Commentaire
Throughout Africa, artists use hip-hop both to describe their lives and to create shared spaces for uncensored social commentary, feminist challenges to patriarchy, and resistance against state institutions, while at the same time engaging with the global hip-hop community. In Hip-Hop in Africa, Msia Kibona Clark- one of the foremost experts on African hip-hop—examines some of Africa's biggest hip-hop scenes and shows how hip-hop helps us understand specifically African narratives of social, political, and economic realities.
Clark looks at the use of hip-hop in protest, both as a means of articulating social problems and as a tool for mobilizing listeners around those problems. She elucidates the role that female artists play in constructing contemporary representations of African women. Influenced by both hip-hop and local cultures, these artists use their music to provide original and complex depictions of women in Africa. Finally, Clark details the spread of hip-hop culture in Africa following its emergence in the United States, assess-ing the impact of urbanization and demo¬graphics on the spread of hip-hop culture.
Hip-Hop in Africa is a tribute to a genre and its artists as well as a timely examination that pushes the study of music and diaspora in critical new directions.