You have landed at Africanhiphop.com, the foundation of African Hip Hop culture on the web. This site, originally called 'Rumba-Kali Home of Pan African Hip Hop' was initiated in February 1997 as a platform for information and discussion on hip hop from the African continent.
Imagine yourself performing in front of a crowd of thousands, with more than ten security people guarding the stage. Still someone manages to walk up on stage and snatch your chain. This happened to 50 Cent when he performed in the Pavilhão da Cidadela in Luanda, Angola on May 2nd. He went after the thief in the crowd, but this move was immediately followed by mass hysteria in which the thief escaped.
We wonder: what are you going to do with 50 Cent's jewelry in a town like Luanda?
As you know, our community has had a chat room for a while, in close collaboration with Baobabconnections whose members can also acess the same chat. For some time it flourished with lively discussions at all times, but the script was also buggy and in the long run it wasn't really fun to use.
Good news: since last friday we have an all-new and fully functional chat room! It looks more fancy and has some extra functionality like nice icons, chat history and a little customization. So, go there now and you may have to stay logged in for a little while for others to start coming in. Afternoon (central European/African time) is often the best time to find others. Any problems? Just post 'em at the forums.
Go there now (popup - so enable popups for this site), log in and you will be able to access the chat using your login/pass (make sure to select 'Africanhiphop.com'!)
If you're around Brussels tomorrow (19 April), make sure you check out an evening of African hip hop documentaries at the Théâtre Molière. Titled 'African Hip Hop in the movies, la soirée', it brings together five documentaries on hip hop in Africa, most of them in French. The titles:
- Doto/Silence! (Jérémie Lenoir, France/ Togo)
- Waga H H, de l'ombre à la lumière (Eléonore Yaméogo, Burkina Faso)
- BXL-LBV, Mapane Number One (C.Wielant et T.Locus, Belgium/Gabon)
- Get on Da Kar Sophie Perrin (Sophie Perrin, France/Senegal)
- I Love Hip Hop in Morocco (J.Asen & J.Needleman, USA/Morocco)
The evening, organized by our friends at Lezarts Urbains together with Ubuntu asbl, is presented by Lyrical 44 aka Manu from WaBMG44 (Senegal, now living in Belgium) and dj Smimooz. It's part of the programming of the Festival des Cinemas Africains.
Then, by the end of the year you should make arrangements to come to Amsterdam for the 4th edition of the Africanhiphop.com filmfestival. More about that as we will get more updates in the coming months.
The 3rd Annual Trinity International Hip Hop Festival is about to kick off in Hartford at Trinity College on the east coast of the USA, not too far from NYC. Like last year, the 3-day event has a strong focus on African hip hop. US-based African hip hop artists performing include Blitz The Ambassador (Ghana), Shokanti (Cape Verde), Abyssinian Creole, African Underground ft Baye Musa (Senegal), Azbac (Senegal) and Krukid (Uganda), TEM Blessed (Cape Verde/Guinea-Bissau) and Zimbabwe Legit (Zimbabwe).
Other events include a graffiti workshop, a b-boy battle and a panel discussion about the early days of hip hop with old school pioneers Grandmaster Caz and Tony Tone (Cold Crush Brothers), Grand Wizard Theodore (the inventor of the scratch) and DJ Disco Wiz.
In 2008, African hip hop seems to finally have entered the academic world on another level. After the conference at Harvard (see our previous news on this page), next Friday there's an 'all-art panel discussion on African hip hop and music videos' at New York University.
Moderated by artist & academic dj Spooky, panelists include professors Jesse Shipley, Bard College, and Michael Ralph, New York University, together with Shaheen Ariefdien (Prophets of da City, currently studying anthropology in Toronto) and Ben Herson (Nomadic Wax) to discuss 'the emergence and current state of hip hop in Africa'.
Also attending is our staff editor, Mustafa Maluka, so expect an update soon.
Friday, March 28
6:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.
19 University Place, Room 102
between E. 8th and Waverly Street.
Bring a photo ID to enter beyond the security desk.
In addition to our regular webcasts at African hip hop radio, since March 2008 we also have a monthly 2-hour show in Dutch at Lijn5, the urban music site of Dutch public broadcaster NPS. The show, simply called African Hip Hop Radio, is presented by GMB (emcee/actor), J4 of Africanhiphop.com and dj Threesixty (legendary dj/producer). Even if you don't understand Dutch, tuning in will be worthwile for the exclusive tracks you get. Also available as an mp3 download or subscribed podcast.
Some highlights from this month's playlist:
Movaizhaleine (Gabon) - Nous
TMK Wanaume Halisi (Tanzania) - Mami ft. Karen Mukupa (Zambia/Denmark)
Pan Africans (NL/Somali/Surinam) ft Junior Lion (St Maarten) - Concrete Jungle
Wonderkid Bounce (Ghana/NL) - Chase your dreams
Ntjamrosie (NL/Cameroon) - Trick you
Jean Grae (US / South Africa) - Love Thirst
Manifest (Ghana) ft Krukid (Uganda) - Slow your roll
Zaki Ibrahim (South Africa) - Daylight
AY (Tanzania) - Changisha
Asa (Nigeria) - Jailer
Blind Alphabetz (UK/Sudan/Mozambique) - African rhythms
Sway (Ghana/UK) - Black stars
Enjoy this rough video taken with our phone at Q-bert's performance in the heart of Johannesburg, on the 19th foor of a building in the middle of the Central Business District, 1st March 2008. Let Q's hands speak for themselves (if you want to see more, there's a part 2 on Youtube).
By the way, if you didn't know exactly who Q-bert is: he is one of the greatest turntablists alive, rumoured to have been banned from participating in the DMC world finals in 1995 because he was unbeatable (a false rumour, by the way).
After the dj Green Lantern African mixtape, the next step in taking African hip hop to an international level is a conference from 13 to 15 March 2008 at Harvard, one of America's most prestigious universities. Titled 'African Youth Development through Art and Technology: the Role of African Hip Hop', the conference will bring together artists, music industry professionals and scholars from Africa and the diaspora.
According to the press info, 'this conference will explore the influence of Hip-Hop in Africa and will bring to light the pressing issues that are echoed in the lyrics and images displayed by youth from the townships of South Africa to the suburbs of Paris. The presence of Hip-Hop in Africa and the wider Diaspora allows us to see Hip-Hop’s ever expanding reach not only as an art form but as a cultural force that shapes youth culture and affects social change globally'.
While African hip hop has been the subject of academic study since the mid 90s (also see this article wich we wrote in 1998), a conference exploring some key themes can certainly contribute to more understanding, more opportunities for artists and scholars, and the public sharing of research - too often, academic papers are no easily available, especially to the people who are the subject of studies.
Some of the tentative panelists: Shameema Williams (Godessa, South Africa), Yunus Mohammed (Aang Serian, Tanzania/US), Emmanuel Jal (Sudan), Juma Assiago (UN Habitat, Kenya), Trenton Birch (Afrolution, UK/South Africa) and yours truly, Juma4 from Africanhiphop.com. Other names to be confirmed, website coming soon. Entrance to the conference is free.
A list of the panels and invited speakers can be found at the Conference website.
In the past years, mixtapes (technically: mix-cd's and sometimes even non-mixed cd's) have come to be instrumental in breaking new hip hop tracks, especially in the USA. Huge quantities are pressed up and sold in an informal network of distributors and vendors. The big mixtape deejays names include DJ Clue, Kay Slay, Whookid, Green Lantern. Now the latter used to be Eminem's dj and still works with Jay-Z, who he joined as a tour dj on his African tour last year.
Wouldn't it be nice then if Green Lantern included some African hip hop tracks in his mixes? Well it gets better... film director Femi Agbayewa (Real-Livin Films) in association with Green Lantern's Team Invasion and Africanhiphop.com presents:
God's Own Country - the Movement mixtape hosted by dj Green Lantern! A proper African hip hop compilation presented by one of America's top mixtape deejays. Artists on the mix include Eldee da Don (Nigeria), Dead Prez, Krukid (Uganda/US), X Plastaz & Jimmy Rage (Tanzania/Jamaica), Moubaraka (Comores/France) and Lil Wayne. Indeed a major first step towards the meeting up of the African hip hop scene with 'mainstream' American hip hop.
Green Lantern's African hip hop mixtape is in fact the soundtrack album to a new Nollywood (Nigerian Hollywood) film called 'God's own country', written and directed by Femi Agbayewa, a Nigerian born film maker who lives in the States.
The film and mixtape were officially released earlier this week.
We spoke to Femi Agbayewa and asked him all about the film, the Nollywood industry, the mixtape and his thoughts about how Africa has become cool again in the international media and fashion world.
Our African hip hop radio presenter Lee (YFM, Joburg) is currently on an African-wide tour to help select the best African battle emcee. At Africanhiphop.com she reports back about the hip hop scene in each country, and the events leading up to the final battle. Second stop, after Ghana, is Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
"Upon arrival at Julius Nyerere International Airport in Dar Es Salaam, I almost expected to walk into a cypher where guys would be rhyming. In fact I even half expected the immigration officer to start rapping or at the very least say something about hip-hop, as strange as that sounds. But I couldn't be blamed, because whenever African hip-hop comes up either in terms of information available, or on compilations showcasing African hip-hop or even documentaries about African hip-hop Tanzania is definitely one of the hotspots…from the outside looking in. So I was curious what it was like from the inside. I was nervous about the language factor too as I had been warned that most people didn't rhyme in English, let alone freestyle or battle. With all that in mind coupled with my list of have-to-meet-people and their contact details, the next leg of my hip-hop adventure began..."
January 2008: tune in to African Hip Hop Radio for exclusives from Morocco, Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa and the rest of the Motherland... Free podcast or download!
· New show! Jan 2008 »
After the dj Green Lantern African mixtape, the next step in taking African hip hop to an international level is a conference from 13 to 15 March 2008 at Harvard, one of America's most prestigious universities. Titled 'African Youth Development through Art and Technology: the Role of African Hip Hop', the conference will bring together artists, music industry professionals and scholars from Africa and the diaspora. 
