Global and African: exploring hip-hop artists in Philippi Township, Cape Town'

20 Anthropology Southern Africa, 2008, 3I(I&2)

Global and African: exploring hip-hop artists inPhilippi Township, Cape Town'

Heike Becker and Nceba DastileDept of Anthropology & Sociology, University of the Western Cape

[email protected], [email protected]

This article investigates hip-hop, identity and global cultural flows among young people in contemporary Cape Town. We arguethat hip-hop functions as a vehicle for identity negotiations in contemporary South Africa. The discussion of hip-hop in an'African' township shows that the search for local forms of African identity in the time of globalisation does not necessarily meanthe confirmation of old boundaries or the construction of bounded 'new ethnicities'. Instead of dismissing forms of^ globalpopular youth culture as a threat to presumably 'authentic' African culture, the protagonists of the spaza hip-hop culturecoming out ofCapetonian townships have appropriated hip-hop in their quest for alternative, fluid African identities incontemporary South Africa.

Keywords: Hip-hop, Cape Town, popular culture, global cultural flows, identity

Hip-hop in an 'African' Township^It was one of the regular Friday night gigs at thedance hall in the Marcus Garvey section of Philippitownship in Cape Town. The session had alreadystarted. The DJ announced that, later, stageperformances were going to happen. In themeantime, he was playing music CDs. Theperformances are regular stage acts for artists suchas 'Blackface''', with whom I (Nceba) had beenworking for some time for my research on hip-hopand African identity, and whom I had accompaniedto the hall that night. Soon after we arrived.Blackface left me and walked towards a corner ofthe hall to recite some of the songs he was goingto perform that night. I had not been aware that heWeis going to perform that night until we arrived atthe hall. Now I saw him practising seriously withmy other two key informants. Digital andMcKnowledge, who were standing next to a set ofspeakers turned on to full volume. While they werepractising, I could sense the enthusiasm and

excitement of the audience around them. I went

closer to witness this action since I was surprised

by the attention they received from the people

because the stage performances had not yet

started and it seemed that the music that was

playing just warmed them up for their

performance. An exchange of verbal lyrics flowing

together met the beat of the sound in the hall.

Blackface and McKnowledge had very serious facial

expressions. It was as if they were possessed by the

playing music. At one particular moment when

McKnowledge was reciting his song and poem in

isiXhosa [the African language most commonly

spoken in the townships of Cape Town], the

audience seemed to enjoy it so much that they

yelled for a repetition of a verse he had delivered.

The use of the Xhosa language in the poems and

songs seemed to leave a special impression with the

crowd.

1. This article is based on ethnographic research undertaken by Nceba Dastile for his Honours project in 2005. The article joins togetherextended, only slightly edited sections of Dastile's initial research paper (Dastile 2005) and his argument of the mediation of 'Africanculture and identity' through performance, clothing and embodiment, and broader reflective explorations of the meanings and politicsof culture in contemporary South Africa (Becker 2006).Thanks are due to Emile Boonzaier and the anonymous reviewers for comments on earlier drafts. Valuable suggestions were also pro-vided by Peter Alegi and other participants of the 7* North-East Workshop on Southern Africa in Burlington, Vt., in April 2007. Theauthors are grateful for the funding provided by the National Research Foundation of South Africa's focus area programme, indigenousKnowledge Systems.

An earlier version of the article was published in German in Peripherie Nr. 104, 26. Jg., pp. 434-455. Thanks are due to the editor ofPeripherie for granting permission to re-publish this slightly revised English version.

2. A note on the use of the racial categories 'African', 'black' and 'coloured' (in the following without quotation marks) is necessary: Thepersistence of the apartheid racial categorisation is ubiquitous in contemporary South African usage. While we do not wish to supportthe apartheid-induced usage, we follow in this article the categories as they are commonly understood locally: 'African' and 'black' areused interchangeably by most residents of Cape Town to denominate people who speak an African language as their first language. Inour context, the terms primarily serve to differentiate between 'African' or 'black' townships and 'coloured' areas. However, wherewe speak in this paper of 'African' forms of identity formation, the term refers to inclusive concepts in line with the popularisation ofthe African renaissance ideology (see Fn 19 for a reference to further reading).

3. In this article, we refer to the hip-hop artists who participated in the research by their chosen stage names, such as 'Blackface', 'Digital'or 'McKnowledge', in the following omitting the quotation marl<s.

Anthropology Southern Africa. 2008, 31 ( I &2) 21

Hip-hop, identity, and popular youth culture incontemporary South Africa

This vignette opens up our discussion of hip-hop, identity andglobal cultural flows among young people in contemporaryCape Town. The vignette indicates that, in contrast to muchof the existing substantial literature on hip-hop in Cape Town(Haupt 1996, 2001, 2003, 2004; Badsha 2003; Donne 2003;Faber 2004; Watkins 2004), the article focuses on hip-hopperformers who rap in an African language. While we givepriority to the ethnography of spaces, embodiment and lan-guage use instead of providing detailed textual readings of lyr-ics, we show how, following the end of apartheid, someyouth from the African townships on the Cape Flats haveappropriated, and integrated, a range of different African-American as well as other ostensibly African cultural forms insearch of new urban, African identities.

The article explores a set of issues related to the contem-porary hip-hop culture in Cape Town. Firstly, we take up thesuggestion by Whiteley et al. (2004) that hip-hop cis popularculture and the construction of identity are linked to the spe-cifics of 'space and place', and consider different forms ofperformance of hip-hop culture by artists and audiences alikein different spaces in greater Cape Town. The discussion ofspace and the politics of culture is linked to two interrelatedaspects that are particularly significant for the discussion ofcultural flows and identities: First, we ask, who are the hip-hop artists in Cape Town today? In popular understanding, aswell as in much of the relevant academic literature (eg. Bad-sha 2003; Faber 2004), hip-hop in Cape Town is conceived asprimarily a phenomenon developed by coloured youth. Weargue, however, that earlier studies of hip-hop in Cape Townhave largely ignored the historical impacts of global flows,which originated in African-American culture, on Africanurban areas in the Western Cape.

Closely related to the conception of Cape Town hip-hopas a coloured cultural form is the claim of authors such asFaber (2004) and Watkins (2004) that Afrikaans is the domi-nant language in the contemporary Cape Town hip-hopscene. Therefore, second, we look at the use of language,and particularly the performance of hip-hop lyrics in Africanlanguages in Cape Town and elsewhere. The importance oflanguage use in popular culture has been suggested, forinstance, by Hall and Jefferson ( 1982:136) who write that'language is used as a particularly effective means of resistingassimilation and preventing infiltration by members of thedominant groups'. Our discussion explores how the use ofAfrican languages and a mix of African languages and Englishlend support to the endeavours of young South Africans tocreate a sense of their selves after the end of apartheid. Inconclusion, we think about how the observations of hip-hop

in Cape Town relate to contemporary South African ideasabout culture in the interstices of the global, the national andthe local.

It has been argued that the effect that hip-hop has had as aform of popular culture among many young people is linkedto the way it is presented by the media as a youth culturedominated by multicultural identities (see eg. Dimitriadis2004). Multicultural identities are presented in the South Afri-can media in order to give young people something to reflectupon.^ Furthermore, contemporary South African hip-hop isoften perceived as a commodified entity, in contrast to the'old skool'^ of politically conscious anti-apartheid hip-hopwhich emerged in Cape Town during the 1980s (Badsha2003:133). Post-apartheid hip-hop (dubbed the 'new skool')is often perceived to be at the receiving end of global culturalflows and to have lost the critical urgency of the earlier gen-eration of local artists. The commodification of contemporaryhip-hop has become a particular concern of scholars whoregard the new hip-hop scene as 'contaminated by money orcommercialism and the pre-occupation with sex and vio-lence' (ibid).

Critical observers of hip-hop in the post-apartheid erahold that performances of international artists on music vid-eos are being adapted and used by contemporary, local artiststo perform their own music. In contrast to this perspective,we argue that South African hip-hop is not merely a localadaptation of 'global', or more specifically American, culturalforms. Recent scholarship on popular musics and their globalappropriation and localisation have demonstrated that hip-hop is a global cultural movement that has forged differentidentities within different societies worldwide.^

For parts of Africa specifically, observers have argued thatrap music has borrowed from pre-existing local forms ofmusic ('traditional folklore') (Ssewakiryanga 1999, as quotedby Comaroff & Comaroff 2005:27). More significantly, per-haps, is the widespread use of local languages in rap on thecontinent, which many African rappers have embarked uponafter an initial phase of pure consumption, and imitation, offoreign hip-hop (Künzier 2006:7).

We argue, further, that the ostensible commodificationand de-politicisation of hip-hop is not necessarily a phenome-non everywhere. Following Whiteley et al. (2004), this paperargues that, instead, for the social and economically disen-franchised, hip-hop has retained its focus and continues tooperate as a form of cultural resistance, challenging oppres-sive systems. Thus, it serves to establish and contributetowards the formation of identities while carving out spacesof freedom. As Michael (1996) has argued, hip-hop offersyoung people a sense of social self-reflection, where thenegotiation of identity happens in a socio-psychological proc-

4. While this article revolves around hip-hop in Cape Town, similar developments to the ones we discuss are also evident in other SouthAfrican regions. See, for instance, an article published by a newspaper in Port Elizabeth about hip-hop in the Eastern Cape provincewhich is 'identified by the language that is used which is the fusion of Xhosa and English' (The Weekend Post. September 20, 2003).

5. If one goes by a number of recent articles in the South African print media, urban South African teenagers (dubbed 'born frees' or the'children of Mandela') are united in their adherence to a consumerist popular youth culture and entirely colour-blind (see eg. 'Newgeneration ignores race but worships money', Sunday Times. June 19, 2005).

6. Note the Afrikaans spelling, signifying the common association of Cape Town hip-hop with the city's predominantly Afrikaans-speakingcoloured population.

7. Mitchell (2001) introduces the reader to hip-hop movements across the world from Japan through to France, although this collectionunfortunately neglects the African continent.

22 Anthropology Southern Africa, 2008, 31 ( I &2)

ess in relation to the past and present.

What has this meant at various points of the about twentyyears that hip-hop has been around as a popular form ofmusic and youth culture in South Africa? During the finalyears of the apartheid era in South Africa, some hip-hopgroups formed an identity based on resistance to the oppres-sive laws of apartheid (Haupt 1996). Adam Haupt and morerecently others, such as Badsha (2003), Watkins (2004) andDonne (2003) point out that some of Cape Town's hip-hoppioneers (particularly the bands Prophets of da City [PO.C]and Black Noise) adopted and negotiated a notion of identitywith a racially and politically conscious view. We need to notethat for much of hip-hop's history in South Africa, Cape Townwas the hub of rap music and a range of associated culturalexpressions which make up hip-hop as a cultural movement.The specification of the cradle of South African hip-hop is sig-nificant because of the city's peculiar demographics: themajority of Capetonians were and still are 'coloureds', theSouth African denomination for people of mixed racialdescent, who mostly speak Afrikaans as their first language.The Capetonian groups of the 1980s promoted the conceptof 'black' (or 'African') cultural identity in order to resist theregime's categorisation of themselves as 'coloureds', so as todismantle the barriers of racial categorisation implementedby the apartheid system.

The situation in post-apartheid hip-hop is more complex,however, than its common characterisation as multi-culturaland commodified suggests. We argue that, instead, in the cur-rent situation the confluence of different flows has broughtabout new forms of socially and culturally conscious popularyouth culture, which young people use to make meaning ofthe world around them and to negotiate identity. These areno easy and straightforward developments; as Haupt(2004:208) has put it succinctly:

Ultimately, the performances of'racial'and politicalidentities in hip-hop in relation to some of theclaims that have been made about theseperformances point to the complex tensions andcontradictions that surface in discussions of 'race',identity, and youth culture. This complexityfrustrates simplistic attempts to reduce identitiesto uncontested one-dimensional representationsof 'colouredness', 'blackness' or 'whiteness'.

In the Capetonian hip-hop scene, there are continuities aswell as discontinuities with the past. For one, the socially con-scious strand of 'coloured' hip-hop is still active, as AdamHaupt (2003) has shown in his writings on the emcee work-shops run by the independent 'Bush Radio' broadcaster,which address issues of self-reflection as well as promotetopical debates on issues ranging from AIDS to globalisation.These efforts, which have been driven by the alternativeradio station, a long-standing icon of Cape Town's anti-apart-heid struggle, and well-established local rappers like ShaheenAriefdien, formerly of PO.C, are being complemented bymore recent initiatives, such as CONTACT, which has run initi-atives such as internet-based online DJ competitions and pub-lic park JAMS, 'to tackle crime, HIV and reach the masses offorgotten young people in our townships', as CONTACT'SShamiel X wrote in December 2004 (Hip Hop Contact2004).

Such activities more or less continue the earlier efforts ofpolitical intervention ('resistance') by protagonists of CapeTown's hip-hop scene, although the issues they take up cer-tainly differ in the post-apartheid situation. However, the cur-rent situation differs not only in terms of the political changesthat have taken place in the country since 1990. We are par-ticularly concerned, instead, with the role hip-hop currentlyplays in negotiating identities. To start with, in contemporarySouth African society the negotiation of identity occurs in thecontext of a democratic, 'free' state. It follows that the notionof African identity can be taken up as both a resistant andaffirmative phenomenon. Those that regard hip-hop as amusic culture dedicated to 'resistance' believe that the crea-tion of an African identity by the 'new wave' of post-apart-heid hip-hop is in a way, a deconstruction of restrictivepolitical ideologies, (see eg. Watkins 2004) On the otherhand, we argue, there are also new forms of hip-hop thatprovide young South Africans with a vehicle to develop theirown ideas about 'being African', which pick up aspects ofcontemporary political and social discourses, such as the 'Afri-can renaissance', championed particularly by President ThaboMbeki. The question is, how such ideas are being explored byrappers and their audience in post-apartheid Cape Town,which go beyond the limitations of more conventional con-cepts of civil society politics. In other words, how do youngpeople use hip-hop as a cultural form to claim citizenship -belonging - in contemporary South Africa?

Spaces of hip-hop in Cape TownThe research for this article was conducted in multiplespaces. First, conventional ethnographic research in a local-ised, small community was carried out over a period of threemonths in an area where a fair number of African hip-hop art-ists live. Second, however, the researcher moved across amultitude of spaces in different parts of Cape Town wherehip-hop music and lyrics were performed and listened to.

The main study site was an area called 'Marcus Garvey', asubsection of Philippi Township. Philippi, roughly 20 km fromthe centre of Cape Town and previously a white farm area, isone of the newer settlements developed in the 1990s toaccommodate urban influx coming from older townships andinformal settlements. Even though Philippi is locally regardedas a black township (see Fn. 2) and the vast majority ofPhilippi residents are African-language speakers, a smallnumber of coloured people also live in Philippi. In the early1990s, the settlement was predominantly informal. Today,Philippi is dominated by small brick houses provided by thepost-apartheid government through the Reconstruction andDevelopment Programme (RDP). Shacks occupy the back yardsof many of the formal houses.

As suggested by the name 'Marcus Garvey', this particularsection of the township is distinctive for the high number ofresidents who are adherents of the Rastafarian belief system.'Rastcis' settled and named the area in the mid-1990s whenaccording to the perhaps nostalgic memory of one of theearly residents, the amenities there were basic but life was 'allnatural ... with trees and herbs around'. Although the builtenvironment has significantly changed since then, the area istoday still known as a 'Rasta community' because of the dom-inant identification of many of its residents and the rich signs

Anthropology Southern Africa. 2008, 31 ( I &2) 23

of the Rastafarian popular culture which are highly visible inthis part of Philippi.

Several of the performance artists in Marcus Garveyembody a blend of signifiers from both the Rastafarian andthe more conventional hip-hop popular culture, associatedv^ith African-American 'ghetto' styles. Blackface, for instance,may on any day dress in the camouflage shorts and t-shirts,commonly associated with hip-hop, yet, he also covers hisdreadlocks with a multi-coloured knitted hat, a signifier,which is used by the local adherents of the Rastafarian beliefto set themselves apart from those who wear dreadlockssimply as a fashion statement; he also may wear handmade'Zulu' sandals (made from tyre), rather than the sneakers orheavy boots more commonly associated with hip-hop cul-ture.

To an extent, the Marcus Garvey hip-hoppers modelthemselves on the images projected on American hip-hopDVDs and music videos, following global cultural trends ofclothing as well as other signifiers that are most valued byyoung people, especially those who associate themselveswith hip-hop culture. Dimitriadis (2004) notes that fashionand clothing is an important marker of the hip-hop culture, inaddition to elements such as graffiti, break-dancing, language,and emceeing. Blackface is adamant that once someonebecomes a performer he has to look 'unique and presentable'for his audience because he believes clothes can reveal a lotabout you. This performed identity sends a message to theaudience (Dimitriadis 2004). However, for Blackface and oth-ers, the style of clothing also symbolises their inner selves;they wear their attire and hairstyles, referencing both Africanand African-American material cultures, everyday, not onlywhen they are performing. The increasing popularity of Ras-tafarian material signifiers, and indeed the steep increase ofthe numbers of adherents of the belief among young Capeto-nians in search of new forms of African identity, of course,exemplify an interesting transnational flow of things per-ceived to be African which in reality have originated in theAfrican diaspora, more specifically in Jamaica. The appropria-tion of cultural forms from the African diaspora convergeswith the African-American cultural influences, which have hadsuch a major impact on urban black South African styles for atleast the past century.^

In what follows, we demonstrate the variation of materialculture and performance related to hip-hop in Cape Townthrough a detailed description of three 'gigs' (hip-hop events)which took place in different parts of the city during theresearch in 2005. While certain global, and specifically Afri-can-American references were visible in every one of thesespaces of hip-hop, their heterogeneity shows varied and mul-tifaceted experiences and representations of contemporaryyouth culture in South Africa.

Material signifiers of Rastafarianism abounded during thehip-hop events in the Marcus Garvey dance hall. Theresearcher noted particularly the dedicated decoration ofthehall, the dominant dress codes and a sense of embodiment,which struck him as distinctive, and left a deep impression on

him:

The gigs I went to in Marcus Garvey have a differentset-up [from hip-hop gigs elsewhere in CapeTownJ whereby the atmosphere is demon-stratively 'African'; posters of reggae musicians andpolitical figures are put up around the dance hall.Vendors sell all sorts of 'African' material such asbooks, music instruments and clothes. Most adultwomen wear long skirts and a cloth wrappedaround their heads; other women, mostly the

young', wear jeans, trousers or skirts. Among men,you have those who wear casual clothing andothers with garments striped [in the Rastafariancolours ofj red, gold and green. When they dancedthere was a line formed with one leading the restas they go in circles with the rhythm of the song.The line is referred to as a 'train' and most timeswhen I Wtis in the dance hall. Blackface was theleader of this dance. They move with an energeticspirit that would carry them on dancing until thesong ended. This was quite an experience duringthe hip-hop gigs in Marcus Garvey: I took part indancing both with a sense of belonging and from anacademic perspective so as to gain anunderstanding of the emotions and feelings ofexcitement felt by the people who attended the gig.It was a tiring dance when we danced in line formdoing the 'train' jumping around the hall, but I feltthat it was also a good exercise of both the bodyand the spirit as some of the music was upliftingwith the socially-conscious songs I heard on thesound system.

At a first glance, the weekly Marcus Garvey gig appears to bea very localised event, where performance and interactionbetween artists and audience are defined through the use ofan African language, and where the space is visibly dominatedby ostensibly African material signifiers. Yet, as the choice ofAfrican identification following the global Rastafarian socialand spiritual movement indicates, there is nothing parochialto this African hip-hop. We suggest that, more aptly, it shouldbe considered as one of several possible ways of appropriat-ing the global flows of hip-hop culture.

Consider in contrast the researcher's description of a Sat-urday hip-hop gig of various local groups, organised by localradio stations and other sponsors in Guguletu. Although thisevent also took part in one of Cape Town's African town-ships, the observer noted the heavily 'Americanized' atmos-phere. The fact that the show took place in a specificallyerected tent appears to have added to the feeling of beingout-of-place that was articulated by the Marcus Garvey resi-dents who attended it:

The event lasted a whole day and night. In this show[unlike in Marcus Garvey where hip-hopperformance only consists of music and the recitingof lyricsj there were different elements of hip-hop,cycling, skate boarding, graffiti, break dancing and

8. For a concise history of mutual African-American and South African cultural influences, see, Magubane 2003.9. The denominations 'adult' and 'young' here indicate visible impressions of whether or not a person has already reached full adulthood,

based on embodied social categories more than on specified biological age.

24 Anthropology Southern Africa. 2008, 3I(I&2)

emceeing. The audience included young womenand men from different places around Cape Town.White, coloured and black youngsters took part inthe show. Most of them were young people fromthe Cape's higher education institutions; they werestudents from the University of Cape Town, fromthe Cape Peninsula University of Technology andfrom the University of the Western Cape. Onecould see women students enjoying themselves bymaking dance moves that were in tune with thesongs. Some of the young women carried camerasand took pictures of the performances, screaminghappily whilst even making jump dances sideways.They wore trendy outfits like jeans and t-shirts withfashion brand labels; some sported an Afro-centriclook of big afros and dreadlocks. These womenresembled a vibey crowd that enjoyed themselvesby also repeating some lyrics, which I suppose theyknew from having listened to them before. Iwatched this commotion of dance while I myselfwas caught in trance and jumping with a group ofmale gig attendees dancing to the beats of hip-hopmusic. The environment in this place was differentfrom the Friday night gig in Marcus Garvey. All thedancing and performing took place outside in alarge tent in the yard of the hall. There weredifferent stages put together for artists to displaytheir skills In cycling or skate boarding. Anotherstage was occupied by the artists performing andbreak-dancing. This was a different set-up fromwhat I had seen in Marcus Garvey hall for thereason that the audience was mostly from 'town',the affluent, formerly 'white' suburbs. There werewhites and coloureds together with black youth.Groups such as Control Panel, Dungeon Dwellers.

Native Yards and Archetypes were amongst the

groups that performed. Control Panei andArchetypes are groups of young men rapping inEnglish that use deep words of poetry drawingattention to their audience of young women andmen. The groups were very fluent in theirexpressions and they had a rugged appearance,resembling a typical American hip-hop artist withlarge t-shirts labelled (PHAT FARM) and baggypants worn with Timberland sneakers. I also spottedsomeone wearing Caterpillar shoes. It left adifferent feel all together from the one I was usedto from my regular attendance ofthe gigs in MarcusGarvey. To me it looked like an American hip-hopshow with members ofthe audience interacting inEnglish; more importantly the rappers only usedEnglish and they wore their 'big', baggy clothes,which were very different from the dress style ofthe performers and the audience in Marcus Garvey.

The different images and the fluency of rapping in English inthis space of hip-hop irritated one of the Marcus Garvey art-

ists who attended with the researcher. Blackface commentedon the tone of language used by the artists as a 'nigga accent',emphasising a decided American-ness. Blackface and his fel-low artists from Marcus Garvey seemed to be more comfort-able, however, in yet another Cape Town hip-hop spacewhere the researcher attended a gig in the company of hiskey informants from Marcus Garvey. Their different reactionappears to be of particular interest since this third space waslocated in a previously 'white' part of the city. Township hip-hop artists like Blackface and his friends regard the All Nationsclub in Observatory as the best space in Cape Town to pro-mote hip-hop because it is in 'town', the common dub for theformerly 'white' areas, and they can make a good amount ofmoney when they perform there. Yet, as will become clear,there is more to it than a purely commercial considerationthat attracts them to this space.

Observatory, a compact area of Victorian row housesnear the University of Cape Town, was built a hundred yearsago for the white working class. Now it is home to many stu-dents, intellectuals and artists and has a distinct reputationamong Capetonians and visitors alike for its bohemian, multi-cultural and tolerant atmosphere. 'Obs' (as the area is affec-tionately known) also has a history as a hotbed of politicalactivism during the 1980s, and has recently been describedby a researcher (who is himself a resident of the suburb) as'an increasingly globalised meeting ground for those comingto experience and report on the "new" South Africa' (Colvin2004:18).

The area's distinctiveness appears to be reflected in thehip-hop space, the researcher encountered at the All Nationsclub in Observatory. He notes on the one hand the multiracialaudience of young people drawn from all over Cape Townand rural towns of the Western Cape province; yet, he alsoemphasises the overtly 'political' messages ofthe performers,irrespective of whether they perform solely in a slang versionof English or blended with lyrics in isiXhosa:

On my arrival there I was amazed to see the hugenumber of youth who had come for the hip-hopnight. Young people of all South African 'races'whites, coloureds and blacks; some came from asfar cis Stellenbosch and Paarl' '. The first group toperform here was Fifth Floor who have thereputation of being among the veterans of CapeTown hip-hop along with Black Noise and P.O.C..Their style of rapping could be identified as 'global'because they make exclusive use of Englishvocabulary. They moved the crowd with their styleof rapping which includes attacking mostly socio-political issues. The space of performance in thisclub was large enough to allow only four people onstage but when the group called Driemanskapentered on stage everyone joined them. This hip-hop group is famous for their use of vernaculartownship slang, creatively articulating stories aboutpersonal relationships and the township life with allits misery. As this group was performing, I noticed

10. In South African usage, a 'club' refers to an establishment dedicated to dancing and music performance, which may elsewhere beknown as a 'discotheque'.

I I. Paarl and Stellenbosch are towns in Cape Town's hinterland.

Anthropology Southern Africa, 2008, 31 ( I &2) 25

a commotion that erupted among the audience,including my participants who when rapping alsoprefer the Xhosa language, which they refer to asspozo'^. Obviously, this attracted many people'sattention. Whilst I was making my observations ofthe club and of the people, I realized that therewere many young urban blacks and coloureds thatidentify with the idea of Africanity. This becamevery clear with the enthusiasm they demonstratedwhen Blackface asked during his stageperformance, 'how can we claim to be Africanwhen we still use the master's language ofexpressions and wear American clothes thatconquer us like devil possession'. Transcribed andtranslated from isiXhoso, these lyrics which camefrom him and other artists illustrated theproblematic of defining identity and how it getsconstructed in hip-hop. McKnowledge com-mented on the All Nations gig, 'the hip-hop of mostartists here is "underground" and it gives us a senseof knowing oneself first and the issues of the worldsecondly but many Mes here tend to use Englishmore which is different from what we do'.

The detailed depiction of three spaces of hip-hop perform-ance in Cape Town demonstrate the variance as much as theconfluence of different local forms, and global as well asnational flows. They range from a performance and audiencewhich appear to be fully emerged in the thralls of main-stream, American-rooted global hip-hop youth culture,organised by local radio stations in Guguletu; the MarcusGarvey dance, a more low-key weekly event, ostensibly fol-lowing an 'African' format which draws on Rastafarianism as aglobal cultural movement and a specific global source of con-cepts of Africanity, to, finally, in suburban Observatory, a mixof performers who rap in a range of languages, but appearunited, in line with their multiracial audience, in their critical,'underground' orientation of addressing social, cultural andpolitical concerns of contemporary South Africa. Althoughan overly deterministic analysis would be inappropriate, cer-tainly at this point, without further investigations of gigsaround Cape Town, the observations indicate that theseevents attracted socially and geographically, though not nec-essarily racially differentiated audiences.

Each of these spaces of Cape Town hip-hop appropriatedelements of global youth culture, although they did so indiverse ways, and drew on different global forms. In the fol-lowing section we turn to a closer consideration of how theuse of African languages and socially-conscious lyrics intersect

in the version known as spaza hip-hop performed by youngXhosa-speaking artists in Marcus Garvey.

People, languages and lyrics of spaza hip-hopThe hip-hop artists of Marcus Garvey are young men in theirlate teens and early twenties; hence, they belong to the firstgeneration that has come of age following the end of apart-heid. Blackface, McKnowledge, Digital and their fellow hip-hop followers grew up in Xhosa-speaking, working-class fam-ilies in Cape Town's townships. They all attended school upto senior high school level, or even beyond. Their parents,typically first-generation migrants from rural parts of theEastern Cape, had hoped that after the end of apartheid theirsons might succeed in ascending to middle-class positions asurban professionals. However, already in their mid-teens theyoung men realised their own sense of 'difference' when theyassociated themselves with the cultural movement of hip-hop. The passion for the music grew bigger and bigger withan awareness of some of the political and social views recitedby the songs to which they listened, which they related to thesocial conditions they faced as black pupils in the township.'Political stuff and 'what's going on' remains central to theirmusic and performance.

As Dastile witnessed in the field, the most importantaspects of hip-hop in the township are emceeing and rapping,ie those aspects of hip-hop culture which are most intimatelylinked to the performance of music and language. Otherforms of cultural production which are commonly associatedwith hip-hop are conspicuously absent in their expressions,such as skateboarding, graffiti and breakdancing. These formsof cultural expression have been associated for long withAmerican rap, but also with the earlier and contemporary'coloured' Capetonian hip-hop scene. As evidenced at theGuguletu gig, today they appear indeed to be more commonamong those strands within the contemporary Capetonianhip-hop scene, who rap in English and who are largely madeup of coloured, white, and upper-middle class black youth,particularly those schooled at the so-called 'Model C (previ-ously 'white') high schools.

The township artists, on the other hand, are focused onperforming; they practice almost daily, and rap in their nativelanguages. The use of African languages in hip-hop has givenrise to the concept of spaza hip-hop, which is the term theartists from Marcus Garvey use for their kind of hip-hop,which is sung mostly in isiXhosa in which both slang and for-mal language phrases are used poetically. Spaza is commonlyunderstood and widely used in South Africa for the unli-censed tuck shops which were set up by township residents

12. For an explanation of the origins of the term spaza and its particular meaning in contemporary Capetonian hip-hop, see below.13. A detailed discussion of what constitutes 'underground' hip-hop and popular culture in contemporary South Africa goes beyond the

aims of the present paper, and is indeed subject to ongoing debates in popular and academic circles. We have to contend ourselveshere with a rather broad understanding which emphasises the artistic expression of critical social and political awareness. While un-derground hip-hop rejects commodification, understood as cultural production for entirely commercial ends, some artists, such asBlackface, who pride themselves to be part of the underground, nonetheless aim at making a living from their performances and re-cordings.

14. Some of the Marcus Garvey artists fully dedicate their days to their music. They sell and promote CDs and posters, watch DVDs andread related books.

15. Breakdancing, particularly, has become closely associated with 'coloured' youth culture, to the extent that young 'coloured' men mayeven make use of it to demonstrate their 'ethnic culture', as one of the authors of the present paper could witness during the "HeritageDay" celebrations at the Philippi Police Training Academy on September 27, 2006.

26 Anthropology Southern Africa. 2008, 31 ( I &2)

during the apartheid era in order to challenge the economicdisenfranchisement of black people (Spiegel 2002: 282-3).Although the exact origins of the term are not entirely clear,some of Spiegel's informants suggested that it was derivedfrom the Xhosa term, ukuphazamisa (lit: interruption), whichimplies that it was developed with the aim of 'interrupting',or disturbing, the oppressive political laws that prohibitedblack people from owning shops and, thus, privileged white-owned retail businesses (Spiegel 2002:283). Based on theidea of resistance implied in the origin of the term, the use ofthe term spaza in connection with African-language hip-hopindicates a resistance to American influence on hip-hop; thus,spaza hip-hop artists insist on creating their own conceptionsof hip-hop in an African context. '^

Yet, it would be erroneous to assume that the emphasison African-ness expressed in spaza hip-hop would entail 'clo-sure' against transnational cultural flows, or the search for afixed, presumably 'traditional' African identity. The contextsof African-language hip-hop performance are much broaderand more open. While the language identity and subject posi-tions assumed by the township hip-hoppers reflect theirsocial life, the positions they assume are distinct in more waysthan one. On the one hand, the understanding of identity isrelated to a concept of Blackness or African-ness that theycreate through hip-hop music that articulates African andblack perspectives. They regard commercial hip-hop andeven underground rappers who entirely rap in English as lack-ing a sense of local identity, which they call 'slackness'. In con-trast, the use of African languages in underground hip-hopwith socially-conscious messages is conceived as giving rise to

a sense of new forms of identity.

However, this does not mean that the spaza hip-hopperswould never listen to, or be receptive to certain aspects of,American rap. They regard some of it indeed as representingunderground conscious hip-hop that alerts people to theirsocial problems and can relate it to their own social situationin contemporary, urban South Africa. This was reflected, forinstance, in their understanding and appropriation of a songby an American hip-hop artist, entitled 'New World Water'that addresses environmental health issues warning peopleabout problems with the distribution of water and sanitation.The lyrics speak of the importance of consuming and preserv-ing water lacking in the New World Order of global capital-ism where resources are manipulated by the rich first Worldsover third worlds. The artist MosDeaf sings that the 'NewWorld Water make the tide rise high', which means thatwater is now only to be had at a high price whereas it wasfreely available before. The original song by AlosDeof refers tothe state of affairs in the United States, but the Philippi hip-hoppers also analyse it as speaking of the neoliberal NewWorld Order across the globe. ' ̂

The social life experienced in Marcus Garvey lacks goodwater supply, too, as the young township performers say.Furthermore, they conclude that the government's servicedelivery is wanting because the local environment is not cleanand hygienic. At times, drainage blockages make the placestink and make the water hazardous for human consumption.Thus, they associate themselves with a common set of expe-riences and the social issues they share with the American'ghetto' underground hip-hop which, in their view, should be

16. In an interview with Nceba Dastile, Blackface detailed how the spaza hip-hop movement started in Cape Town: 'The involvementwith conscious spaza hip-hop dates back to 1994. We used to rap in English without realising the American slang influence on us fromlistening to hip-hop songs from Rakim, Nas, Common,... and many others. One day while attending a concert in Mitchell's Plain [acoloured township on the Cape Flats] where we were going to perform a guy by the name of Culamile from Jo'burg was rapping onstage in a language I could not understand but he flowed non stop on the beat that was playing. I was amazed by this dude as we heardhim rap. The performance made us question ourselves as to whether we can be able to rap like this or not. Because at times when wewere busy rapping in English we used to follow the rhyme of other artists' lyrics which made us sound not original. For one, Englishwas not our language and some of the things we wanted to say we could not say properly so Rettex [a fellow hip-hopperj suggestedwe try our own mother tongue and mix it with other languages. We kept writing, reading and practising the isiXhosa style of rappinguntil we were able to express ourselves clearly when singing. This made us resist using English because we were able to define our-selves now as different in a rapping style which was not familiar to other rappers. They weren't concerned at all in terms of upliftinghip-hop in an African language way. So we decided that we would adopt spaza to express ourselves more.'

Whiteley et al. (2004) have highlighted similar developments for youths in Cuba who rap in Spanish languages, which they call 'vernac-ulars'. As indicated in Fn. 6, there is also a fairly strong movement of hip-hop in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa where artistssing in isiXhosa or blend isiXhosa and English and Afrikaans-speaking hip-hoppers have begun to sing in their mother tongue (The Week-end Post. September 20, 2003).

17. New World Water make the tide rise highCome inland and make your house go 'Bye' (My house!)Fools done upset the Old Man RiverMade him carry slave ships and fed him dead niggaNow his belly full and he about to flood somethinSo I'ma throw a rope that ain't tied to nothinTell your crew use the H2 in wise amounts sinceit's the New World Water: and every drop countsYou can laugh and take it as a joke if you wannaBut it don't rain for four weeks some summersAnd it's about to get real wild in the halfYou be buying Evian just to take a fuckin bathHeads is acting wild, sippin poor, puffin dankCompetin with the next man for higher playin rankSee I ain't got time try to be Big Hank,Fuck a bank; I need a twenty-year water tank.

Anthropology Southern Africa, 2008, 31 ( I &2) 27

expressed through spaza underground hip-hop, using thelocal language. The spaza hip-hop lyrics contain both abstractand biisic vocabulary, drawn from isiXhosa and includes met-aphors, similes and puns. The contents of the lyrics and thelanguage-use link the performers with their audience whoshare their background as young people from the townshipsof the post-apartheid city.

The young men do not use the local language to demar-cate bounded identities based on ethnicity; instead, they setout to develop a new sense of self around sociocuituralaspects which give a taste of hip-hop and the linguistic cul-tural identity that defines their location as rappers in the post-apartheid society. They recognise the persistent realities ofethnicity, race and racism as something expressed in hip-hoplyrics (Shomari 1995), but aim at creating a space for alliancesacross these differences. As individuals who belong to under-ground hip-hop groups that rap in the vernacular isiXhosa,they express their pride in the new-ness of what they repre-sent in the post-apartheid era.

One of Blackface's songs goes like this:O yes we come from those lands defined to beblack and stinkyPoverty is what they think of us, O what a pity,stupidity andShame for characterizing blacks as if we lackcreativity.Inequality still exists today while children gethungry who[se] is to blame in this state of political

democracy. 'The song demonstrates the political and social context fromwhich a sense of identity is constructed. The articulation ofthe lyrics in spaza hip-hop leads towards the formation of acultural language identity that regards Marcus Garvey as anAfrican social space, which is defined through the use of anAfrican language as much as through the material signifiers ofa local Rastafarian version of Africanity. Arguably, throughusing African languages in expressing themselves, the groupof rappers in Marcus Garvey have adapted the African Renais-sance concept, popularised by South African President ThaboM beki ' ' . Does this mean that the motive behind the use of anAfrican language in the expressive form called spaza was to'preserve' African heritage? If this were indeed the case, theuse of African languages in popular culture might mark therejection of global and national interconnections and give riseto parochial identities, based on ideas of untainted authentic-ity.

Yet, based on the data of the field research this appears tobe unlikely. The forms of African identity which emerge fromthe spaza hip-hop in Marcus Garvey display, instead, how theyoung artists have appropriated some of the non-essentialistaspects of the current 'African Renaissance' discourse drivenby the ANC government and the country's new economicand political elites. The African Renaissance has beendescribed, quite aptly, as being aimed at 'the promotion andempowerment of distinctly "African" nodes of managing

modernity and globalisation' (Copian 2001:117, quoted inBongmba 2004: 301 ). It certainly has evoked a range of differ-ent interpretations, ranging from neo-traditionalist and essen-tialist calls for the 'revival' of African 'cultures' through tomodernist interpretations, such as Mbeki's call 'for theempowerment of women as part of the African Renaissance'(Bongmba 2004: 315).

On the one hand, throughout the fieldwork, the townshiphip-hop artists repeatedly expressed their pride in describingthemselves proudly as 'black Africans using an African lan-guage to rap instead of the popular English or Afrikaans'. Yet,Blackface and the others do not revert to a 'pure', linguisti-cally 'untainted' version of the vernacular. They use urbanversions of isiXhosa and creatively mix it with English localslang. In line with their use of hybridised language, their lyricsdo not promote communalist ideas. On the contrary, theycondemn exclusionary notions of ethnicity and race. Theirinspiration to write and perform is drawn from the aware-ness of their specific spatial and social contexts, which allowsthem to create songs in their mother tongue. When they dothis, they sing about social problems related to poverty andcrime but also about topics which they regard as inspiringpositive consciousness for 'the people'. Those are not of aneo-traditionalist or essentialist nature, however, whichwould ignore the social conditions in post-apartheid town-ships. Instead, their lyrics reference those aspects of the Afri-can Renaissance ideology, which conceptualise African-ness asinclusive, and aim at rejuvenating the continent through erad-icating social and political malpractices. The few lines fromone of their songs, quoted above, demonstrate this beauti-fully.

Hip-hop has created a space for the spaza rappers todevelop new identities, which appear to draw implicitly, if notexplicitly, on the older Black consciousness tradition. Inrespect of the apparent resurgence of Black Consciousness,the significance of the appropriation of Rastafarianism as acultural movement among the Philippi hip-hop scene cannotbe underestimated. The growing attraction to Rastafarianismamong young black people in contemporary South Africa,particularly among young men, has recently begun to findattention in the South African media as 'a new form of blackconsciousness [and] the antithesis to the kwaito culture',which is seen as individualistic and poised on celebrity cults{Mail & Guardian August 26, 2005). The blend of local appro-priations of the hip-hop and Rastafarian global cultural move-ments, to our knowledge, appears to be a specifically SouthAfrican phenomenon. In a national and local context whereReggae has never really taken off as a form of popular music,many young adherents of Rastafarianism have been drawn tohip-hop instead.

Some concluding remarks on post-apartheid hip-hop as an agent for social change

In this article we have demonstrated how hip-hop musicfunctions as a vehicle for identity negotiations in contempo-

18. Translated from isiXhosa: 'Ewe siphuma kulomihiaba/kwezondawo z imnyama, zimavumba endlala, izinto abazicingayo ngathi, O ba-yasisizela, ubudenge, kwanemfesane enjonga abantu abamnyama ngathi abaphuhlanga. Ukungalingani kusekhona nana mhlanje ngenxaabantwana belamba ngubani onetyala kule nkululeko yezopoliko' (translation by Nceba Dastile).

19. For a thorough discussion of the idea and uses of the African Renaissance ideology, see Bongmba 2004.

28 Anthropology Southern Africa. 2008, 31 ( I &2)

rary South Africa. The discussion has shown that the searchfor local forms of African identity in the time of globalisationdoes not necessarily mean the confirmation of old boundariesor the construction of bounded 'new ethnicities' (to borrowStuart Hall's (1992) term), which would conceive of them-selves as rejecting cultural imperialism and cultural uniformi-sation. The dichotomy, or even the dialectics, of homo-genising trends ('McDonaldisation') and reinforced culturalheterogeneity ('ethnic revival'), which scholars have identifiedin many contexts of identity politics (cf Meyer & Geschiere2003) are clearly not at issue here. Instead of dismissingforms of global popular youth culture as a threat to presuma-bly 'authentic' African culture, the protagonists of the spazahip-hop culture coming out of Capetonian townships haveappropriated hip-hop in their quest for alternative, fluid Afri-can identities in contemporary South Africa. This fascinatingphenomenon, which we have only begun to analyse in thisarticle, challenges social and cultural researchers in contem-porary South Africa to investigate the ongoing processes 'ofthe making and unmaking of boundaries, localities and "cul-ture" in particular power constellations' (Meyer & Geschiere2003:4).

The rappers from Marcus Garvey in Philippi townshipbroaden the notion of African identity through at least threeforms of agency: first, their practised claim to the use of anAfrican language and ostensibly African clothing and hairstyles within a global, cultural form, second through address-ing contemporary social and political issues, and, last, throughforming and taking active part in multicultural social circles.No doubt their music is influenced by the space and politicsof contemporary South Africa. The rappers from MarcusGarvey make clear that they identify as performers and asyoung men in and of the highly complex post-apartheid soci-ety. They do this from their specific social and cultural loca-tion as township youth however, which sets them apart fromyoung people of different social, racial and spatial back-grounds who are engaged in other forms of hip-hop, as thediscussion of Cape Town's different hip-hop spaces has dem-onstrated. The township rap identifies with a consciouslyunderground hip-hop which the protagonists regard as aforce of 'resistance' to the persistent socio-economic, stilllargely racially-based inequality in contemporary South Africa.As evidenced in the lines quoted above, the Xhosa lyrics callon the township youth to be culturally and politically con-scious. Thus, they appeal to young people who continue tobe disenfranchised in contemporary South Africa on socio-economic if no longer overtly racial grounds.

We need to insert here a note about the spatial and gen-dered face of hip-hop: in South Africa, as elsewhere, hip-hopremains largely a male, urban phenomenon. It originated inthe metropolis, of Cape Town specifically. More recently, ithas begun to develop more strongly in the country's othermajor cities of Johannesburg and Durban, and has alsoattracted growing numbers of adherents in provincial citiessuch as East London and Port Elizabeth in the Eastern CapeProvince. There are a few women bands, most prominentlyGodessa from Cape Town, but most of South Africa's rappersare young men. All the spaza rappers we met during the field-work were young men, although young women attended thegigs in substantial numbers, too. Authors such as Künzier

(2006) and Haupt (2001) have attempted to understandsome of the gender implications in their respective com-ments about African hip-hop in general and the more estab-lished, 'coloured'. Cape Town hip-hop scene. FollowingMaraszto's (2002) comments on rap in Senegal, Daniel Kan-zler (2006:8) has argued that rap lyrics often representedmale perspectives on social and political problems, withwhich therefore women and girls would find it more difficultto identify We do not have sufficient empirical data onwhether or not this analysis fits the South African situation; arecent article by the well-known woman poet LebogangMashile (2006) indicates, however, that more complexexpectations of femininity might be responsible for the mini-mal presence of women in the South African hip-hop scene.Furthermore, as a recent Ghanaian case study by Jesse Ship-ley (2007) reminds us, female performers may also experi-ence serious problems of recognition and indeed threats ofviolence. More research is certainly needed on the genderedface of hip-hop in Cape Town, and in South Africa generally.

In Cape Town as elsewhere in the world, hip-hop musicallows expressions to flow transnationaux This has happenedsince the origins of the music in the black ghettoes of theUnited States. Moving beyond its black American origins,writers such as Donne (2003) regard hip-hop music as articu-lating African ideologies. It, thus, allows young people to iden-tify with a Global African identity expressed in songs by hip-hop and reggae artists. The rappers from Marcus Garveydescribed their personal and social perspectives in hip-hop ashaving been influenced by socio-politically conscious songsproduced by local and international hip-hop and reggae art-ists.

By creating spozo hip-hop as an alternative lifestyle revolv-ing around a new African identity, the township hip-hoppershave reshaped the Cape Town hip-hop scene. In South Africatoday, hip-hop music as a global cultural trend is still beingappropriated by the young to cry out their concerns as it waswhen back in the 1980s, 'old skool' hip-hop bands like PO.C,Black Noise, or Public Enemy used it to voice their oppositionto the apartheid regime's political and racist ideas. Under thepost-apartheid dispensation, young people involved with hip-hop culture also articulate the current conditions as 'oppres-sive' but they are also open to affirmation through themedium of hip-hop's new social identities which havebecome possible after the end of apartheid. In other words,their cultural politics are concerned in the first place with thereconstruction of new forms of African identity, and secondwith social aspects of changing life for the better

Unlike some of the older and indeed also some contem-porary Capetonian rappers, the protagonists of spaza hip-hopdo not fit conventional notions of social and political activism,since they do not engage at this point in direct interventionsand contemporary social movements. Yet, their consciouship-hop is a significant social and cultural factor because itstrongly expresses new forms of African identities amongyoung black people in contemporary South Africa, even moreimportantly, perhaps, in the Cape Town context specifically,where Africans have for long been marginalised more thananywhere else in the country. For them this means assertingcitizenship and belonging; they claim their stake in the city.Thus, the cultural movement of spozo hip-hop can be

Anthropology Southern Africa. 2008, 31 ( I &2) 29

regarded as a catalyst of change.

ReferencesBadsha, F. 2003. 'Old skool rules, new skool breaks: Negotiating

identities in the Cape Town hip-hop Scene,' in Shifting selves:Post-apartheid essays on mass media, culture and identity. Edited

by H. Wasserman and S. Jacobs, Cape Town: Kwela Books,Becker, H. 2006. 'Culture and mediation in contemporary South

Africa: Photographic self-representations from the Cape Flats'.Paper presented at 'Transcending Postcolonial Conditions:Towards Alternative Modernities'. Joint Conference comprisingthe annual conferences of Anthropology Southern Africa and thePan African Anthropological Association and an Intercongress ofThe International Union of Anthropological and EthnologicalSciences. Cape Town, University of Cape Town, December 3-7,2006.

Bongmba, E. K. 2004. Reflections on Thabo Mbeki's AfricanRenaissance. Journo/ of"Southern African Studies 30(2): 291 -316.

Colvin, C.J. 2004. Signs of injury: Traumatic storytelling after apartheid.

Unpublished PhD thesis. University of Virginia.Comaroff, J. and J. Comaroff 2005. 'Reflections on youth: From the

past to the postcolony,' in Makers & breakers: Children & youth in

Postcolonial Africa. Edited by A. Honwana and F. De Boeckh.Oxford: James Currey.

Copian, D. 2001. Sounds of the 'Third Way": Identity and the AfricanRenaissance in contemporary South African popular traditionalmusic. Black Music Research Journal 21(1): 107-124.

Dastile, N. 2005. Global and African: Exploring hip-hop artists in

Philippi township. Cape Town. Unpublished BA Honours researchpaper: University ofthe Western Cape.

Dimitriadis, G. 2004. Performing identity, performing culture: Hip-hop

as text, pedagogy and lived practice. New York: Peter Lang.

Donne, R. D. 2003. Mapping the beat, beating the map: Religious work

of hip-hop, reggae and kwaito in South Africa. Unpublished M. A.

thesis: University of Cape Town.Faber, J. 2004. Cape Town's hip-hop Scene. Ntama Journal of African

Music and Popular Culture. Online, http:lntama.uni-mainz.del

index. Accessed: 13/04/2005.

Hall, S. 1992. 'New ethnicities/ in 'Race', culture and difference. Editedby J. Donald and A. Rattans. London: Sage.

Hall, S. and T. Jefferson 1982. Resistance through rituals: Youth

subcultures in post-war Britain. London: Hutchinson.

Haupt, A. 1996. 'Rap and the Articulation of Resistance: AnExploration of Subversive Cultural Production During the Early9O's, with particular reference to Prophets of da City'.University of the Western Cape, (unpubl. MA thesis)

Haupt, A. 2001. 'Black Thing: Hip-Hop nationalism, 'race' andgender in Prophets of da City and Brasse van die Kaap,' inColoured by History. Shaped by Place: New Perspectives on Coloured

Identities in Cape Town. Edited by Z. Erasmus. Cape Town:

Kwela Books and SA History Online.

Haupt, A. 2003. Hip-Hop in the Age ofEjvpire: Cape Flats Style. Cape

Town: Isandia Institute. (Dark Roast Occasional Paper Series No.

9)Haupt, A. 2004. 'Identity and the Politics of Representation in Hip-

hop,' in Under Construction: 'Race' and Identity in South Africa

Today Edited by N. Distiller and M. Steyn. Sandton: HeinemannPubl.

Hip Hop Contact 2004. vvww.roge.co.zo//ssue4J/h/icontact.htm,'accessed 4 November 2006

Künzler, D. 2006. 'Hip Hop-movements in Mali and Burkina Faso:The local adaptation of a global culture'. Paper presented at theXVI International Sociological Association World Congress ofSociology, Durban, 27 July 2006.

Magubane, Z. 2003. 'The Influence of African-American CulturalPractices on South Africa, 1890-1990', in Leisure in Urban Africa.Edited by R T. Zeleza and C. R. Veney. Trenton, NJ: Africa WorldPress.

Maraszto, C. 2002; Sozialpolitische Wende? Zur Entwicklung desRap in Senegal. Stichproben: Wiener Zeitschrift für Kritische

Afrikastudien 2{A):8\-\Q4.

Mashile, L. 2006. Ladies, please report to the microphone. Y Mag.Yona ke yona No 63 (April/May 2006): 48-9.

Meyer, B. and P Geschiere 2003. 'Globalization and Identity:Dialectics of Flow and Closure. Introduction,' in Globalizationand Identity: Dialectics of Flow and Closure. Edited by B. Meyer

and P Geschiere. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.Michael, M. 1996. Constructing Identities. London: Sage.Mitchell, T (ed.) 2001. Global Noise: Rap and Hip-Hop Outside the

USA. Middletown CT: Wesleyan University Press.Shipley, J. 2007. 'Recognition and intimate Violence in Ghana's

Hiphop'. Paper presented at 'On Fakes & Fetishes: History,Authenticity & Counterfeit Modernities in Postcolonial Africa.Ralph Austen: a tribute'. Chicago, 18 & 19 May 2007.

Shomari, H. A. 1995. From the Underground: Hip-hop culture as an

agent for social change. New York: X-Factor Publications.Spiegel, A. 2002. 'Is it for real? Notes on the meanings and

etymology of spaza in South African popular culture,' inChallenges for Anthropology in the 'African Renaissance': A Southern

African contribution. Edited by D. LeBeau and R. J. Gordon.Windhoek: University of Namibia Press.

Ssewakiryanga, R. 1999. "New Kids on the Block:African-AmericanMusic and Uganda Youth. CODESRIA Bulletin: 1-2.

Watkins, L 2004. 'Rap 'in' the Cape: style and memory, power incommunity,' in Music. Space and Place: Popular music and cultural

identity. Edited by S. Whiteley, A. Bennett and S. Hawkins.Aldershot: Ashgate.

Whiteley, S., A. Bennett and S. Hawkins (eds.) 2004. Music. Spaceand Place: Popular music and cultural identity. Aldershot: Ashgate.