The coming weekend (28/29 June), Africanhiphop.com will be on a panel at the MCs for Life conference in Manchester and Birmingham (UK) together with respected artists like Lord Finesse, Ursula Rucker, Rich Medina and Black Thought from the Roots.
The two-day event is part of the annual Bass Festival organized by Punch, and is the follow-up to the DJs and Bboys for Life conferences.
From the press release: "MCing represents the ultimate expression of attitude in popular culture and in recent years has become the most prominent of the four main elements of hip-hop. Comprised of discussion panels, masterclasses, films and battles, ‘MCs for Life’ seeks to identify the role of the MC within hip-hop. For example, the development of the MC, from the ‘toasting’ with Jamaican sound systems to the birth of hip-hop when MC’s would toast over a breakbeat. Changes in language and styles of rap and the international distillation of rap such as Grime (London), Hip Life (Ghana), Timba (Cuba), Kuduro(Angola) and Kwaito (South Africa) will also be looked at."
Other participants include DJ Spooky, Tumi, Nappo, Omekongo, Lebo Mashile, Charlie Dark, Hymphatic Tabs, Benji Reid, Ty, Segun, Jonzi D, BREIS, Baby J, Zaki and Ben Sharpa.
The Dutch Tropenmuseum (Tropical museum) was built in Amsterdam at the height of the colonial empire in the 1920s, and still breathes the abundant atmosphere of the era. These days its collection is mostly applied to teach the younger generations about cultures that have often been crushed by westernized civilizations. But the museum also gives way to popular culture and the month of june highlights hip hop from around the world.
Hiphopessentials is a festival lasting until 22nd of June with a concert that some of you people in the Netherlands missed out on last week (Masta Ace and the Pan Africans, shame on you for not attending!), film screenings (a.o. Favela rising and Letter to the president) and an exhibition of some photos from the Say My Name Africa (SMNA) project. SMNA is a documentary in the making about female emcees in Africa of which the first parts have been filmed in Abidjan (Ivory Coast) and Luanda (Angola). From the footage we were allowed to view it's a promising project, and the filmmakers are still planning to visit other cities as well! The girls they filmed and photographed include Nash & Priss-K and some ladies from the lively kuduro scene in Angola.
Unless you spent the past few weeks on a deserted island you must have read & heard about, and maybe even experienced the current xenophobic (anti-foreign) violence in South Africa. And while hip hop is still being depicted today by popular media as a breeding ground for violence, in these difficult times it turns out to be the only pop culture to show compassion and support to the victims of the attacks. Hip hop against violence!
Heads in Johannesburg and Cape Town have united to organize two major hip hop events creating awareness and expressing a loud 'NO' from within the polynational population that makes up the South African hip hop community. Both take place on the 1st of June (next sunday) and donations to victims of the violence are being collected at the event, so bring what you can.
Cape Town: State of Emergency
With Tapedeck circuitry, Nosisi, Rattex, Driemanskap, Jitsvinger, speakers Emile YX, Lizo from Round Table, dj Quake, breakdancers Black Noise and more...
In Allnyz, Gugulethu sports complex from 12:00, free entrance!
Donations: clothes and blankets for victims of xenophobia.
Johannesburg: Heads Against Violence
With Tumi, Reason, Ben Sharpa, Zeus, Hymphatic Thans, Obita, Nthabi, Zubs, Snazz D, dj's Papercutt, Bionic, Kenzhero and many more...
Bassline, entrance R50 + donations: blanket, food, nappies, clothers or other donations you may have.
Ekinox (Congo-DRC, living in Montreal, Canada) never sold out and so he has stock of his own mixtape! The album hustle has been depicted in this all-new video shot on the streets of his hometown. If you see a familiar face it's because Ekinox is the brother of Don Klemente who lives in Belgium.
If you were wondering whatever happened to the Sakpata Boys, the pioneers of hip hop in Benin who succesfully merged traditional music into their recordings: they moved to New York. The video above features 2 out of 3 Boys and plays two songs in a row. From what we tell, Sakpata are doing well but we'd ask them to send a postcard every once in a while ;)
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.
June 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 shows June 2008 »
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.
