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The Rapper As Modern Griot Reclaiming Ancient Traditions Patricia Tang

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The Rapper As Modern Griot Reclaiming Ancient Traditions Patricia Tang Access Provided by Northwestern University Library at 01/20/13 12:53PM GMT The Rapper as Modern Griot Reclaiming Ancient Traditions Patricia TANG Rap music was born in Africa, grown in America 3 and it went around the world to come back to Africa like a boomerang. —Faada Freddy of THE Sene­ga­lese rap group Daara J What happens when hip hop, with its indisputable African Ameri can roots, re turns to Africa? The past decade has seen an explosion of hip hop culture through out Africa. Scholars and journalists often invoke the idea of the rapper as a “modern griot,” linking rap to the ancient traditions of West African verbal artists or “mas­ ters of the word.” When rap emerged in the 1980s in Senegal and exploded onto the Sene ga lese music scene in the 1990s, it could be seen as having taken a grand tour from its ancestral homeland, to its birth in the New World, and then back to Africa. But has hip hop really come full circle? This chapter takes a critical look at the relationship between rap and griot tradi­ tions in West Africa. By examining the hip hop scene in Dakar, Senegal, it explores some of the ways in which African musicians reinvent both African Ameri can and African culture for their own purposes. Focusing on a case study of Positive Black Soul (PBS), the first African rap group to gain international success, the chapter reveals how Senega lese rap artists have seized upon and exploited Africanisms (particularly griotism) through various symbolic, linguistic, textual, and musical means. Griot Traditions Griots have played a significant role in cultures through out West Africa for more than seven centuries, serving as oral historians, praise­ singers, musicians, genealogists, and storytellers. Best known as hereditary artisans of the spoken word, 80 GRIOTS AND MESSENGERS griots also specialize in a variety of musical instruments, from the kora and bala­ fon of Mande griots (jali) to the sabar drum of Wolof griots (géwël) in Sene gal.1 Written descriptions of griots date back to 1352–53, when the North African trav­ eler Ibn Battuta described his encounters with griots at the court of Mali. During this time, griots served the kings and nobility and were responsible for transmit­ ting the genealogies and histories of their patrons through their music and verbal arts. Due to their ability to praise or critique individuals with their oratory skills, gri­ ots have traditionally held an ambiguous social status, both revered and feared. Be­ cause of their right to ask for money and gifts from the people they praise, griots are sometimes seen by others as greedy and opportunistic.2 Regardless, griots con­ tinue to play an important role in many West African cultures, though their role has certainly adjusted to modern times.3 Despite changes in social structure (i.e., the decline of the hereditary class system) and other modern factors that have altered the original griot/patron relationship, griots to this day are active verbal artists and musicians.4 Some griots specializing in the spoken word have become today’s poli­ ticians and figures in the media (radio and television), whereas griot musicians have found success in the burgeoning music industry, with many performing on stages and recording in studios through out Europe and North America. In the case of Senegal, griot singers and drummers are responsible for most as­ pects of musical life, from life­ cycle ceremonies to the popular music scene. Mbalax, the genre of dance music highlighted by Sene ga lese rhythms and griot vocal styles, is dominated by griot singers and features griot drummers as well. In the late 1970s, mbalax was created by infusing Cuban dance music with Sene ga lese percussion and Wolof lyrics. By the 1980s, mbalax had become a distinct genre of its own and is now considered the premier Sene ga lese popular music genre. The term mbalax was coined by Youssou N’Dour, who remains the genre’s most famous and beloved singer as well as its international ambassador. Although mbalax is not an exclusive griot genre, the majority of Sene ga lese mbalax singers come from griot lineages (in cluding Youssou N’Dour, Thione Seck, Alioune Mbaye Nder,Fatou Guewel, Kiné Lam, and Coumba Gawlo).5 Although griot singers dominate the popular music scene, griot drummers are prevalent in most aspects of Sene ga lese daily life. Wolof griot percussionists per­ form at weddings, baptisms, neighborhood dance parties, wrestling matches, and po liti cal meetings. Géwël play the sabar drum as their primary instrument, and the sabar tradition has been passed down from one generation to the next for cen­ turies (Tang 2007). Although nowadays some of the more successful griot drum­ mers can be found performing with mbalax bands, they continue to perform in family drum troupes at traditional ceremonies as mentioned above. What Is a Modern Griot? Terminology Broadly Defined In recent years, the term modern griot has been employed by many schol­ ars, journalists, music critics, and musicians themselves. In using this phrase, writ­ THE RAPPER AS MODERN GRIOT 81 ers and musicians often invoke a romanticized and historically static idea of the griot—the traditional verbal artist who, for over a millennium, has served as keeper of oral history, musician, singer, and instrumentalist. The griot is usually histori­ cally situated, seen as a thing of the past, from which the modern griot has evolved over time, after crossing the Atlantic to the New World. Several decades ago, few Ameri cans had heard the word griot, let alone knew what it meant. Alex Haley’s 1976 book, roots, changed all of this, and the 1977 tele­ vision miniseries based on the book drew the largest audience in the history of U.S. television at that time (Hale 1998: 2). The success of this miniseries led to a 1979 sequel in which Haley returned to The Gambia to trace his genealogy and learn more about his ancestor, Kunte Kinte. In this television sequel, Haley was told to consult a griot who would know his family genealogy.6 Alex Haley’s roots has thus had an enormous impact on the international popularization of the griot as well as on African American interest in tracing genealogies. Suddenly the griot became an important figure in the way African Americans and others imagined Africa. The term modern griot has since become a catchphrase broadly used in refer­ ence to modern African and African American artists. The late Senega lese novel­ ist and filmmaker Sembène Ousmane considered himself a modern griot (Stoller 1994: 358); Youssou N’Dour refers to himself as a modern griot (Cullman 1991: 23); and Timothy Taylor (1997: 130) suggests that before N’Dour’s international career took of, he was “a premodern griot, singing for various traditional rituals, in clud ing circumcision ceremonies.” Hip hop/R&B singer Akon, who is the son of Sene ga lese griot percussionist Mor Thiam, has been described as a “new school griot,” and the original timbre of his voice has been attributed to the style of Af­ rican griots (Africahit.com 2006; Chartsinfrance.net 2007).7 In his book hip hop Matters, S. Craig Watkins (2005: 239) writes about the “new wave of urban griots in hip­hop lit.” Quincy Jones also makes mention of the shared “traditions of the African griot storyteller that are continued today by the rappers” (in Gilroy 1991: 133), and David Toop (1984: 32) states that “the hip­hop message and protest rappers had an ancestry in the savanna griots.” Geneva Smith­ erman (1997: 4) calls the rapper a “postmodern African griot,” a verbally gifted storyteller and cultural historian in traditional African society: “As African Ameri­ ca’s ‘griot,’ the rapper must be lyrically/linguistically fluent; he or she is expected to testify, to speak the truth, to com wit it in no uncertain terms.” Ndiouga Adrien Benga (2002: 82) adds that rap is rooted in the same origins as those of preachers: “From the tale teller to the praise singer of modern times, a kinship can be found in that this is a kind of ‘oral literature’ which takes place in ‘urban poetry.’ ” Indeed, many rap artists themselves point to Africa as a reference for their per­ formance practices. In a 2006 interview with playboy magazine, rapper Kanye West suggested that he would be a griot in a modern­day Bible, because he “bring[s] up historical subjects in a way that makes kids want to learn about them. I’m an inspirational speaker” (Tannenbaum 2006: 132). Rapper Afrika Bambaataa says, “Although it [rap] has been in the Bronx, it goes back to Africa because you had 82 GRIOTS AND MESSENGERS chanting style of rappin” (Keyes 2002: 17). Lumumba “Professor X” Carson adds: “Once upon a time ago, a long long time ago, every Friday of the month, it was the duty of the grandfather in a tribe to sit down and bring all of the immediate chil­ dren around him to rap. One of the instruments that was played while grandfather rapped his father’s existence was a guy playing the drum. I guess that’s why we are so into rap today” (Keyes 2002: 17). Although he does not specifically refer to griots by name, Lumumba Car son’s words serve as a perfect example of the romanticized way in which griots (or in this case, the village elders) are so often viewed. His statement “Once upon a time ago, a long long time ago” situates the grandfather in a distant yet timeless past. Carson then evokes the image of the grandfather in a tribe, a village elder, who gathers members of the younger generation around him in order to share his knowledge with them.
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