Hip-Hop activism in post-Apartheid South Africa
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2014-09-29
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University of Cape Town
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UCT Summer School Lectures 2014
Abstract
‘Why should I fight for a country’s glory/When it ignores me?/Besides, the
township’s already a war zone/So why complain or moan?’ The opening
lines from Prophets of da City’s (POC) 1993 song Understand where I’m
coming from expressed a deep suspicion of the emerging ‘new’ South
Africa. Twenty years later, this course examines the role hip-hop has
played in engaging young South Africans both creatively and politically.
It will offer an account of hip-hop’s political orientation in relation to
debates about commercial co-option, censorship, gender, race and other
identity politics, and examine how these politics have been taken up
by South African hip-hop artists. It will focus specifically on hip-hop’s
reception in Cape Town in the late 1980s and early 1990s and explore the
work of early Capetonian hip-hop artists, in particular the Prophets of da
City. Widely acknowledged for setting the scene for a range of emerging
mother-tongue rappers in South Africa, POC’s influence on struggles
over language, race and identity and on early Afrikaans hip-hop will be
explored. The final session will be a panel discussion, featuring hip-hop
artists and academics, which examines the warnings of Understand
where I’m coming from, and considers the role of contemporary hip-hop
artists in post-apartheid struggles for justice and equality.
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Reference:
Haupt, A. 2014-09-29. Hip-Hop activism in post-Apartheid South Africa. Recorded lecture. UCT Summer School Lectures 2014. University of Cape Town.