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Some say you can trace the origins of hip hop to a single room in New York City on 11 August 1973. At 1520 Sedgwick Avenue in the Bronx, the Jamaican-American DJ Kool Herc threw a party and, playing percussive funk on his speakers, noticed that the crowd danced most vigorously during the instrumental break. He then used two turntables and copies of the same song to keep the break going, while talking — or MCing — over it to engage the crowd.
By that time in the early 1970s, the historically middle-class Bronx was transforming. For decades it had been home to upwardly mobile black and latino families, and the borough was the most integrated community in the United States. That was until the accelerated post-war flight of white residents for the suburbs, falling house prices and the loss of so many manufacturing jobs, coupled with tens of thousands of mostly poor immigrants moving in.
Coming out of these conditions, hip hop has always been about inspiring the disenfranchised to overcome their obstacles.
Jason Nichols, aka Haysoos, is a hip-hop artist, professor and editor-in-chief of Words, Beats and Life, the first peer-reviewed academic journal of global hip-hop culture. He has been rapping since he was a pre-teen in the early 1990s when he first heard My Philosophy by Boogie Down Productions, a hip-hop group from the South Bronx.
“I remember seeing the video and hearing that acapella part, and deciding I want to try it,” Nichols tells Index on Censorship. “It really showed me that rap music and MCing was a platform to be heard, and everything in my life since has revolved around that, from expressing your opinions about the world and thinking ‘how can we make things better?’”
When people think of hip-hop culture, rapping, DJing, graffiti and breakdancing are all things that come to mind. “However, I always say that hip-hop academics is another element of the movement,” says Nichols, who is a lecturer at the African American Studies Department of the University of Maryland, where his interests include black masculinity, hip hop and dance, and black and latino identities and relations.
Media attention and commercial rap music have given hip hop an image problem. The genre is heavily associated with guns, gangs and prison culture. As many poor neighbourhoods of colour became further devastated in the 1980s or 1990s, hyper-masculinity became, for many, entangled with race or class. As Nichols explains: “It was, and still is, a matter of control and mastery of your environment.”
One of the main reason young black men identify so much with their neighbourhood, their block or the building they come from is because they are saying “this is mine”, Nichols explains. “They know their spatial freedom is contained and confined and that they world isn’t theirs, but this particular space is,” he adds.
In his lectures on masculinity, Nichols looks as people like Moms Mabley, the lesbian comedian who employed masculine forms of black humour and Amiri Baraka, the poet, author, essayist and critic, who wrote about masculinity and heterosexuality as representative of black nationalism in the United States. Nichols brings his analysis up to the modern day by looking at artists like Kehinde Wiley, whose paintings explore black images of masculinity.
“Whether male or female, every person expresses several different masculinities throughout the day, and in my class, we talk a lot about those being expressed through art,” explains Nichols. “And, of course, all these directions led to hip hop.”
However, he believes we need a deeper understanding of hip hop because the idea of “hyper-masculinity” in itself is “problematic”. “It goes back to the old tropes about black men, in general, being supposedly violent or hyper-sexual,” he adds.
As long as certain expectations of race persist, the perception of masculinity will always be more of a problem for black or latino men. “Look at a white rapper like Eminem, who, as Greg Tate wrote, had everything but the burden,” explains Nichol.
“Eminem can be angry, masculine and all that, while also being allowed to be vulnerable in a way black men are not. He has the freedom to talk about his mother and his troubled family life in a way men of colour don’t have room to do.”
Taking the example of Tyler the Creator, the black American rapper who was banned from entering the UK based on his lyrical content, we have to ask, would this have happened to someone like Eminem, who is just as offensive but happens to be white? “We have to recognise the privileges white artists have over black artists,” explains Nichols. “The thing we always hear about when Eminem says something is his right to free speech.”
Looking at Washington DC, where Nichols spends much of his time, hip hop – while deeply entrenched in the mainstream — still makes up one of the last truly underground music movements in the United States. A hardcore punk scene sprang up in the capital in 1979 and continued to grow a following into the 1980s and 1990s. DC’s rap scene came along a little while later, but the difference between both movements is that hip hop is still around.
“This is because black kids still face hardship in a way white kids don’t, and all of those punk guys, while still legendary, could much more easily be co-opted into the system,” says Nichols. “They can put on a suit and go to work, but for hip-hop artists, it’s been a little different.”
The DC metro area has seen a boom in development over the last decade, but that prosperity never made it across the river and one-quarter of the city’s black population is still living in poverty. While these conditions continue to exist, hip hop will be the outlet of choice for so many men of colour who feel they don’t have a voice.
“There’s also been a real concerted effort by the system to shut the city’s underground culture down,” explains Nichols, referring to the shutting how of venues. “But the strength of hip hop is that it is so broad that it’s almost impossible to do that.”
Also read:
– Poetic Pilgrimage: Hip hop has the capacity to “galvanise the masses”
– Colombian rapper Shhorai: “Can you imagine a society in which women have no voice?”
– Zambezi News: Satire leaves “a lot of ruffled feathers in its wake”
A conference followed by a day of performance to consider hip hop’s role in revolutionary social, political and economic movements across the world.
Art has traditionally accompanied political and social movements in Latin America and the turn of the 21st century has seen a resurgence of diverse forms of expression, including hip hop.
“Hip hop has many faces — from the underground scenes to gangster rap — and it allows you to talk about many different things,” says Colombian rapper Luisa Ospina, aka Shhorai. “Many artists may talk about ‘bitches’, drugs and violence, and that’s fine for them, but it’s not for me, especially given the history of violence and conflict in my country.”
Shhorai, an independent hip-hop artist, educator and activist from Colombia’s second-largest city, Medellín, began rapping in 2003 at the age of 13.
“I started recording music at my home studio at 15, influenced by my older brother who is also a rapper,” Shhorai says. She released her debut album Verdades Hostiles in 2011, followed by Doble X: Inicio y Complemento in 2015. She has worked in collaboration with various Colombian artists, including Nkanto MC and Koriotto.
Taking inspiration from female MCs throughout the Americas – from Columbian duo Diana Avella and Lucía Vargas and Venezuala’s Gabylonia to Queen Latifah, famed for fighting misogyny in US hip hop – Shhorai uses her music to explore the structures of gender and class which create disadvantages for so many Colombians. Despite the progress her country has made in the last few decades, many problems remain unresolved. “Women in particular in my country have poor access to decent jobs and education and too many sisters have been affected by violence,” Shhorai said.
“For indigenous women and women who work on the land, it is even worse: they work so hard but are still silent. Can you imagine a society in which so many women have no voice?”
“I was born in a culture which is all the time asking women: ‘Why don’t you wear makeup?’ ‘Why are you so big?’ ‘Why do you eat this?’,” she says. “So I rap a lot about empowering women and becoming more independent because often we don’t trust ourselves or know the inner power we have.”
For every 10 men in hip hop, there is only one woman, explains Shhorai. “So we are naturally at a disadvantage and often feel alone, so we have to work together,” she says. “And while I love feminism, I don’t like hate for men because I recognise that we are together and must fight together.”
Many women — as with many men — in hip hop, come from poor communities, not just in Medellín, but in Colombia’s capital Bogota and other cities like Cali.
There are many sides to Medellín. Foreigners may know it for its troubled history — Pablo Escobar, cocaine and the violence that accompanied them. Other visitors may be more aware of its current status as one of the foremost and growing art and cultural hubs on the planet. The city came out on top of Tel Aviv and New York and was named the world’s most innovative city in 2013.
“Medellín has become a much better city than it was 20 years ago — with many restaurants, a metro system, concerts all the time — but many still don’t see how hard it still is for many people who live here – those who don’t have the resources to go to university, or for the young people who have to fight against a system just to own something,” Shhorai explains. “The city has two very different faces.”
Poor communities and minorities like indigenous people “don’t have options” and often don’t have a say. “I want the world to pay more attention to the poverty because the rich downtown doesn’t need more publicity — it has enough,” Shhorai says.
This is what the rapper aims for in much of her work — whether in music, education or activism — when she talks about the political background and social conditions in her neighbourhood. “In this way, hip hop is for me a kind of liberty and at the same time an expression of love for my community.”
One of the big problems in Colombian society is how in many ways it has turned a blind eye to the problems faced by women and the poor alike. A byproduct of this, inevitably, is marginalised people turning to hip hop and hip-hop culture — from breakdancing, DJing, MCing and graffiti — as places where they can finally be heard.
“Hip hop was born in poor communities in the USA often by those living terrible conditions and I can see they discovered a way of getting together and doing something as a community,” says Shhorai. “This idea filtered back to us in Latin America and we got into hip hop for many of those same reasons, which is why rap music is everywhere in Medellín.”
“But above all, hip hop is an opportunity to be independent, and while it’s difficult, it is possible to create real change through art.”
Also read:
– Zambezi News: Satire leaves “a lot of ruffled feathers in its wake”
– Jason Nichols: Debunking “old tropes” through hip hop
– Poetic Pilgrimage: Hip hop has the capacity to “galvanise the masses”
A conference followed by a day of performance to consider hip hop’s role in revolutionary social, political and economic movements across the world.
Since its birth in the Bronx in the 1970s, hip hop has made its mark. Today, graffiti artists, MCs, breakdancers and DJs across the world are still using the medium to empower themselves, from women in Columbia and political movements in Burkina Faso, to aiding the fight for free speech in Zimbabwe and challenging religious stereotypes in the UK.
Index on Censorship has teamed up with In Place of War to create two unique full-day events that provide an opportunity to listen to, learn from and collaborate with 14 world-changing hip hop artists from eight different countries.
A multi-disciplinary full-day academic conference that considers hip-hop’s role in revolutionary social, political and economic movements across the world.
The Power of Hip Hop: Exchange will explore the role, challenges and potential of hip-hop culture in facilitating positive social change in global contexts, and its role as a site of resistance and identity.
The day features academic panels, keynote papers, artist performances and practitioner presentations. This event harnesses In Place of War’s vast international network of grassroots artists and University of Manchester origins, to explore issues including hip hop and gender, race, religion, commerce, and conflict.
When: 8 July 2016, 10.00 – 18.30 (registration 9.30)
Where: Richmix, London (map)
Tickets: £45/£36 concessions – lunch, refreshments and delegate packs included (buy online)
Promo Code: “hiphop15” (£15 ticket). Can be redeemed online at checkout, over the phone or at the box office.
A day of TED-style talks and live performance. Join 14 of hip hop’s most revolutionary artists from across the world for a mix of music, dance, rap, DJing, VJing, exhibitions and satire.
From local grassroots initiatives to multi-national citizen movements, you’ll hear stories of how hip hop is changing the world first-hand. You’ll encounter the artists performing live. And you’ll have chances to meet the speakers throughout the day, before a DJ set and drinks to end it.
Featuring Index on Censorship’s inaugural Music in Exile fellow Smockey (Burkina Faso), Rodney P (UK), Zambezi News (Zimbabwe), Wade Waters (USA), Poetic Pilgrimage (UK), SYMBIZ (Germany), Shhorai (Colombia), Afrikan Boy (UK/Nigeria) and more.
When: 9 July 2016, 12.00 – 19.30 (doors 11.30)
Where: Richmix, London (map)
Tickets: £20/£15 concessions (buy online)
Promo Code: “hiphop10” (£10 ticket). Can be redeemed online at checkout, over the phone or at the box office.
Searching for “dissident artists” online, you’d be forgiven for thinking they are a purely Chinese or Russian phenomenon. But for every Ai Weiwei or Pussy Riot, there are scores of artists and musicians around the world whose persecution does not make the Six O’Clock News.
Serge Bambara — aka Smockey, meaning “se moquer”, or “to mock” — is a hip-hop artist and activist little known outside his home country of Burkina Faso, but who has had a marked impact on political and social developments there.
He combines rap with traditional Burkinabé music and often humour to “spread truth”. “Knowledge is important, and I write as a way of presenting it to the people,” he told Index on Censorship.
Index on Censorship is proud to name Smockey as the recipient of the Music in Exile Fund Fellowship. As the beneficiary, he will perform live in London, as well as receive training and opportunities to connect with other free speech heroes around the world.
“Serge Bambara’s overtly political music has made him a target for entrenched interests in Burkina Faso,” said Jodie Ginsberg, CEO of Index on Censorship. “Throughout his career, he has used his talents to fight for racial equality and battle corruption. We are delighted to have him as the inaugural Music in Exile fellow.”
In September 2015, after two years of serious activism and over 15 years of writing music about the problems in his country, forces loyal to the recently ousted president Blaise Compaoré — obviously unhappy with the truths he was spreading — bombed Smockey’s recording studio, the acclaimed Studio Abazon. The attack was an apparent attempt on his life as revenge for the role his music and activism played in the deposition of Compaoré, according to Smockey.
Attacks on artistic freedom — particularly musicians — almost doubled in 2015. But to understand why Smockey was targeted in such a violent and specific manner, we need to go back to his roots.
Smockey first became interested in hip-hop music through listening to American artists like Public Enemy, Afrika Bambaataa and LL Cool J. He began rapping in Burkina Faso in 1988, before moving to France in 1991 to study. While there, he signed to the record label EMI, but it wasn’t until he returned to his country of birth on a holiday in 1999 that his music took on the political dimension it is famed for today.
“It was around the time of the murder of journalist Norbert Zongo, who was assassinated following investigations into the activist by president Blaise Compaoré,” he said. “Student demonstrators were being beaten by police. It was very disturbing to me.”
Smockey soon packed up his computer and keyboard in France and moved back home to Burkina Faso in 2001. “Seeing the things going on in my country, I had to do something,” he said. “At the time, I didn’t know exactly what, but I knew it would involve music.”
He understands fully the responsibility that often comes with being in the spotlight in a country burdened by so many difficulties. “Not everyone is lucky enough to have a microphone in front of them, so if you have the chance to talk, you have to say something important,” Smockey said. This is the thinking behind subversive songs like Votez Pour Moi (about democracy), Tomber la Lame (FGM) and A Qui Profite le Crime (government corruption).
In the summer of 2013, Smockey co-founded Le Balai Citoyen, or The Citizen’s Broom, with reggae artist Sams’K Le Jah. The grassroots movement was set up in opposition to Compaoré, aiming to bring positive change to Burkina Faso. “As our problems were political, our solutions had to be political also,” Smockey explained.
As for the name and ethos of the movement, he said: “With just one twig, you won’t get much done, but when you bind them together and make a broom you can clean a lot of shit. This is why we always say ‘our number is our strength’ because it is impossible to be defeated if we are united.”
Le Balai Citoyen played a big part in the ousting of Compaoré. It urged the people of Burkina Faso to organise and take to the streets. Following mass demonstrations in late 2014, Compaoré resigned on 31 October after 27 years in power. A transition government, led by the military, was established, which Smockey was broadly supportive of. However, a military coup saw General Gilbert Diendéré — leader of the Regiment of Presidential Security (RSP), Compaoré’s former secret service — seize power in September 2015.
Le Balai Citoyen staged a march to the presidential palace in protest of the coup. Smockey, along with fellow demonstrators, were shot at and then chased through the streets of Ouagadougou by RSP. Although Smockey managed to escape, many others were beaten and arrested.
“We knew we were lucky, but we weren’t able to go home,” he said. On 17 September he went into hiding. Asked whether he is an artist or an activist first, Smockey told Index on Censorship that depends on what he is doing at any one time. His fans tend not to draw a distinction, he explained. Nor did Diendéré, it would seem, whose forces rocket-bombed Smockey’s studio on the same day he went underground.
Studio Abazon was a hub for young and aspiring musicians. “They attacked it because they knew it was an important landmark to the resistance,” Smockey explained. “Their thinking was that you have to kill the leaders, everyone else will go away.”
Prior to the attack, the rapper had received death threats, and although he had the opportunity to flee to Holland, he stayed put. “You can’t talk about strength in numbers if on the first sign of difficulty you are going to run away,” he said.
Diendéré’s rule didn’t last long as he failed to consolidate his authority and came under pressure from international leaders and the army to step down. Smockey came out of hiding and fresh elections were held in Burkina Faso.
“The current government, although it’s not perfect, was chosen by the people so it’s legitimate,” explains Smockey. “Our job is now to be the watchers and guards of democracy.”
The rapper is optimistic about the future of his country and proud of the role his music and activism have played in developments so far. With the progress made, he now plans to put more focus on his music. “I’ve started rebuilding the studio, and have already begun recording artists again, but much more work needs to be done,” he said.
He has plans for a tour of the country and wants to set up a hip-hop festival. “It will create a kind of bridge between rappers, old school and new,” he said. “We’re going to do one big concert every month as a way of keeping people connected.”
When Index on Censorship launched the Music in Exile Fund in October 2015 along with the producers of the award-winning documentary They Will Have To Kill Us First, Johanna Schwartz, director of the film, said: “When faced with censorship, musicians across the world need our support.”
In whatever small way, the Music in Exile Fund will help see Smockey’s plans become reality.
The Music In Exile Fund was launched to help support musicians facing censorship around the world. The fund contributes to Index on Censorship’s year-long Freedom of Expression Awards Fellowship programme, helping musicians to build their international profile and to create, perform and share their work in a safe environment. You can donate here.