East African Hip Hop: Youth, Culture and Globalization (review)

Mwenda Ntarangwi's volume, East African Hip Hop: Youth, Culture and Globalization, analyzes hip hop music across three nations: Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. Ntarangwi examines East African hip hop as a cross-border and regional reality and considers the ways youth mobilize hip hop to critique neoliberal fundamentalism and communicate social and cultural interpretations within a larger regional polity. The book defines hip hop as "a genre that emerged in the 1980s[,] breaking ranks with previous styles [and combining] elements of local, popular musical traditions with mostly American and Jamaican musical styles of rap and raga" (viii).

The book begins by contextualizing globalization and youth agency, one of the forces that gave birth to hip hop in East Africa. Here, globalization refers to the "historical process of contact and even conquest across geographical, cultural and political boundaries in which people, ideas, goods, and capital circulate over an expanded terrain and period" (2). The second section analyzes hip hop and African identity within the context of contemporary globalization, suggesting that globalization provides both opportunities and challenges for youth in East Africa seeking to assert new identities through hip hop. The author traces the historical and political milieu of East African hip hop from the 1980s and 1990s. Beyond its African American roots, the African origins of the music are underlined through the structural and textual styles shared with other East African traditional types of expressive culture.

Ntarangwi analyzes gendered identities in East African hip hop, revealing how the entry of female artists into the male-dominated performative space disrupts patriarchal hegemony. Through their lyrics and performance, female artists provide an oppositional discourse to the dominant male voice often laden with insolent and misogynistic tendencies. Female narratives address topical issues such as sexuality and its negative consequences, which are usually lopsided against women. Beyond the traditional gendered roles, female artists present reversed gender roles with men portrayed as victims.

Hip hop is a powerful tool of political participation. Ntarangwi shows how artists use music to express their views in a system that allows young people little room for participation. Their lyrics decry corruption, mismanagement, and the thirst for power exhibited by the political class while cautioning citizens to be wary of politicians' deceit. They denounce rampant inequalities exacerbated by marginalization and dispossession of the masses. Hip hop has also helped break the culture of silence surrounding sexuality and HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections, one of the leading health challenges in the region. By means of metaphor and colloquial language, artists address topical issues such as HIV prevention, testing, management, care, and stigma, and they also engage in practical preventive activities such as condom distribution during music shows. A fast-growing component of youth culture, hip hop provides a forum to address issues and express local and global identities.

Ntarangwi's comprehensive work is pioneering, determined, and a timely contribution to scholarship in the area of African emergent cultures. However, the book has several gaps. The author addresses only the music performance aspect of East African hip hop, leaving out graffiti, DJaying, MCing, and fashion. Most performances identified as hip hop are actually popular music, leading to an overuse of the term "hip hop." Although the author acknowledges this omission, arguing that his focus is on social issues and reconstitution of youth agency through music, the criteria for inclusion or exclusion are fuzzy. Furthermore, the discussion of globalization and its influence on the development of the genre demonstrates a U.S. gaze. Despite acknowledging the strong presence of reggae-inclined performances, for instance, there is less discussion of the Jamaican influence, which is undoubtedly enormous. In addition, while the author does a good job translating 143 song lyrics into English, omitting the original texts deprives us of the sounds of the East African languages and a sense of the creative regional slang. Despite these gaps, Ntarangwi...