these transformations. One of the first characteristics made apparent through this image is the significant lack of focused discussion centered on hip hop. Whereas AG had initially served as a rich space for the exchange of ideas and information about various local

145 Omero’s Daddy, Reply #2, “Crackboys Gateway,” (July 23, 2008 05:22:00 PM), Accessed August 10, 2015, http://www.africasgateway.com/forums/index.php/topic,23558.0.html

118

Figure 3.14146 scenes, by 2010 a cluttered disarray of voices and topics having little or nothing to do with the subject of hip hop had diluted this function. For example, out of the nine threads shown above only three make any mention whatsoever of hip hop music or culture, and of these three, only one demonstrates any real degree of substantial or thoughtful discussion. Significantly, although the “Happy Birthday RR” post ending on July 4 suggests the ongoing use of the space by some users to maintain community connections, this practice was mainly enacted by older AG members, and rarely even garnered the acknowledgement of newer community members.

Instead, AG continued to morph into a tool for visibility. Although this transformation was not in itself new, the appearance of spam in the message boards such as is seen in the

“Проверить за,” “Тайны науки к” and “Опубликуйте” threads, indicates the further

146 “General Forum,” AfricasGateway.com, Accessed April 23, 2015, http://www.africasgateway.com/forums/index.php/board,12.0.html

119 Views per Response 1500

1000

500

0 2003 2005 2008 2010 2013

Figure 3.15147 development of this trend within the online space. Furthermore, the number of times a new thread was viewed also began to increase in comparison to the number of times it garnered a response (see Figure 3.15). Therefore, this change also indicated a loss of interest among AG users in cultivating community, as most were reading others’ posts and creating their own, but were increasingly less inclined to respond to or interact directly with each other. Consequently, the culture within the general forum became noticeably less communal, further underscoring this shift away from communication toward visibility.

Furthermore, community members also began to express anxiety about the website itself, frequently commenting on the lack of activity and fretting over the likelihood of its complete disappearance from the online world. In addition to the thread titled “WHAT IS THE DEAL

WITH THIS SITE???????????????”, which very clearly articulates the general concern of AG users at this time, the increased frequency that individuals began to archive the website using the

Internet Archive’s “Wayback Machine” starting in 2008 also underscores the issue.

Significantly, by 2010 even this practice had tapered off dramatically, suggesting a fatal drop in connection to and engagement with AG (see Figure 3.16).

147 Ibid.

120

Figure 3.16148 Sadly, by 2013, these challenges had spiraled even further out of control. The death of

AG so widely feared in 2010 had become an unfortunate reality, as even the general forum was largely lifeless and had grown even more cluttered with self-promotion. Not surprisingly then, by

2013 there was almost no connection whatsoever among AG users, and visibility had become the primary if not the sole function of the space.

Figure 3.17149

148 Screenshot of image found on AG’s page on the Wayback Machine showing archiving activity of the website between 1996 and 2015. “www.AfricasGateway.com,” Wayback Machine, Accessed August 11, 2015, http://web.archive.org/web/*/www.africasgateway.com 149 “General Forum,” AfricasGateway.com, Accessed April 23, 2015, http://www.africasgateway.com/forums/index.php/board,12.0.html

121 Figure 3.17 shows clear evidence of these changes. Firstly, although it would have been impossible in previous years, this screenshot contains the entirety of general forum posts ending in 2013, which amounted to an abysmal total of fifteen. This meager sum reflects a strong lack of interest in the AG forum space, and is indicative of a larger disinterest in the website more generally. Significantly, this lack of energy surrounding AG also extended to the owner Milk.

Whereas in 2003 Milk was very active in the forums and was a well-known figure within the early community, by 2013 he was relatively unknown to most active members. This lack of knowledge is clearly illustrated in the “Who owns Africasgateway?” thread seen above, in which several newer members demonstrate their lack of knowledge surrounding Milk’s identity and current involvement, which stands in sharp contrast to the more seasoned members who joined the site when he was still an actively engaged member. Finally, Figure 3.17 also reveals an overwhelming amount of self-promotion taking place within the forum, with seven out of the fourteen threads that year engaged in the activity. For example, through this screenshot one learns that Black Noise had a new track out, users were asked to vote for Zone Fam on an awards show, Vexer had a new album out and an interview posted on another website, and Digital

Dynasty 23 had also just recently dropped an album. Significantly, none of these advertisements garnered much of a response from others within the community, which again underscores the lack of connection present between members.

Ultimately, there were three major factors that contributed to AG’s decline. First, the introduction of social media significantly altered the virtual landscape. As noted earlier,

Myspace, for example, was launched in January 2004, and became particularly significant as a tool for musicians to promote themselves and their music. In 2005, YouTube launched and quickly became popular as a means for sharing music videos. The following year Facebook and

122 Twitter also entered the social networking scene, and SoundCloud joined them a year later in

2007. Collectively, these introductions did two distinct things. First, each of these platforms provided an alternative space for geographically disparate hip hop heads to share music, discuss the culture, and interact with one another. Whereas initially, AG was the only space where individuals in southern Africa could go and connect with each other, by 2008, which was the final year of major activity on AG, users had several other options to choose from. Afropolitans particularly, who had been at the core of the AG community throughout its formation and early development, were often among the first to flee to these new online spaces, which was once again due to their better access to such tools gained by economic and social privilege. Thus, the conversations that had been occurring in the forum began to dissipate, which is evident in the sharp drop in user activity there beginning in 2009.

In addition, this shift toward social media also changed the nature of the conversations and interactions occurring among hip hop heads because social networking sites are not quite public spaces to the same degree. Whereas anyone can post a comment in the AG forums that can then be read by anyone else who chooses to visit, interactions occurring through social media typically take place between individuals who already know each other. For example, it was only after meeting Rugged Man while conducting this research in South Africa that he and I connected on Facebook; however, it was only because I posted a survey solicitation in the AG general forum that the two of us met each other in the first place. Thus, the shift away from this type of public space affects the way online communities develop and grow, making them a far more exclusive type of space and altering the nature of their conversations.

The second factor contributing to the decline of AG was the decline in Milk’s involvement and participation. As discussed above, in 2003 Milk was a very active participant on

123 the site, and hence he was a well-known figure to many in the AG forums community. By 2013, however, due to several personal factors, Milk’s participation in the site had dropped significantly. Thus, the once familiar figure had become almost completely unknown to most within the community, which is most evident in the “Who owns Africasgateway?” thread started by King Ming discussed above. In conjunction with this decline in participation in the forums, the formal content of the website such as news articles and information also began to fade. For example, as is illustrated in Figure 3.18 below, the formal content posted after 2005 falls dramatically, and no new posts are made at all in 2009, 2012 or after 2013. Consequently, uncertainty surrounding the future of AG is in many ways left to fester and grow, ultimately adding a negative effect to the health of the site overall.

Formal Content 500 400 300 200 100 0

Figure 3.18150 Finally, the most important element contributing to the demise of AG is the loss of connection described above. Initially the marginality of hip hop in South Africa functioned as a

“push” factor encouraging hip hop heads to go online in search of each other. However, over time hip hop became less marginal and more mainstream, which is evident in its institutionalization and acceptance as an expression of African identity. Although this trend is in

150 “Monthly Archives,” AfricasGateway.com, Accessed 8/27/2015, http://www.africasgateway.com/archives/

124 many ways what heads on AG had been working for (i.e. greater visibility and more participation), it also had the added effect of reducing the sense of social alienation experienced by hip hoppers, which ultimately decreased the need for a strong sense of community that had initially driven them to AG in the first place. Therefore, the institutionalization of hip hop in

South Africa also had a noticeable effect on the decline of the AG website, which is a fact easily traceable in the narrative above.

Conclusions on Digitization

Throughout this chapter I have attempted to illustrate the development of digital technology in South Africa to argue that this process has resulted in a more diverse, visible and more abstract representation of African identity. To make this argument I have focused specifically on the introduction of the Internet to South Africa in the early 1990s and followed the effects of this new media technology on the production, distribution and consumption of music in the recording industry up through to present day. To clarify this connection, I have paid special attention to the development of hip hop music and culture in South Africa, revealing its localization in conjunction with its institutionalization and growing popularity as a mainstream

South Africa genre. Ultimately, I have engaged this history to illuminate the role digital technologies have played in opening the field of representation, allowing a broader range of people to participate in the process of cultural production. Consequently, I maintain that the process of digitization has expanded and continues to expand understandings of contemporary

African identity, which has, as a direct consequence of this history, become increasingly diverse over time.

The process of digitization in South Africa has been largely driven by the accessibility of the Internet. Initially, this accessibility was highly restricted due to both a lack of infrastructure

125 as well as the protectionist stance of the South African government enacted through its restrictive

ICT policies. These economic limitations, combined with the specialized skills and tools necessary to get online, made the early South African Internet a highly elite space, which meant that most early users tended to share as well as represent similar backgrounds, experiences and worldviews. However, over time several significant changes occurred in South Africa’s digital landscape, starting with the relaxing of these policies and the development of infrastructure, which helped to reduce Internet access costs, making it possible for more potential Internet users to get online. Additionally, the emergence of social networking websites helped to further encourage new interest in the Internet, while the introduction of sub-$100 Smartphones in the last few years has finally put this aspiration more within reach of everyday people. Hence,

Internet penetration rates in South Africa have recently reached the 50% mark, and through this increase the nature of the individuals online and the representations found in the space has transformed significantly. Whereas previously a unified and somewhat narrow voice was given space online, the Internet in South Africa is now finally home to a wide array of individuals from different backgrounds, with different perspectives, and different understandings of what it means to be African.

This increased access to digital technologies is especially significant because they have been instrumental in broadening access to the tools of representation. To underscore the significance of this transformation I have focused on the production, distribution and consumption of music, which have been some of the practices most visibly altered by developments in digital technology. First and foremost, this transformation is embodied in the shift to digital music in the form of mp3 files, which were popularized most notably through the emergence of Napster in 1999. Particularly in places like South Africa where formal flows of

126 cultural production were highly limited, this development was monumental because it granted more agency to consumers (and later producers), which altered distribution and consumption patterns. Similarly, other developments in digitization, particularly the ability to record, mix and master original music files from a personal computer at minimal cost, have also made it easier for the independent production of music. Therefore, this study argues that the process of digitization continues to transform cultural production in places like the music industry by expanding access to the tools of representation.

Hip hop in South Africa offers a clear illustration of this transformation. Since its introduction in the 1980s, hip hop culture has continued to grow and evolve in the country. In this first decade hip hop was a relatively marginalized cultural practice that was embraced by a small and somewhat elite group of teenagers and young adults, mostly who belonged to the

“Coloured” community. Consequently, when production of local hip hop music began to occur in the 1990s, these were the first voices and experiences most clearly represented. However, as the 1990s progressed and hip hop began to gain visibility and popularity in the country, individuals with other cultural identities, experiences and backgrounds began to participate in the production of hip hop music as well. As noted above, this increased diversity in the production of

South African hip hop music was significantly aided by the digital developments occurring within the music industry, which made the necessary tools more accessible to a broader range of people. Therefore, representation within South African hip hop music expanded over the 2000s and 2010s, most visibly through the incorporation of vernac hip hop, which has grown increasingly popular in recent years.

These developments are also highly evident on AG, which was one of South Africa’s first hip hop websites. In addition to revealing the transformation of hip hop taking place in the

127 country, the culture and community surrounding the site’s general forum further underscore these changes. Whereas initially this forum starts out as a relatively small and tight-knit communal space, by the end of the 2000s the camaraderie and sense of unity once present in the space had transformed into a disorganized and often antagonistic array of different voices and fragmented identities. Ultimately, this shift was largely responsible for the demise of the site, as has been outlined in detail above.

128 Chapter 4 Africa is the New Black: Commercializing African Identity in the Twenty-First Century

Figure 4.1151 A few years ago, a young independent fashion designer named Ron Bass had an idea for a jersey. As he explained to fashion blogger Kiah McBride of XONecole online magazine, he wanted to make a garment for everyday people that celebrated his African cultural roots. To do this, Bass decided to design a top in the spirit of a sports jersey, using a colorful dashiki and screen-printing “Africa” across the chest, placing the number fifty-four below it to represent the number of countries on the continent.152 A few months later, a small handful of Black American celebrities began to appear in the media wearing Bass’s top, including fashion stylist June

Ambrose and iconic female popstar Beyoncé. Particularly following the emergence of images on the Internet showing Beyoncé in the jersey (Figure 4.1), interest in Bass’s design skyrocketed— everyone, it seemed, wanted to know how and where they could purchase one for themselves.153

151 Image accessed through Kiah McBride, “Designer Ron Bass Talks Cultural INSPIRATION Behind the Dashiki,” xonecole.com (September 2, 2015), Accessed October 11, 2016, http://xonecole.com/designer-ron-bass-talks- cultural-inspiration-behind-the-dashiki/ 152 In his interview with McBride, Bass noted that not everyone agrees with this number, stating that, “[s]ome people say it’s 56 countries, or whatever,” but he argues that he chose 54 because it “represents the continent in its entirety.” Ibid. 153 For example, the image of Beyoncé wearing the jersey was also found on a website called “Where To Get,” which features popular fashion items and provides users with multiple links to external websites where the items can

129 Unfortunately, by the time the general public became aware of Bass’s jersey, he had already sold out of all the prints he made and had decided to discontinue its production.

However, the attention his garment garnered sparked the interest of mainstream fashion retailer

Forever 21, which subsequently approached Bass to create a line for the store that incorporated his much sought-after design. Bass agreed, and his line was launched in Forever 21 stores just before Christmas in 2014. Significantly, although much of his original Africa 54 design remained intact, to appeal to the broader consumer base of Forever 21, which mainly included non-African descended people, Bass opted to replace his original text with his last name and the year he was born (Figure 4.2).

Figure 4.2154 As is the nature of the culture industry, the interest sparked by Bass’s original jersey design also garnered the attention of others in the fashion world eager to capitalize on the excitement surrounding it. One such designer was Los Angeles-based Kevin Afuwah, who premiered a dashiki a lot like Bass’s design at a viewing event for his new Afrocentric clothing line Royal Kulture a month later in January of 2015. Shortly thereafter, fashion icon Sarah

be purchased. “Shirt: Beyonce, beyonce fashion, african print, red top, africa, round sunglasses, denim shorts, long sleeves, dress, beyonce dress,” Where To Get (No Date), Accessed August 10, 2016, http://wheretoget.it/look/246813 154 “Ron Bass,” Forever 21 (No Date), Accessed August 10, 2016, http://www.forever21.com/Product/Category.aspx?category=promo-ron-bass

130 Jessica Parker was spotted wearing Afuwah’s design, which features the text “Royal 1” in place of Bass’s “Africa 54” as seen in Figure 4.3 below. Significantly, Parker’s embrace of Afuwah’s jersey launched the dashiki further into the mainstream, where numerous other iterations also appeared over the course of the year. In response to this trend and citing Parker specifically, Elle

Canada concluded in an article (briefly) posted to Twitter in August of 2015, that the dashiki was the “newest it-item” in fashion.155 Not surprisingly, both this statement and Parker’s donning of the garment were met with considerable criticism, particularly from Black Americans who labeled the magazine’s claim and Parker’s fashion choice as but two of the most recent illustrations of White appropriation of Black culture.

Figure 4.3156 This story of Bass’s dashiki is instructive for several reasons. First, it clearly illustrates how an element of culture like a dashiki becomes cool in society. As Malcolm Gladwell explains in his essay “The Coolhunt,” the recognition of cool is like a new idea that spreads from one person to another until it saturates society. Drawing on diffusion research, Gladwell describes how the idea that something is cool is first taken up by a small group of “innovators,” which is

155 Madelyn Chung, “Elle Canada Faces Twitter Backlash For Calling Dashiki ‘The Newest It-Item,’” The Huffington Post Canada (August 20, 2015), Accessed October 11, 2016, http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/08/20/elle-canada-dashiki_n_8016342.html 156 Image accessed through Kiah McBride, “Ron Bass Talks.”

131 then embraced by the “early adaptors” who are more visible within society. Subsequently, this visibility helps persuade those of the “early majority” to embrace the new idea of cool as well, and they are then followed by the “late majority,” whom Gladwell describes as “the deliberate and the skeptical masses.”157 Finally, the most conservative group known as the “laggards” also adopt the trending idea of cool, which by that time has long since been abandoned by the innovators in favor of the next new notion of cool.

In the case of the Africa 54 jersey, Bass’s innovation in cool was his use of the dashiki, which then led early adaptors like Beyoncé and June Ambrose to embrace the garment as well.

Because of their celebrity status, these early adaptors helped increase the visibility of the dashiki, which subsequently inspired the early and then the late masses to also perceive its coolness. This recognition ultimately resulted in the increased production and purchase of dashikis from places like Forever 21, as well as the emergence of many other options, which arose to capitalize on the cresting fashion trend. Following the controversy surrounding Elle Canada that came later that same year, the energy surrounding the dashiki took a noticeable decline, and has since been supplanted by other, newer fashion ideas. Significantly, as is the practice of innovators, Bass’s discontinuation of his original line prior to his collaboration with Forever 21 indicates his move to newer iterations of cool long before the dashiki had run its full course through society.

Additionally, Bass’s shifting notion of cool is also evinced in the current garments for sale in his collections showcased on both of his fashion websites, neither of which offer anything like the dashiki that brought him to fame.158

157 Malcolm Gladwell, “The Coolhunt,” The New Yorker, March 17, 1997. 158 Please see “Official Bass By Ron Bass clothing web shop. Can You Feel It?,” Bass By Ron Bass (2016), Accessed October 12, 2016, http://store.bass84.com; and “I am Ron Bass,” I am Ron Bass (2016), Accessed October 12, 2016, http://iamronbass.com

132 In addition to animating cool’s general trajectory, Bass’s dashiki also reveals the specific appetite for African cultural products that exists within the global culture industry. This appetite is driven by the industry’s pursuit of what I refer to as “African cool,” which is essentially a consumer’s presumption of cool bestowed on a product simply because of its association with

Africa. This presumption is quite similar to that of Asian Kool, which was noted in the 1990s in connection with the appropriation of South Asian aesthetics in the UK’s mainstream music scene. Significantly, Asian Kool was critiqued by cultural studies scholars like Virinder S. Karla and John Hutnyk, who argued that although the appropriation of certain South Asian cultural elements like the sitar or the bindi may have “contributed to a progressive visibility of

‘Asianness’ and Asians in Britain,”159 visibility alone was not enough to affect a meaningful transformation in the cultural politics or perceptions of society. Similarly, while African cool has also led to improvements in the global visibility of Africans, as will be detailed below, particularly among those not belonging to the African diasporic world and especially those residing in the West, this presumption of coolness continues to fetishize African culture based on an exotic otherness that coincides rather than conflicts with mainstream perceptions of the continent.

Not surprisingly, African cool has cycled through the culture industry multiple times over its lifespan. Ethnomusicologist Karin Patterson notes that, in the United States “Africa became cool when [B]lack became cool,”160 which began to take shape in the late 1960s after the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the subsequent rise of “Black is Beautiful.” Significantly, the dashiki also became a popular garment in the United States during this period, first appearing in

159 Virinder S. Karla and John Hutnyk, “Brimful of agitation, authenticity and appropriation: Madonna’s ‘Asian Kool,’ Postcolonial Studies, vol. 1, no. 3 (1998), 340. 160 Karin Gaynell Patterson, “Expressions of Africa in Los Angeles Public Performance, 1781-1994,” PhD diss., University of California-Los Angeles (2007), 233.

133 the Black community and gaining visibility through activists like Huey P. Newton and Stokely

Carmichael, before being adapted by White American hippies from the counterculture movement, which increased its popularity and visibility, yet also diluted its political connotations. Consequently, by the time the advertisement shown below in Figure 4.4 appeared in Ebony magazine in 1971, much of the original energy surrounding the dashiki had dissipated in the United States, reducing it to little more than “a great new style” that held the promise to be

“the most colorful garment you ever wore.”

Figure 4.4161 The second wave of African cool arose during what Patterson describes as the “Golden

Age” of African popular music, which took place from roughly 1980 until 1994 in the United

States. During this period, Western interests in African popular music expanded significantly, resulting in an increase in both the production of records by African musicians (and their live performances), as well as the emergence of the “world music” genre.162 Radio programs like

161 Image from Ebony in 1971, vol. 26, no. 9, accessed via Classic Film, “1971 Men’s Fashion Ad, African Dashiki by Eleganza,” Flickr (January 19, 2014), Accessed July 31, 2016, https://www.flickr.com/photos/29069717@N02/12023633856/in/photostream/ 162 This term was invented in the late 1980s with the idea of improving record sales for that had previously been difficult to categorize and market. Ironically, as Timothy Brennan notes, “[w]hat is world music—in the sense

134 KCRW’s African Beat in Los Angeles also became popular during this period, and the dashiki once again made its appearance, such as is seen on African Beat radio host CC Smith in Figure

4.5 below. Significantly, this wave of African cool was also aided by the visibility of the South

African acapella group Ladysmith Black Mambazo, which was attained through their collaboration with Paul Simon on his Graceland album released in 1986. However, much like

Elle Canada and Sarah Jessica Parker, Simon’s engagement with Ladysmith was also criticized as exploitive, as some argued that his commercial success took unfair advantage of an oppressed people and culture.

Figure 4.5163 During this same period, African cool also surfaced in association with , which resulted in several themes such as Afrocentrism and cultural nationalism appearing in the genre’s content and aesthetics. Much as took place in the late 1960s, many Black American hip hop artists began to engage with African culture through fashion during this period, frequently utilizing Egyptian symbolism, African-style dress (most notably the dashiki), and the prominent

of being globally disseminated and popularly, even reverently, internalized almost everywhere—is precisely what is not ‘world music’” (Brennan, 48), that is, “local or regional music that either does not travel well, or has no ambition to travel” (Brennan, 47). However, in spite of this paradox the development of the category significantly helped to further the consumption of non-Western musics in the United States and Europe, which Brennan partially attributes to “a longing in metropolitan centers of Europe and North America for what is not Europe or North America” (Brennan, 45). Timothy Brennan, “World Music Does Not Exist,” Discourse, vol. 23, no. 1, IMPERIAL DISCOURSES: Part II (Winter 2001), 45-8. 163 Image courtesy of CC Smith, private collection.

135 repetition of the Pan-African flag colors red, green and black. Once again, however, these aesthetic practices were coopted over time by the mainstream culture industry and transformed into an apolitical product more easily marketable to a “universal” (read White) audience.

Consequently, direct visual references to African culture were replaced with a more general engagement of African aesthetics, which included visual markers like repetitive patterns, bright colors, symmetry, and intricate designs. Therefore, the colorful African prints found in such items as the dashiki were transformed over time into more universal “urban” styles that engaged these ideas in abstract ways, largely through bright colors and repetitive geometric patterns such as those seen in Figure 4.6 below. Eventually, these colors and patterns were further abstracted

(Figure 4.7), before the cycle of African cool quietly subsided once again.

Figure 4.6164 Figure 4.7165 This most recent wave of African cool, which Bass’s dashiki is a part of, began to surface in the global culture industry around 2010 when the youth culture boom taking place on the continent first began to attract international attention. Due in large part to the effects of Africa

164 Gregory Babcock, “How to Wear Overalls: A Helpful Guide,” Complex (January 22, 2016), Accessed August 10, 2016, http://uk.complex.com/style/2016/01/how-to-wear-overalls-men/ 165 Image from a men’s clothing catalogue called International Male in the 1990s, accessed via “90’s fashion,” Pinterest (No Date), Accessed August 10, 2016, https://www.pinterest.com/jerrygrodrigues/90s-fashion/

136 Rising,166 this boom has since produced an influx of African-made cultural products onto the global market, which has generated more cultural production in peripheral African economies, repositioned some African economies (such as South Africa) closer to the industrial core, and attracted a growing number of Afropolitans and other African business professionals to participate in the cultural production processes from nearer to or within the core.

Additionally, this boom has also increased the opportunities for the appropriation of

African cultural products by others from within the industry. Although, as noted above, African cool began to emerge in the late 1960s, the extent to which the culture industry is now globally integrated has resulted in its more frequent and consistent access to other cultures including— and particularly—African. This access, combined with the increased production of cultural products by Africans globally, has led the industry, which is always in search of the next “it” item, to increasingly turn toward and appropriate from this new resource in an effort to satisfy the public’s insatiable thirst for new products.

Lastly, in association with the culture industry’s pursuit of African cool, Bass’s dashiki also illuminates how, over the course of a product’s journey through the industry, the unique context out of which it originates is stripped away in favor of mass appeal and corporate profits.

As Bass explained about the transformation of his original jersey design when it premiered in

Forever 21 stores:

I didn’t want some people not to get the dashiki because it had Africa written on it. When I first initially did it in my mind it was for our people[,] for [Black Americans], and then the next time it was more so to let the print speak for itself and get anybody and everybody wearing the print that our culture was known for.167

166 Most notably, the increased circulation of African people and cultures resulting from the globalization processes detailed in Chapter 2, and the improved access African people and cultures have gained to the global market (and vice-versa) through the digitization processes discussed in Chapter 3. 167 McBride, “Ron Bass Talks.”

137 Of course, part of the incentive to get “anybody and everybody” wearing the garment was that they would each be paying for the privilege to do so, which meant that both Bass and Forever 21 had a vested interest in making the dashiki appeal to as wide an audience as possible. To accomplish this, Bass stripped away the garment’s most overt connections to Africa, leaving the print alone to conjure the African cool necessary to attract paying customers, while at the same time allowing the relationship to remain abstract so as not to alienate any potential buyers.168

This abstraction, which occurs as a product moves through the cycle of cool and as it gets closer to the global culture industry’s core, is the underlying reason why, as Karla and Hutnyk argue, the visibility generated through such cultural appropriations is not itself enough to transform social norms or mainstream attitudes surrounding minority groups. Additionally, as they explain,

The key problem…is that there is more than one context, more than one public, more than one interpretation and more than one struggle. The contradiction that is to be kept in mind is that the progressive sounds in one space may become the agents of imperialism…in another.169

More specifically, as a cultural product moves through the industry, it is inevitably taken from what is labeled in world-systems analysis as the “periphery” toward the “core,” which, in the case of the global culture industry, is located in the United States, particularly in the major commercial centers of New York City and Los Angeles. As these products approach the core they are transformed to accommodate the expectations of the core’s consumers, which typically requires that their contexts are deemphasized or rewritten in order to more easily fit them into the

168 Significantly, this decision (whether Bass’s or the corporate executives’ at Forever 21) was only one of the most recent acts of contextual erasure that the dashiki has undergone on its journey through the culture industry. Initially, the dashiki was exclusive to West Africa, before the late 1960s when the garment was, as noted above, appropriated by Black Americans and then again by the White hippy counterculture movement. Similar to the sanitation that occurred during the transformation of Bass’s design for Forever 21, as seen above in the 1971 advertisement found in Ebony magazine, by the time this earlier dashiki cycle had been filtered through the culture industry, most of its original connotations had been washed away too. 169 Karla and Hutnyk, “Brimful of agitation,” 347.

138 dominant narratives of mainstream society. Consequently, although the market in the United

States offers the highest levels of global visibility for African cultural products, as is evident through the journey of Bass’s dashiki through the marketplace, this visibility is afforded through the product’s sanitization, thereby restricting its ability to affect meaningful change in mainstream perceptions of Africa. In doing so, the ability of Africans to represent themselves and challenge conventional expectations surrounding their identities, which cultural producers may enjoy in industrial spaces on the periphery, is stifled to accommodate the pursuit of capital as cultural production approaches the core. Significantly, this process of dilution is also parallel to the general trajectory of the worldview of Afropolitanism itself, which was initially embraced by a small group of African people but has since also been diluted by the global culture industry into a cultural commodity (i.e. African cool) on its journey to the core.

To further illuminate these points about African culture and the global culture industry the remainder of this chapter centers on the New York City-based African popular music website

Okayafrica.com (OKA). This website, which its CEO Abiola Oke describes as the “largest online platform for New African Arts and Culture” and “the only platform truly capturing the breadth of the continent’s unprecedented youth culture boom,”170 holds an important position in this current wave of African cultural production. Launched in 2010 by Ginny Suss and Vanessa Wruble,

OKA has been a key contributor to the swelling of African cool in the United States, by representing Africa and its people to a young, hip and politically leftist Western audience. Due to its careful branding and association with parent company Okayplayer.com (OKP), OKA serves as an important resource for the early masses to gain information pertaining to current trends in

African popular culture circulating through the global industry. While the production team at

170 Quoted from OKA CEO Abiola Oke’s LinkedIn profile page “Abiola Oke,” LinkedIn (No Date), Accessed July 22, 2016, https://www.linkedin.com/in/abiolaoke

139 OKA makes a conscious effort to present this cultural content in a nuanced and self-reflexive manner, the website’s location at the global industry’s core provides a different context for the content it features, allowing a subtle repositioning of material to occur, which better coincides with traditional Western narratives of Africa. Therefore, while this commercialization of African culture occurring through OKA does significantly increase the visibility of African people, as is evinced by the African identity constructed through the website, this visibility continues to be constrained by the limitations and shifting contexts that are present near the core.

The Roots of Cool

The first step in unraveling OKA’s relationship with African cultural production is to clarify its role in the circulation of cool within the global industry. As noted above, OKA’s current position within this industry is heavily influenced by its association with parent company

OKP. OKP, which was launched in 1999, was born out of a vision to connect the band “The Roots” with their growing fan base. The Root’s drummer Questlove (Ahmir

Thompson), particularly, wanted to create a space where he could interact directly with Roots fans. As he explained in an interview with Complex magazine:

I would often go to the pages of bands that we toured with and bands that I liked and the only messages on their web sites were a weekly message to their fans. You know, I went to the Fugees page and it wasn’t even halfway updated from The Score. The only information I got that I didn’t know from reading magazines was Q-Tip’s spaghetti and clam recipe on the Tribe Called Quest page.

The first time I ever saw a chat-room board, it was Michael Stipe and Courtney Love fans having a debate about Roxy Music. I was fascinated. And I was like, “Wait a minute: Courtney and Michael Stipe can go real time to their fanbase, but on the hip-hop side of things, I only know that Manhattan clam chowder is the special ingredient to Q-Tip’s spaghetti recipe?[”] I wanted to change all that.171

171 Damien Scott and Benjamin Chesna, “The Oral History of Okayplayer,” Complex (March 8, 2013), Accessed June 23, 2016, http://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2013/03/the-oral-history-of-okayplayer/

140 To enact this change, Questlove teamed up with his friend Angela Nissel and The Root’s band manager Shawn Gee, and together they developed the OKP website,172 which launched from

Questlove’s bedroom in West Philadelphia just days after the release of the group’s fourth album

Things Fall Apart (1999).

In contrast with AHH and AG, from the very beginning the OKP website was developed as a commercial venture and perceived by its owners as a tool with which to promote The Roots band for financial gain. As Gee explained, “Me and Ahmir [Questlove] sat down and said we want to build a Roots website. Back then there was no real business plan. It was more of an advertisement for the albums and shows.”173 Additionally, Gee also recalled that he and

Questlove aimed to create a platform that would encourage fans to revisit the website frequently, in contrast with other band pages at the time, which failed to give fans sufficient incentive to return at all after an initial visit.

To achieve these goals, OKP was updated almost daily with new content regarding the most recent happenings of The Roots, which included some audio and video files as well as still images and written coverage of the band’s tours and other daily activities. In addition, OKP also drew in users with its sharp and witty voice (courtesy of Angela Nissel) and the frequent presence of Questlove, who reportedly spent an average of six hours each day on the website when it first went live.174 Like the trends found on AHH and AG, OKP also introduced message boards around the turn of the millennium, which significantly increased the growth of the community surrounding it. Unlike AHH and AG, however, OKP’s boards were steadily

172 At the time, TheRoots.com was already occupied by a fan, so Questlove and band manager Shawn Gee opted instead to use “okayplayer,” which was an accidental logo they developed and had been including on the band’s albums since the first EP, From the Ground Up, was released in 1994. 173 Scott and Chesna, “Oral History.” 174 As Questlove explained in his interview, before the site went up he “told [Nissel] I’ll be online four hours a day. She thought that was ridiculous. She’s like, ‘No one is on four hours a day.’ I said, ‘I’ll bet you I’ll be online four hours a day.’ When the site first came up, I was on it six hours a day.” Ibid.

141 frequented by many alternative American hip hop celebrities including Questlove, as well as a growing number of other “Okay Players” like Common, Talib Kweli and Jill Scott. The presence of these celebrities significantly enhanced the visibility and reputation of the website worldwide, and ultimately helped elevate its status to that of a “tastemaker” within the global hip hop community.175

Not surprisingly, the first users to begin regularly frequenting the OKP boards were self- identified Roots fans. However, as Gee recalled, “what we started to see in that second wave [of message board users] was that some of these people were just…expressing themselves and communicating with other like-minded individuals.”176 These “like-minded individuals” tended to share similar values and views pertaining to hip hop as well as to other issues like social justice and global politics, which influenced the culture and conversations within the OKP community as it continued to grow. Thus, OKP became “the home of left-of-center music in urban culture,”177 drawing a community of hip hop heads who tended to situate themselves outside of the mainstream, which was often critiqued as a reductive appropriation of the cultural products and practices celebrated among this community.

Between 1999 and 2010 OKP evolved and expanded substantially. What had initially started out as a band page for The Roots had by 2010 transformed into a cultural hub and globally recognized tastemaker brand in the world of hip hop and urban entertainment. During the process of this transformation OKP headquarters had been relocated from Philadelphia,

Pennsylvania to Brooklyn, New York, and the company had amassed a small staff of editors and

175 As Talib Kweli reported, “[i]n ‘99 when the site went live it was like this crazy idea. Okayplayer was the first tatstemaker website. There was no Complex or Nahright or Pitchfork. It was like the first for us—the first prominent tastemaker site for hip-hop.” Ibid. 176 Ibid. 177 Ibid.

142 writers who were responsible for managing the day-to-day business of the website. Significantly, during this period the musical content covered on OKP also expanded to include not only more artists but also a broader range of genres, reflecting the evolving music scene as well as the changing musical tastes of the OKP community. Continuing its position as an alternative space for music outside the mainstream (or as Questlove put it, a “soapbox for the unheard”),178 OKP launched four new websites beginning in 2010, which included the -themed Largeup.com, the EDM-centered okayfuture.com, the jazz-focused revive-music.com and the African popular music-inspired OKA.

OKA, which was the first of these genre-focused okay-offshoots to launch, published its first post on June 28, 2010. Very similar in format to OKP, this new website featured news articles, album and artist reviews, music videos, promotions of upcoming events, coverage of past events, a virtual store featuring Okayafrica merchandise, and a space for visitor discussion, which was linked with the OKP message boards. Like OKP, the OKA website also established a core group of Okayafrican artists, whose work is featured prominently and consistently throughout the website. Significantly, many of these artists had already begun appearing in articles and discussions on OKP prior to this launch, which suggests that some may have already had an established relationship with the OKP brand.179 One Okayafrican of particular note is the well-known Afropop musician of the 1970s Fela Kuti, who, although he died in 1997, is included in OKA’s list of artists, and whose music features prominently in discussions throughout the website.

Significantly, within the context of Gladwell’s flow of cool, this evolution of the Okay brand helps to situate both OKP and OKA within the global culture industry as resources for the

178 Ibid. 179 For example, Bajah + The Dry Eye Crew, whom OKA co-founder Ginny Suss managed previously.

143 early masses. This positioning is most clearly supported by the Okay brand’s close association with celebrity Questlove, which is frequently reiterated in historical accounts of the websites such as the one featured in Complex magazine referenced above. Much as was the effect of

Beyoncé wearing Bass’s dashiki, Questlove’s connection with the Okay-websites serves to legitimize their authority as barometers of cool.180 In the case of OKA, this authority is augmented by the highly visible inclusion of both Femi and especially Fela Kuit as Okayafrican artists, particularly as the later of whom is arguably the most iconic figure in African popular music. Questlove’s admission to Complex magazine that he himself looks to OKA as a resource

(“I use OkayAfrica…so I can find out what interesting music is going on”181) further supports this authority. Moreover, due to his highly publicized role in the creation of the brand, these websites also function as extensions of the drummer himself, thereby implying his embrace of whatever trends in cool are featured within them. Thus, OKA and its parent site OKP both operate as early adaptors in the flow of cool, providing the visibility necessary to encourage the early masses’ embrace and circulation of new trends.

Okay African Cool

One of the most prominent trends to emerge out of these websites has been the rise of

African cool itself within the global industry. As noted above, OKA was launched in mid-2010, which was the same year that African cultural products began to once again peak the interests of

Western consumers. Fresh new music, for example, is the most widely recognized reason to visit the OKA website, which is a fact even supported by the brand’s creator Questlove as noted earlier. In the case of music, this rising interest coincided with the increased production of

180 The growing list of Okayplayer artists also help to provide added legitimacy. As of December 2015 this group consisted of 97 different artists or groups, including NaS, Lupe Fiasco, Kanye West, Jean Grae, John Legend, Frank Ocean, Dr. Dre, DJ Jazzy Jeff, Alicia Keyes and Beyoncé to name a few. 181 Scott and Chesna, “Oral History.”

144 musical content by Africans charted in the previous chapter, which resulted from the improved access to the tools of representation they experienced through the expansion of ICTs and other digital technologies on the continent.

Significantly, as an early adaptor of cool, OKP had already begun embracing these new musical products prior to the notable rise in appetite for African popular music observed among the general masses. For example, evidence of OKP’s interest in African hip hop (beyond K’naan and Akon who had both already made their way into the industry’s mainstream) can be found as early as 2005, when an article reviewing a compilation album released by Black Star Kenya

Records was posted to the website. Admittedly, the author Dantana was largely critical of this compilation because it was not African enough:

I’ll be honest. I was hoping there would be some crazy Fela Kuti samples or a guest appearance from Lady Smith Black Mambazo on this compilation, or basically something distinctly “African” about Black Star Kenya’s sound. Nope. Instead, these rappers from Kenya forsake their regional historical sound in turn for distinctly American styles.182

However, this critique is significant because it reveals not only an interest in and engagement with both past and current African popular artists, but also the desire for something markedly

African to be found in its aesthetics. This desire is further underscored in another review posted by Dantana on OKP a year later, in which the author praises Nigerian MC Science Fiction for his ability to strike a balance between sounding too African and not African enough:

He combines his very 2006-sounding synths and production tricks with drum beats Fela Kuti would be proud of, and often, presumably, his distinctively Nigerian accented voice. Oyejide does get a little preachy on “H.I.V.,” but the chorus brings it back to what’s real, and that is that HIV/AIDS is probably the biggest problem facing Africa today, and that the prevention of its spread is up to the people, an extremely important message.183

182 Dantana, “V/A,” Okayplayer.com (2005), Accessed October 26, 2016, http://www.okayplayer.com/reviews/v_of_a-200601104367.html 183 Dantana, “Wale Oyejide,” Okayplayer.com (2006), Accessed October 26, 2016, http://www.okayplayer.com/reviews/wale-oyejide-200609234760.html

145 In both cases, these reviews point to a growing openness to and appetite for music with what is generally understood as an African aesthetic, which, in addition to language and subject matter, typically involve elements like polyrhythms, collective performance and distinctive instrumentation (drums, rattles thumb pianos, flutes, etc.).184 The embrace of this aesthetic continued to expand in both the website and its audience as the decade wore on, and therefore it is not surprising that in 2009, which was the year before OKA was officially launched, OKP hosted a party on the closing night of the CMJ (College Media Journal) music festival in New

York City titled “Okay Africa!” This event, which featured a broad range of African sounds, was promoted heavily on the OKP website and included several performances by artists who would later come to be identified as Okay Africans.185

Growth of Okayafrica

1500

1000

500

0 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015

Posts Average Likes

Figure 4.8186 The launch of OKA can therefore be seen more accurately as the expansion rather than the emergence of the Okay brand’s embrace of cultural products possessing an African aesthetic, which suggests a growing recognition among the OKA staff of the power of African cool.

184 For a more detailed description of African aesthetics, please see Soul Shava, “The African Aesthetic,” The SAGE Encyclopedia of African Cultural Heritage in North America, edited by Mwalimu J. Shujaa and Kenya J. Shujaa (Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications, 2015), 11-16. 185 Ginger Lynn, “Okayplayer Presents OKAY AFRICA! The Closing CMJ Party!,” Okayplayer.com (2009), Accessed October 26, 2016, http://www.okayplayer.com/news/Okayplayer-Presents-OKAY-AFRICA-The-Closing- CMJ-Party.html 186 Okayafrica.com, Accessed January 4, 2016, http://www.okayafrica.com

146 Notably, this embrace appears to have been quite effective in broadening the company’s fan base as well as in strengthening its position in the global culture industry. As shown in Figure 4.8 above, the website has continued to grow steadily since its initial launch, going from 110 posts in

2010 to 1094 posts in 2015. During that same period the community surrounding OKA has also appeared to grow in a similar manner, as indicated by the average number of Facebook likes these posts have garnered each year, which went from zero in 2010 up to 1417 in 2015.187

Figure 4.9188 Of course, the Okay brand’s engagement with African cool is not the only factor responsible for OKA’s success and growth; however, the website’s consistent engagement with both aural and visual African aesthetics is an important part of the brand. Although the initial format and layout of OKA was almost identical to that of its parent website OKP, the early aesthetics of OKA gave it a distinctly African vibe. As seen above in Figure 4.9, this vibe was conveyed particularly through repetitive geometric patterns and bright coloring, much as was the

187 The average number of comments and google shares each post garnered also supports this analysis, although the numbers were much smaller and therefore could not be included in the same graph with any meaningful affect. From 2010 to 2015 the average number of comments increased from 2.2 to 4.6, while the average number of google shares increased from 1 to 11.4 over the same period. 188 Screenshot of OKA as it was on February 1, 2011, taken from “okayafrica. | Giving you true notes since 247,000 BC,” Wayback Machine, Accessed August 10, 2016, https://web.archive.org/web/20110201145519/http://www.okayafrica.com/

147 case in Western fashion trends during the late 1980s and early 1990s discussed earlier. Although subsequent redesigns of the OKA website have moved it away from some of these earlier and more overtly African aesthetic practices, the imagery showcased in the music videos and large still pictures featured in scrolling banners on the main page and elsewhere continue to convey an aesthetic that is somewhat abstractly, yet still unequivocally, African (Figure 4.10).

Figure 4.10189 In addition to these visual aesthetics, the content featured on OKA also contributes to its

African vibe. Much like on OKP, news articles and multimedia content on OKA cover a wide range of events aimed at the interests of a young, educated, globally conscious and liberal urban audience, but on OKA the focus is specifically on African lives and experiences. Of course, this emphasis is made most apparent through the coverage of new popular urban music made by

African musicians on the continent and in diaspora, but it is also evident in the discussions surrounding African fashion trends, festivals, politics, celebrities and even artwork found elsewhere on the website. For example, on December 9, 2015 OKA posted an article by Ainehi

Edoro titled “Chronicles of Ake: A Firsthand Account From Nigeria’s Biggest Literary Festival,”

189 Screenshot of OKA homepage accessed August 10, 2016.

148 which describes the author’s experiences from take-off to landing as a participant in the arts and book festival held in Abeokuta, Nigeria the previous month. Similarly, in “‘Democrats’

Documentary Takes Us Inside Zimbabwe’s Politics [Exclusive Clip],” author Alyssa Klein discusses a new documentary premiering in New York City that evening, which features the efforts of two men working to draft Zimbabwe’s first democratic constitution.

Effects of the Core

Although OKA maintains a strong focus on African lives and experiences throughout the website, due to its orientation at the core of the global culture industry, its content is nevertheless firmly aimed at a Western, rather than an African audience. First, evidence of this orientation can be found in its direct address to readers in multiple specific US regions. Most notably, much as was the case with AHH in Amsterdam discussed in Chapter 1, numerous articles posted to OKA feature its home town of New York City. The article announcing the official launch of the OKA website, for example, is addressed specifically to a local New York audience, as it is titled “Hey

New York: Today Is the Launch of OKAYAFRICA!”190 Similarly, in an article published a few months later on January 11, 2011, readers are informed that an upcoming concert in New York

City has been rescheduled.191 In fact, nearly 200 posts between 2010 and 2015 have titles aimed directly at these New York readers, with several others addressing American audiences in other major cities like Washington D.C., Boston and Los Angeles. In this way OKA suggests that its first concern is with its American audience, embracing African culture primarily to attract and engage those readers at the core.

190 Gingerlynn, “Hey New York: Today Is The Launch of OKAYAFRICA!,” Okayafrica.com (July 11, 2010), Accessed August 28, 2017 http://www.okayafrica.com/events/nyc-today-is-the-launch-of-okayafrica/ 191 Will Whitney, “Baloji’s NYC Show Rescheduled – Free Show Tonight at the Shrine in Harlem,” Okayafrica.com (January 11, 2011), Accessed August 28, 2017, http://www.okayafrica.com/audio/nyc-baloji-rescheduled-free-show- tonight-at-the-shrine-in-harlem/

149 Similarly, OKA also reflects its location in the core of the global culture industry through its heavy and ongoing emphasis of the iconic Afropop musician Fela Kuti. As noted above, Fela

Kuti was a highly visible and influential Nigerian musician who pioneered the Afropop style in the 1960s and 1970s. While his music and politics certainly made him a widely respected figure in the world of African popular music, his heavy-handed embrace on OKA reflects the limited awareness those at the core typically have of the history of this genre. This limitation is due in large part to the lack of visibility most early African musicians attained in the American market, excepting a small handful of artists like Miriam Makeba, Hugh Masakela, Ladysmith Black

Mambazo, and Fela Kuti. Thus, today in the core these musicians often seem to stand in for the entirety of the genre, such as is seen in Dantana’s expectations regarding an “African sound” voiced in the review of Black Star Kenya Records’ album discussed earlier. Similarly, on OKA

Fela Kuti continues to be engaged as the starting point for understandings of African popular music, which supports rather than challenges the expectations of readers in the core regarding the parameters of the genre. Thus, while OKA does successfully broaden the visibility for many new

African artists, it does so while simultaneously perpetuating the invisibility of others, both past and present.

Figure 4.11192 In addition to promoting this narrow view of African popular music history, OKA also reflects its core positioning through its intended function to educate rather than simply inform its

192 Screenshot of OKA homepage accessed August 10, 2016.

150 audience about issues central to contemporary African life. Evidence of this tendency can be found throughout the website, but is perhaps most clearly illustrated through the interactive map of Africa accessible through the homepage. As seen in Figure 4.11 above, this map allows users to select the name of a country from a list on the right, which will then indicate the appropriate location of the country by highlighting it in purple on the map of Africa seen on the left.

Although the official function of this list is to allow users to filter OKA’s content for easier access to posts pertaining to a specific country, the accompanying map appears to serve primarily as a tool to improve user understanding of African geography.193

Figure 4.12194

Another clear illustration of this educational Western-based approach can be found in the

OKA TV series The Roots Of. This series, which includes six episodes released between

December 18, 2011 and May 20, 2014, focuses on uncovering the African ancestry of participating Black American celebrities. Typically, these three or four-minute clips begin with the participant(s) taking a DNA test, and then follow his/her/their journey as the results of this test are revealed. As is seen in Figure 4.12, which is a screenshot taken from the episode

193 An earlier version of this map was also included on the OKA website prior to this most recent skin change, although here it was only used to connect country names with locations and did not have the ability to filter OKA’s content. 194 Screenshot from Vanessa Wruble, “The Roots of… The Daily Show’s Wyatt Cenac and Jessica Williams Discover Their African Roots” Okayafrica.com (January 27, 2014), Accessed August 10, 2016, http://www.okayafrica.com/video/the-daily-show-wyatt-cenac-jessica-williams-family-history-african-ancestry/

151 featuring The Daily Show’s Jessica Williams, part of this journey often includes introducing the participant to one or more people from the ethnic group he or she is revealed to be descended from. This interaction often includes the donning of traditional dress and the performance of traditional customs by these ethnic group representatives, which is accompanied by a detailed explanation that once again serves to educate both the viewers and participants about African life.

In addition to this educational function, the presentation of African culture on The Roots

Of also reveals a framing of content for Western audiences that is driven by OKA’s position at the core of the global culture industry. Although the aim of the show may be to increase the visibility of African people and cultures by educating viewers and participants about various

African ethnic groups, due to OKA’s location at the core of the industry, the program must also appeal to Western audiences. To accomplish this aim and avoid rejection for not being African enough (such as was charged against the album from Black Star Kenya Records discussed earlier), producers of the program frequently engage familiar stereotypes of African people through things like traditional dress and foreign customs, which ironically, further exoticize and otherize the very identities they seek to humanize.

195 Figure 4.13

195 Images from the Okay Shop, captured via “Indigo Osun Scarf,” Wayback Machine (February 4, 2015), Accessed August 28, 2017,

152

The description of a scarf sold in the OKA Shop seen in Figure 4.13 above further underscores this trend. In it, the author appeals to Western expectations by painting its production process as delightfully traditional (read “primitive”), noting that “cassava paste and a chicken feather are involved!” Additionally, the description also goes on to appeal to Black

American desires to connect with one’s roots, as well as the desires of all American consumers to connect with this hip new trend and exciting culture by suggesting that “donning these scarves may just connect you with something greater than just the warmth and style they provide.”

Although the variety of items sold through this virtual store has declined since its peak in early

2015, OKA continues to promote and sell African and African-inspired merchandise, often engaging African cool through this exotic “authenticity” approach, not only in the OKA store but also in other featured fashion-centered articles like “‘Made in Africa’ Show Company ‘Oliberte’

Featured on CNN”196 and “The Top 5 Most Stylish Collections From Lagos Fashion and Design

Week.”197

Access and Power

This approach to African culture is particularly significant when considered in conjunction with the interests and identities of those individuals participating in the production of the OKA website. Especially in its early years, most staff members at OKA boasted European rather than African ancestral roots; however, these individuals, perhaps in particular, demonstrated a sincere and ongoing investment in addressing African experiences, cultures and

http://web.archive.org/web/20150204082917/http://shop.okayplayer.com:80/collections/okayafrica/products/indigo- osun-scarf 196 Will Whitney, “‘Made in Africa’ Show Company ‘Oliberte’ Featured on CNN,” Okayafrica.com (February 10, 2011), Accessed November 1, 2016, http://www.okayafrica.com/featured/made-in-africa-shoe-company-oliberte- featured-on-cnn/ 197 Munje Foh, “The Top 5 Most Stylish Collections From Lagos Fashion and Design Week,” Okayafrica.com (November 17, 2015), Accessed November 1, 2016, http://www.okayafrica.com/culture-2/lagos-fashion-and-design- week-2015-top-collections/

153 perspectives through the website. OKA founders Ginny Suss and Vanessa Wruble, for example, both share a deep knowledge of African music and commitment to the continent. As described in their biographies, Suss “spent significant time in Sierra Leone with Bajah + The Dry Eye

Crew…who she managed from 2008-2013,”198 while Wruble has “lived and worked in Sierra

Leone, Nigeria, Gabon, Sao Tome & Principé, and Equatorial Guinea,”199 in addition to serving as an international correspondent for a television news station and as a communications specialist for the United Nations. Similarly, OKA’s managing editor Aaron Leaf also notes in his biography that he has lived in both Lusaka, Zambia and Monrovia, Liberia, in addition to having focused much of his previous professional writings on African politics and international affairs.

In addition to the stated interests of OKA employees in their biographies, the effort to emphasize African perspectives and experiences through the website is also evident in the attempts to challenge or critique conventional Western presumptions surrounding the continent made in posted articles. The most apparent of these efforts can be found in the column “The Side

Eye,” which ran a total of twenty articles between September 29, 2011 and April 12, 2012. In this column, the author Allison Swank200 highlights problematic elements of Western perceptions, typically by critiquing a specific practice or exchange that has transpired involving the West and Africa (or another minority group). For example, in “The Side Eye: Charity Sends

Used Underwear to Africa,” Swank calls out a charity campaign in Australia for sending second- hand undergarments to Zimbabwe, noting “[t]he yuck aspect of shipping off skid marks to Africa

198 “Team,” Okayafrica.com, Accessed August 10, 2016, http://www.okayafrica.com/team/ 199 Ibid. 200 There were two occasions when Swank was not the named author of a Side Eye article: Vanessa Wruble, “The Side Eye: It’s Never Too Late – ‘YYES, WE KNOW IT’S M-F’ing XMAS!!!!,’” Okayafrica.com (December 25, 2011), Accessed November 1, 2016, http://www.okayafrica.com/news/the-side-eye-its-never-too-late-yes-we-know- its-m-fing-xmas/; and, Killakam, “The Side Eye: Nas Promoter Held Hostage In Angola,” Okayafrica.com (January 11, 2012), Accessed November 1, 2016, http://www.okayafrica.com/news/the-side-eye-nas-promoter-held-hostage- in-angola/

154 (the website calls it ‘pre-loved lingerie’), combined with the fact that folks in poor countries have already said they don’t want your old crap warrants a side eye for this story.”201 Swank’s critique is revealing, both of her desire to privilege an African perspective by pointing out how unappealing the thought of wearing someone else’s used underwear is, as well as of her presumption that the OKA audience is a group of similarly self-aware Westerners (evident in the way she addresses the audience and through her implied distain for “busy bodies” who send in their old underwear “to feel charitable”). This attitude is further supported in many other articles found throughout the website, such as in one-off pieces like OKA’s inaugural post “Video: Goal

Diggers, The Daily Show at World Cup 2010,” which shared a clip of the American satire news program The Daily Show that employed a similarly sarcastic tone to shed light on the problematic practices of the Western organization FIFA in South Africa.

Significantly, these types of overt critiques of Western perceptions of Africa were relatively common in the first few years of OKA; however, this approach began to mellow around 2012 when columns like “The Side Eye” were discontinued. Although OKA still privileges African perspectives and experiences throughout its content, the sarcastic tone and aggressive critique of Western views common to many of its early articles has gradually been replaced by a more positive and celebratory focus on African-led stories. The disappearance of

“The Side Eye” column, for example, coincided with the emergence of a column called “Deeper

Than The Headlines,” which is a perfect illustration of this trend because both are aimed at illuminating African experiences, yet the latter does so by engaging African stories with a positive approach. To clarify this point, consider the article “Deeper Than The Headlines:

201 Allison Swank, “The Side Eye: Charity Sends Used Underwear to Africa,” Okayafrica.com (March 16, 2012), Accessed November 1, 2016, http://www.okayafrica.com/news/the-side-eye-charity-sends-used-underwear-to- africa/

155 Nigerian English, Western Journalism in Kenya + More,” in which author Maryam Kazeem writes:

We’re not sure this qualifies as news, and despite Kperogi’s intentions [in his piece titled “Top 50 Words Nigerians Commonly Mispronounce”] this piece can still read a bit condescending at times. However, placing all of that aside this article is certainly interesting as it attempts to work through how Nigerians pronounce English words, which I think most can agree is interesting to say the least.202

Kazeem’s willingness to look past the condescension in Kperogi’s essay is in stark contrast with

Klein’s highly critical take on similar problematic engagements with Africa described earlier.

While both are successful in pointing out moments of Western shortcomings in their essays, the latter does so far more gently, thereby indicating a significant change in the tone on OKA.

Name Posts % of Year Total CasperKatie 33 30.0% Gingerlynn 23 20.9% Will Whitney 15 13.6% Vanessa Wruble 10 9.0% 2010 Total 81 73.6%

Figure 4.14 This shift toward a more positive approach on OKA coincides with the growing presence of people who present themselves as African working for the website. As noted above, the OKA staff and contributors appeared to be primarily White and Western during the company’s first few years, which is suggested by the names of many of the authors that were included on articles during this early period.203 In 2010, for example, there were four key writers who authored most

202 Maryam Kazeem, “Deeper Than The Headlines: Nigerian English, Western Journalism in Kenya + More,” Okayafrica.com (March 14, 2013), Accessed November 1, 2016, http://www.okayafrica.com/featured/african-news- headlines-nigerian-english-western-journalism-kenya/ 203 Although names do not always accurately reflect a person’s racial or ethnic identity—and particularly in virtual spaces where users can easily present alternate personas—most names used on OKA are revealing and appear to be genuine (typically listing both first and last), which is consistent with the professional, business-oriented environment of the website, where both regular and freelance writers would aim to get credit for their professional work. Furthermore, the use of names on the website also helps to establish a sense of ownership and geography within the virtual space, such that the impression of early OKA was one of a Western dominated community, regardless of the true nationalities or racial demographics of the contributors.

156 OKA’s posts as shown in Figure 4.14 above. Although “Will Whitney” is a somewhat racially and ethnically ambiguous name, it seems likely that all four of these individuals are Western, and at least three of the four are also most likely of European descent.204 The following year in 2011 the number of core writers on OKA doubled from four to eight; however, as seen in Figure 4.15 below, this growth included no major perceivable changes to the demographics of the group, as information posted on OKA situates both “Killakam” and “Allison Swank” as White Westerners,

“Okayafrica” suggests a generic staff writer (who by default is interpreted as Western due to the location and identity of the company), and much like “Will Whitney,” “Zack Isaac” conveys a vaguely Western, yet somewhat ambiguous, identity.

Name Posts % of Year Total Killakam 178 27.5% Allison Swank 96 14.8% Vanessa Wruble 72 11.1% Gingerlynn 59 9.1% Zach Isaac 51 7.9% Will Whitney 50 7.7% CasperKatie 30 4.6% Okayafrica 12 1.9% 2011 Total 548 84.6%

Figure 4.15 During these first two years, while a handful of names appeared in association with content on OKA that suggested a small African presence on the website, many of these appearances where one-time events, and none of the authors became consistent or significant contributors to the website. However, in 2012 three African names began appearing with some regularity on OKA—Bongani Kona, Poundo and Maryam Mtsi—which coincides with this shift

204 “CasperKatie,” much like “Milk” on AG, suggests Whiteness through the use of wordplay, which is a common practice in hip hop and urban culture. In this case, “Casper” refers to “Casper the friendly ghost,” which is a simile for White because it is the color that ghosts are most often associated with (as in “white as a ghost”). Meanwhile, the racial identity of both Wruble and Gingerlynn (Ginny Suss) are known because they have headshots of themselves on the website.

157 in approach to the presentation of African perspectives and the West. Although Western participants without African ancestry continue to maintain a strong presence on OKA and particularly in positions of power (still holding five out of the nine listed staff positions in

December 2015), since 2012, many—though not all—of the regular contributors that have started appearing on OKA have established themselves with African identities, either through names, images and/or biographies located on the website. Most notably, this increase in African participation and visibility is exemplified through the introduction of Abiola Oke as OKA’s new

CEO in May of 2015, which will be discussed in greater detail below.

The growing inclusion of Africans as staff members and writers on OKA helped to change the approach found on the website in two distinct ways. First, Africans were increasingly able to speak for themselves using their own voices, which meant that the content on OKA began to reflect African perspectives and experiences more directly, rather than those filtered through

Western interpretations. For example, whereas American writers on OKA may have judged the best way to privilege African perspectives was to highlight instances of Western ignorance surrounding the continent, African writers in contrast appeared to prefer stories of African development and success. The result of this shift was a softer, more positive tone made evident through much of the content on OKA, and a stronger focus on admirable people and events rather than examples of problematic Western relations.

At the same time, the increased visibility of Africans participating in the production processes of OKA also helped to validate the website’s position of authority on African culture.

As noted above, prior to 2012 OKA was run by a group of individuals who were primarily White and Western. Although this staff was generally quite knowledgeable about and passionately engaged with African issues and culture, the lack of African presence on OKA in its early years

158 made the site ripe for critiques of Western exploitation and appropriation. As a result, these early writers’ very vocal, very critical, self-aware stance as enlightened outsiders served as a means to circumvent such critiques, which was an effort further supported through the strong emphasis placed on the staff’s qualifications in relation to Africa. However, as Africans became more visibly involved in the production processes of the website, their presence itself came to serve as a form of authentication for OKA, thus over time minimizing the need for these earlier, more aggressive practices.

The most visible illustration of this increase in African participation on OKA is the introduction of Abiola Oke as the company’s new CEO. As CEO, Oke is responsible for the development of both the OKA website and its larger brand image, and per to his bio, his aim is to

“oversee the evolution of Okayafrica to ensure that the company grows to its full potential.”205

Since his hire, Oke seems to have made noticeable strides toward this goal, as the appearance of the website has since been revamped, making it more distinct and independent from its parent website OKP. In addition, as noted earlier, the OKA shop has also been streamlined and refocused, now selling more music and less clothing than before Oke’s arrival.

Significantly, in addition to these perfunctory changes, Oke’s visibility in the company’s highest and most powerful position also helps to further minimize OKA’s risk of criticism for being yet another American company appropriating and/or exploiting African culture. Ironically, however, his primary role at OKA has been to improve the American company’s pursuit of financial and commercial success, which ultimately relies on its continued ability to capitalize off African culture for a largely American audience. Unlike Ginny Suss and Vanessa Wruble who both exhibit extensive knowledge of and passion for African music and culture as their

205 “Team,” Okayafrica.com, Accessed August 10, 2016, http://www.okayafrica.com/team/

159 primary qualification for founding and running the website, Oke’s background is in economics and finance, which is heavily emphasized throughout his OKA bio.206 Although Oke is also said to produce music in his spare time, in contrast to Suss, this interest is framed as a hobby rather than as an important part of his career, which minimizes its significance to his current role with the company. Therefore, Oke’s involvement with the website reveals a strong desire to better develop the company as a business, which ultimately moves it further away from its initial focus on promoting the visibility and Western understanding of African culture.

In all cases, these changes call attention to the complex relationship between visibility and power that is experienced by participants in the global culture industry’s core. As shown above, the increase in African participation on OKA resulted in a noticeable shift in the tone and content of the website, which reflects these participants’ ability to exercise power in the process of selecting and presenting material. However, at the same time this power is also constrained by the pursuit of commercial success, which necessitates that the continent and its people be presented in ways that largely coincide rather than conflict with the pre-established expectations of the core’s consumers. Although these restrictions do not prohibit the presentation of new perspectives or interpretations of Africa entirely, as shown above, they often limit the extent to which new ideas are introduced.

Afropolitan Identity in Your Earbuds

The construction of African identity found in OKA’s mixtape series Africa In Your

Earbuds (AIYE) is a particularly revealing illustration of these trends in representation. Much like the writers and staff members of OKA, the DJs of this series are each tasked with compiling a product (in this case a mixtape) that they deem to be reflective of Africa. Beyond this general

206 For example, prior to accepting the job at OKA, Oke worked for several finance companies including Morgan Stanley and Citibank, and had most recently worked as the Vice President for Barclays PLC.

160 theme—to put Africa in listeners’ earbuds—there are no restrictions or guidelines given to the

DJs, which has resulted in an incredibly diverse compilation of sounds. Interestingly, the DJs’ responses to the question “What does Africa Sound like?” have been framed through their accompanying descriptions in highly personal ways, reflecting connections to their own identities and relationships with Africa rather than some broader, more abstract or general concept. Hence, AIYE provides a useful lens through which to examine the construction of

African identity on OKA, revealing the successes and the limitations of commercial representation of Africa through the website.

As the first edition in this audio series, Chief Boima’s AIYE mix helps to establish the tone and general outline of the project. Aptly titled “Episode One,” Boima’s hour-long mixtape showcases a highly eclectic playlist of mostly contemporary music recorded by artists either from the continent or residing in diaspora. In addition to the mix itself, the post announcing it also includes a brief overview of the featured DJ, in this case painting Boima as a young, educated, highly successful artist and global citizen, who was, at the time of the piece’s writing,

“somewhere in Liberia wrapping his head around urbanism, globalization and, as some in [the

OKA] office would hope, daggering in Freetown not far from ancestral hometown.”207 Notably, in addition to this general introduction, the author also works to frame the mix as a reflection of

Boima’s own personal relationship with the continent:

What I really love about this shit is the range; it gives you the breadth of an actual Chief Boima club set from afropop to soca to / and house. My favorite moments, though, are double-time and digital; the points where Ghana and Angola synchs up with a flash of “Black & Yellow” or “Look At Me Now” – probably because of all the conversations with Boima, where he’s talked about that being his zone, his micro-climate: the African in African-American.208

207 Vanessa Wruble, “The Okayafrica Mixtape Series: AFRICA IN YOUR EARBUDS #1,” Okayafrica.com (July 17, 2011), Accessed July 7, 2016, http://www.okayafrica.com/audio/the-okayafrica-mixtape-series-africa-in-your- earbuds-1/ 208 As written by Eddie Stats on OKP. Quoted from Wruble. Ibid.

161

By drawing this link between Boima’s approach to blending sounds and his African diasporic identity, this text frames his mix as an extension of the DJ himself. Because of this framing,

Boima’s mix becomes not simply an aural representation of Africa but rather, a representation of his own personal understanding of the continent and his identity.

In addition to articulating themselves through the audio project, many guest DJs have also demonstrated their agency in shaping a reflection of Africa by using AIYE as a platform to broaden listeners’ understanding of the continent. For example, in AIYE #61, DJ Roach of Cape

Town’s rap group Dookoom explicitly describes how he sought to use his mix to showcase unknown local artists from his community:

This mixtape was inspired by the people of Cape Town. There are so many good artists on the Cape Flats who are still learning the craft. So basically I dedicate this to them…so that they keep chasing their dreams. Will do more mixtapes like this to try to expose more MCs that didn’t make it on my 1st ever mixtape of this nature.209

While significantly, Roach also goes on to frame the mix as his Africa (he closes by saying that he is “very humbled by the opportunity to share a little bit of my Africa”210), his primary emphasis is firmly trained on using AIYE as a tool through which to generate visibility for unknown artists. In doing so, Roach works to broaden listeners’ knowledge of Cape Town hip hop and expand understandings of Africa in general by shedding light on new musicians and sounds coming from the continent.

Nigerian-American writer Teju Cole’s AIYE # 64 also demonstrates a clear use of freedom and control in his effort to expand listeners’ understandings of Africa. Using both the music playlist and the text surrounding it, Cole works specifically to recreate a Friday night club

209 DJ Roach, quoted from Killakam, “AFRICA IN YOUR EARBUDS #61: DOOKOOM,” Okayafrica.com (January 20, 2015), Accessed July 8, 2016, http://www.okayafrica.com/news/dookoom-mixtape-africa-earbuds-61/ 210 Ibid.

162 experience in Lagos, Nigeria.211 His thematic choice is both incredibly unique and also, at the same time, quite common, as many AIYE respondents choose to focus their mixes on a single country or around a specific idea.212 In addition to drawing the listeners in and expanding their understandings of contemporary life in Lagos, Cole also uses his mix to point out the limitations of the AIYE project as a whole:

Like any big and active cultural practice, there’s a basic core of forms that sustains the rapidly changing specifics. Last year’s Lagos playlist isn’t this year’s. This year’s will share elements with next year’s, but no one knows yet what next year’s big hit will be, what minor inflection will introduce a whole new feeling to the music. Such is the rate of change that a song from three years ago already sounds old-fashioned. In that sense, there’s no “typical” Lagos playlist. It must be specific to the date…

So, this playlist is a fiction. I mix time periods freely, the same way the music itself (finely mixed here by the great Chief Boima) mixes influences…This is a Lasgidi of the mind…213

By calling attention to the fiction of his own list and underscoring its inability to truly represent the city of Lagos (let alone the entire African continent), Cole poses a direct challenge to the traditional Western views of Africa as a monolithic continent and people frozen in (or rather outside of) time. In doing so, Cole reflects not only his identity but also his ability to act freely

211 In his piece, which he has titled “One Night in Lasgidi,” Cole writes, “It doesn’t really get good until about 1 am, but you do want to be there by then, because you’d like to get in at least two solid hours of dancing by the time the clubs shut down. Afterward you run the gauntlet of cops on Falomo Bridge. “Oga, anything for us?” “Ehn, don’t worry, on my way back.” And on the way back, you lie. “Officer, I already saw you before na. You no remember?” Naturally, you’re not trying to drive to the Mainland at that hour. You’ve made arrangements to sleep in some Island neighborhood, assuming you’re not rich enough to already live there: Ikoyi, V.I., Lekki 1, Lekki 2, Lekki 3, Ajah. At this hour, you’re taking the uncannily clear roads at speed, stopping not even for traffic lights. The breeze is blowing, the great lagoon sleeps. Twenty-one million people are in whatever form of shelter they call home, these human energies at rest, numerous as the stars above the endless city. The past two hours begin to come back to you, a blur of moves and bodies, and the two or three things you saw and were reluctant to believe, good things, bad things, badt guys, as Lagosians say, and bad gyals dem. Teju Cole, “AFRICA IN YOUR EARBUDS #64: TEJU COLE – ‘ONE NIGHT IN LASGIDI,’” Okayafrica.com (July 7, 2015), Accessed July 7, 2016, http://www.okayafrica.com/audio/africa-in-your-earbuds/teju-cole-mixtape-africa-in-your-earbuds-64/ 212 For example, #8 – DJ Sabine, #16 – Petite Noir, #27 – LV, #40 – Desmond & the Tutus, #50 – Elijah Wood, #60- Mikael Seifu and #62 – Maramza. 213 Teju Cole, “AFRICA IN YOUR EARBUDS #64.”

163 within the space, engaging it as an opportunity to present a piece of himself while also broadening readers’ understandings of Lagos, Nigeria and Africa.

While many of these DJs are actively exercising their power and challenging mainstream interpretations of Africa, AIYE mixtapes and their accompanying descriptions also engage the aura of African cool currently percolating through the global industry. While there are many examples of this relationship between cool or African cool and the AIYE project,214 one of the most striking is AIYE #50, which is mixed by the American actor and hobbyist DJ Elijah Wood.

Admittedly, Elijah Wood’s inclusion in this AIYE project is initially striking, primarily because he is known for being a successful Hollywood actor without any highly publicized or visible connections to the continent. However, in the introduction of his mix author Killakam reveals

Wood as part of a growing community of young Americans who collect vintage African vinyl records, which also includes his friend Zach Cowie, who is the guest DJ responsible for the following AIYE mix #51. Throughout these two introductions the trendy nature of African music is frequently alluded to, whether it be by calling attention to the wealth of records currently being released in the global industry, or the growing popularity of an African music-themed spin session at an LA club where the two DJs perform together. As Cowie explains of his recent development in musical taste, “[t]here are few things I like more than records from Africa,”215 which further underscores the current draw of cool for things seen as African. Although subtle at times, these references all point to a growing energy surrounding the trending embrace of

214 One of my favorites is the introduction written by Vanessa Wruble of Sinkane’s AIYE mix (#2), which opens by bragging, “If we start namedropping all the elite indie bands that Sinkane (aka Ahmed Gallab) has played with (…currently Yeasayer previously Caribou, of Montreal, and Born Ruffians…), you’re going to accuse us of being hipster-than-thou. Which we probably are.” Vanessa Wruble, “AFRICA IN YOUR EARBUDS #2 – SINKANE,” Okayafrica.com (July 28, 2011), Accessed August 28, 2017, http://www.okayafrica.com/audio/africa-in-your- earbuds-2-sinkane/ 215 Zach Cowie, quoted in Killakam, “AFRICA IN YOUR EARBUDS #51: ZACH COWIE,” Okayafrica.com (April 23, 2014), Accessed November 7, 2016, http://www.okayafrica.com/audio/africa-in-your-earbuds/african- mixtapes-earbuds-zach-cowie/

164 African music, which helps to further validate both the AIYE project and the OKA website as at the forefront of cool.

The position of OKA within the global culture industry is also evident at many points in the AIYE project. For example, in AIYE #23, Black American poet and actor Saul Williams crafts a mix that is strongly reflective of his positionality in the core. As noted above, the heavy emphasis placed on Fela Kuti as the starting point for African music is a running theme on the

OKA website, and is a product of the limited visibility African musicians enjoyed during the

1960s and 1970s in the core. Not surprisingly then, Williams reiterates this relationship, describing Fela Kuti as the beginning point in his own journey through African music.

Additionally, much of Williams’ mix is also focused on more traditional sounds and performers from this early period, which aligns more closely with mainstream Western expectations surrounding African music. Thus, while the object of AIYE is arguably to expand listeners’ musical understanding of what African music is, in this mix, as well as others put together especially by Western DJs, preconceived expectations about the continent are upheld rather than disrupted.

It must also be noted that rather than simply raising the question of Africa’s sound and then sharing participants’ responses on its website, OKA itself also actively influences the shape of the continent’s reflection in this series. First and foremost, this influence occurs through its selection of the guest DJs. Between Boima’s inaugural mix premiered on July 17, 2011 and

December 31, 2015, AIYE released seventy-six original mixes, which have been assembled by seventy-four different curatorial DJs or DJ groups. Although these DJs have come from a very broad range of regional, ethnic and musical backgrounds, they all share a connection to Africa in

165 some form, as well as a noticeable degree of celebrity, usually within the music world.216 In addition, particularly in the beginning stages of this series, many of these guest DJs also demonstrated some form of connection with the Okay brand, either directly as an OKA or OKP artist, or as a resident DJ in the New York City area. While over time this direct brand- connection has grown somewhat less apparent, the website’s DJ selections continue to allude to a heavy reliance on personal networks, primarily through the DJs’ introductions posted on the website. Therefore, the AIYE guest DJs reflect OKA’s own unique take on African identity by including those voices they deem important and worthy of attention.

DJs in Africa Djs in the West 39 18 8 4 3 2 1 1 1 1

Figure 4.16 Again, these DJ selections also reveal OKA’s core position in the global culture industry.

Although the current city of residence for AIYE guest DJs is not always clear, for those who can be identified with a specific location, it is apparent that OKA has a strong tendency to favor DJs living in a small handful of countries. Most notably, as seen in Figure 4.16 above, these DJs tend to reside in major cities in the United States, particularly New York City and Los Angeles. On

216 AIYE #5, for example, was put together by two members from the afrofuturist group Just A Band, whereas AIYE #21 and # 39 were organized by KCRW radio program host Mathieu Shreyer.

166 the African continent, South Africa also clearly serves as an easily accessible location, especially from its most popular hubs of Cape Town and Johannesburg, which aligns with its changing location in the industry as it moves closer to the core. In all cases, as noted earlier, these cities coincide with the commercial centers for cultural production, thus clearly reaffirming the flow of products to the core from the periphery.

In this way, the representation of African Identity crafted through the AIYE series is that of a young, urban, educated, mobile, culturally hybrid and relatively affluent Afropolitan. This identity is positively reiterated in many ways through to OKA website, not least of which is the prominent inclusion of OKA (now OKP) artist Blitz the Ambassador, whose first album

Afropolitan Dreams was discussed in the introduction of this project. Additionally, AIYE #74 is curated by writer Minna Salami, who founded the well-known blog MsAfropolitan. Significantly,

Salami’s participation in the AIYE series is also part of a recent concerted effort to increase female inclusion in the project, as she is one of only six female DJs to organize an AIYE mix, three of which have been featured within the last year. Prior to 2016 male DJs were overwhelming dominant in both the AIYE series and the OKA space more generally, thus also painting its take on African identity as heavily masculine.

The AIYE series is therefore an expansion of traditional Western understandings of the continent and yet, at the same time, it also remains a narrow representation of contemporary

African life. The image of an Afropolitan is a significant move forward from the entrenched

Western stereotypes that paint Africans as poor, uneducated, helpless and hopeless savages, cut off from the rest of the world and frozen outside of time. However, this image is also misleading, because, as elsewhere, it overshadows all other experiences of African life in the mixtape project, creating the impression that all of Africa is now flying easily around the world and living

167 in lively urban centers, where poverty, exploitation and corruption only exist as problems of the past. While AIYE provides clear evidence that for some Africans, this is indeed the case, it continues to leave out many groups that do not enjoy the same levels of access to freedom and power, resulting in the missing voices of Africans residing in rural areas, the LGBT community, sex workers, the poor, and women, to name a few. Thus, much like the individual mixes function in relationship to the guest DJs in the series, AIYE itself reflects OKA’s own relationship with

Africa, which is highly informed by its role as a commercial business at the core of the global culture industry.

Conclusions on Commercialization

Through OKA then, the effects of commercialization on African culture become apparent. Much as was the case with the earlier themes of Africa Rising, this process of commercialization has also made African identity more visible, diverse and abstract. As shown above, particularly since 2010, the embrace of African culture in the global industry has significantly increased the visibility of African culture, lives and experiences, which, through the improved circulation of products around the world, has elevated the awareness of African lives internationally. On OKA this visibility has improved as the commercial success of the website itself has increased, thus allowing both to reach and entice more consumers with African cultural products, which in turn inspires the interest of more commercial enterprises and further encourages the embrace of African cool in the global industry.

In association with this increased visibility, commercialization has also led to an increase in the diversity of African identity. As has been illustrated through this analysis of OKA, the rise in popularity and availability of African cultural products through the global industry has led to the rise of the Afropolitan and the increased awareness of this experience among the

168 international community. Prior to this development, as has been detailed in the previous chapter, representations and understandings of Africans circulating beyond the continent were defined in relatively narrow terms and reflected a largely rural, tribal, uneducated, poor, oppressed and exclusively Black identity. The Afropolitan identity, in contrast, suggests an ethnically mixed, geographically dispersed, highly affluent and liberally educated version of the African experience. Therefore, the emergence of the Afropolitan serves to complicate such a narrow understanding, thus resulting in a more diverse reflection of identity despite its own limitations and shortcomings.

Finally, commercialization has also contributed to the growing abstraction of African identity. This abstraction has largely taken place because of African products being processed through the culture industry. As was illustrated through the evolution of the dashiki detailed above, the journey of a product through the culture industry is often marked by several transformations. For example, whereas the dashiki was initially appropriated from West Africa by Black Americans who sought to visibly articulate their African identity, this connection to

Africa became less concrete when the dashiki gained popularity amongst White American hippies in the counterculture movement. Similarly, the overt expression of African identity also became more abstract as Bass’s dashiki progressed from its original design to the subsequent iterations. In both cases, these illustrations reveal how abstraction occurs when the original product is modified to attract more interest and encourage consumption, as well as how specific meanings associated with such items can change over time as they are removed from their original contexts.

169 Chapter 5 Mind over Matter: The Future of Afropolitanism, Rising and Identity

Figure 5.1217 Blitz the Ambassador’s fourth and most recent full-length album, Diasporadical, was released in mid-December of 2016 (Figure 5.1). Extending many of the practices that he had begun to develop in his earlier works, this newest project is also a lyrically dense, polyrhythmic amalgamation of various cultural practices and aesthetics originating in both Africa and the

West. Bright trumpets and saxophones blend with djembes, thumb pianos and electric guitars to create global sonic tapestries that serve as the backdrop to Blitz’s meditations on the African experience. Just as in his other works, these meditations are often deeply personal, reflecting

Blitz’s own surroundings and circumstances as he understood them during the fabrication of the project.

However, alongside these familiar practices, Blitz has also introduced something new.

Whereas Afropolitan Dreams (2014) is focused heavily on Blitz’s experiences as an African immigrant struggling to maintain a sense of self while living and working in New York City,

217 Album cover for Diasporadical (2016) obtained from “Diasporadical | Jakarta Records,” Bandcamp (December 16, 2016), Accessed July 30, 2017, https://jakartarecords-label.bandcamp.com/album/diasporadical

170 Diasporadical (2016), instead, focuses on his life as a globally successful performer. Beyond the notable character progression this distinction indicates regarding himself as a maturing artist, this thematic shift also reveals an important transformation in Blitz’s thinking. As is explained in the detailed description of Diasporadical posted to its Bandcamp page, Blitz spent a significant amount of time traversing between Accra, Brooklyn, and Salvador () during the making of the album. Consequently, his focus is more heavily centered on the cultural connections and shared experiences found throughout the African Diaspora world, which, as pointed out in the album’s summary, is best illustrated by the song “A(wake),” inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States, the Fees Must Fall movement in South Africa and the Afro-

Brazilian protests during the Summer Olympics of 2016.218

At the same time, notably absent from this musical discussion is any direct mention of the word Afropolitan. Although many of its tropes like movement and hybridity still feature prominently throughout the project, its lack of explicit reference indicates a shift in the landscape of African identity. In contrast with the boisterous chatter and impassioned debates surrounding the term in 2014, interest among Africans in the mainstream now seems to have largely moved on to other topics. Thus, whereas Blitz’s third album Afropolitan Dreams served as a vehicle for his own entry and participation into this larger conversation, its conspicuous absence here raises the important question: was Afropolitanism merely a fad?

The answer, I believe, is both yes and no, depending on which iteration of Afropolitanism one is talking about. As I argue in the opening chapter of this project, at its foundation,

Afropolitanism is an African-based worldview that developed in response to the continent’s rich cultural and ethnic diversity. As outlined by Achille Mbembe, at the root of this view is a deep

218 Ibid.

171 comfortability with difference and a willingness to accept that which is foreign, which results in the development of a global consciousness and embrace of cultural hybridity. While this mentality has long been exhibited by various African people, it became noticeably more common in the mid-1970s when members of the New African Diaspora began going abroad in growing numbers. The introduction of digital technologies in the 1990s heightened the visibility of this worldview by facilitating the more privileged of these individuals’ improved access to the tools of representation. In response, the developing aesthetics and cultural products that began to emerge as part of this representational process were usurped and further reduced by the global culture industry. The result of these events has been the formation of three distinct threads of

Afropolitanism, which are connected, but not interchangeable with one another.

The first type of Afropolitanism is that which has recently surfaced in the global culture industry, and which engages African cultural products and aesthetics as a means of selling merchandise to consumers. The recent popularity of African cool as a commercial trend in the industry is a clear illustration of this type of Afropolitanism, which is shown through the fleeting life of Ron Bass’s dashiki jersey detailed in Chapter 4, as well as the dying public interest surrounding conversations of the term itself. This version of Afropolitanism has understandably garnered significant scorn from critics like Binyavanga Wainaina and Emma Dibiri, who, as detailed in Chapter 1, argue that such changes are largely superficial and contribute little of substance to understandings of contemporary African issues or identity. Thus, I predict that like

Bass’s jersey, this iteration is indeed a dying fad, that will likely reemerge later in a slightly different form.

The second type of Afropolitanism is somewhat more substantial. This version centers around the cohort of young, well-educated, affluent African people who make up part of the

172 Rising Generation. This specialized segment of the group came of age during the dramatic transformations of Africa Rising, and often spent at least a portion of their lives in diaspora.

Consequently, they draw from a diverse cultural palette and are prone to global thinking, embracing a view of themselves, much like Taiye Selasi describes, as “Africans of the

World.”219 Because of their affluence and globalized thinking, these individuals have often been at the forefront of developmental changes on the continent, prompting their labeling by others like George B. N. Ayittey as the Cheetah Generation. Given that this form of Afropolitanism is tied to a group of people rather than a commercial trend, the labeling of it is as a fad is less appropriate here. However, as time progresses the group will continue to mature, many of them ultimately having children of their own. Although it is likely these children will also experience their own iteration of the Afropolitan identity, it will also be somewhat different in response to their unique set of circumstances. Therefore, while this version of Afropolitanism is not merely a passing fad, it too, will ultimately fade away in favor of a newer understanding of the experience put forth by the next generation.

The third and final type of Afropolitanism, however, is the most enduring of the three.

This endurance is attributed to the fact that this form of Afropolitanism references the state of mind itself, which, as noted earlier, has already been in existence for several hundred years. The recent popularization of the mindset, however, has been facilitated by the developments associated with Africa Rising, which include diasporization, digitization and commercialization as detailed above. Due to the ongoing advances of globalization, it is likely that this form of

Afropolitanism will continue to grow, possibly becoming more accessible to a broader range of

219 Selasi, “Bye-Bye Babar.”

173 people. In response, newer expressions of Afropolitanism may become less exclusive and elitist, although much depends on the future progression of Africa’s continued development.

The Rising Factor

Despite its recent developmental advances, the future of Africa Rising is by no means certain. Much as was the case in the previous two decades, many challenges lay on the road ahead that continue to threaten this progress. Domestically, the most prominent of these challenges are political and economic. As noted in the introduction, democratic governance has been a core force in the phenomena of Africa Rising; however, political corruption and the lures of dictatorship continue to jeopardize this progress. Perhaps the most notorious illustration of these circumstances can be found in Zimbabwe, where President Robert Mugabe has ruled with an increasingly firm iron fist for nearly forty years. Although Zimbabwe has not been considered as one of the shining examples of Africa Rising, the current charges of corruption, intimidation and mismanagement now surrounding Mugabe are nevertheless illustrative of the challenges currently being faced by other African nations. South Africa, for example, which celebrated its first democratic election little over twenty years ago, is now in danger of tumbling down a similar path. Like Mugabe, President Jacob Zuma has also been at the center of numerous corruption scandals and investigations as of late, yet has, thus far, continued to evade all efforts to unseat him. Similarly, in Zambia, the re-election of President Edgar Langu in 2016 was also accompanied by widespread accusations of vote-tampering and collusion, whereas the efforts to extend or expand presidential power in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo similarly suggest a level of democratic uncertainty that was far less prominent a decade ago.

174

Figure 5.2220 Often, this political corruption has been accompanied by economic instability. Again,

Zimbabwe serves as a particularly acute illustration of these circumstances. In 1980, when the country first launched the Zimbabwe Dollar, it was the most highly valued currency on the continent, worth more than even the American Dollar in the United States. However, by the early

2000s inflation in Zimbabwe began to occur at dramatic rates, such that by 2008 the currency being printed was only valid for a few short months, as is in the case of the fifty-million-dollar note shown in Figure 5.2 above. By mid-2009, this hyperinflation culminated in the total and complete collapse of Zimbabwe’s currency, which has subsequently been replaced by the use of several foreign monies, most notably the American Dollar and the South African Rand.

However, although far less dramatic, the South African Rand too, has also been significantly weakened in the last several years, as have other currencies including the Egyptian Pound, the

Kenyan Schilling and the Rwandan Franc. Notably, this weakening has not always been the product of political malpractice; however, in all cases such declines are indicative of a nation’s ongoing struggle against economic instability.

Although not always related to the economy or political corruption, violence and armed conflict also pose major threats to the continued success of African nations. Notably, violence

220 Image from author’s personal collection.

175 has accompanied political outcomes on several occasions in recent history including Zimbabwe’s reelection of Mugabe in 2008 and Ali Bongo Ondimba’s reelection in Gabon in 2016; however, other conflicts such as those occurring in South Sudan, the Niger Delta and the Maghreb are less directly tied to specific political events. In these cases, issues like religion and resources have frequently been at the center of violent disagreements, which have, in all cases, further contributed to the instability and uncertainties within the region.

In addition to these domestic challenges, external factors like business and trade agreements also have the potential to significantly shape ongoing development. As is detailed in

Chapter 4, Western investments and commercial interests in Africa are a prime illustration of this trend, which is on course to continue as the continent becomes more involved in global commercial processes. However, as is also detailed in Chapter 4, these global processes often continue to benefit Western interests disproportionately, thereby reaffirming old colonial relationships and structural inequalities that further African exploitation. Shell Oil’s involvement in the Niger Delta is but one example of the potential difficulties that surround such commercial relationships, as it has ultimately sought to extract wealth (in this case in the form of oil) from the area without what many in the Delta believe is appropriate compensation. Indeed, the oil industry itself also serves as a revealing illustration of the pitfalls of this relationship, because, while it frequently increases the wealth of oil-rich African nations, it does so without any of the other stabilizing improvements accompanied by economic development in other emerging nations. Although such colonial history is absent in Africa’s dealings with China, the potential for exploitation and unequal control in the relationship similarly poses a threat to the continued successful development of the continent.

176 At the same time, the uptick in xenophobia now trending in many Western (and especially European) nations also casts a shadow of uncertainty upon the future of African development. As detailed in Chapter 2, these heightened levels of xenophobia have occurred in direct response to the influx of African migrants arriving from overseas. Often, this shift has manifested in the increasingly hostile and suspicious attitude exhibited toward foreigners and especially African migrants in the West, particularly within the last ten years, which is revealed through the hardening of migration policies in places to where they have recently come, most notably in Western Europe. Although the more restrictive policies that have in many instances been adopted by these governments have not directly affected African development efforts, they have often quite effectively limited African movement and mobility, which does impede cultural flows and indicates a deepening mistrust and hostility that could further hinder progress.

Finally, climate change also poses what is perhaps the most serious threat to ongoing and successful development processes in Africa. Although climate change is indeed a notable threat to all world populations, in reports released by Verisk Maplecroft, which is a private firm specialized in calculating global risk, out of the eight global regions they identify, Africa remains the most vulnerable to the negative effects of this problem. As shown in Figure 5.3 below, of the

186 countries whose data is included in the 2016 Climate Change Vulnerability Index, 63% of the nations identified as “extreme risk” are in Africa (17 out of 27), along with 45% of those marked “high risk” (14 of 31), 30% with “medium risk” and only 7% with “low risk” (5 of 72).

These risks are calculated based on 42 different social, economic and environmental factors, which focus on the exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capabilities of each country in question.221

Thus, these calculations reveal the particularly precarious position that those on the African

221 “Climate Change Vulnerability Index (CCVI) (2011),” European Commission, Accessed June 14, 0217, http://climate-adapt.eea.europa.eu/metadata/tools/climate-change-vulnerability-index-ccvi

177 continent continue to find themselves in, which again, shadows uncertainty over the longevity of its hard-won developmental gains.

Figure 5.3222 In all cases, much of Africa’s future depends on how the next generation of youth choses to handle these challenges. Although members of the Rising Generation continue to hold an influencing role in Africa’s navigation of these issues, the younger generation is rapidly becoming the central player in this process. As of 2015, the Rising Generation was between the ages of 24 and 47, which, on a continent where over half of the population is below the age of

18, suggests a new era has already arrived. These changes have indeed already registered in the world of hip hop, where the music has now been fully adapted and transformed into myriad sub- genres almost unrecognizable to their beginnings. Thus, the future of African development is now largely up to the next group of innovative and globally-minded youth on the continent.

222 Infographic from Maplecroft, “Climate Change Vulnerability Index 2016,” Reliefweb, Accessed June 10, 2017, http://reliefweb.int/report/chad/climate-change-vulnerability-index-2016

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