Hiphop in Africa?
When I used to think about Africa I saw a very poor country, crying babies and kids with no future. Of course this is all very true but in the last year some people showed me what life is really about for some people in Africa. These people surrounded themselves with music in any form. Rap, singing, (break)dancing, making video's and music. I was blown away by the strength and faith these people create from themselves unlike us getting it for materialistic things. I would like to show you some of the things people showed me and hope you will see Africa a little different from now on.
First of all, open the 22tracks.com Africa playlist next to this page. This list of beautiful music comes from Africa Unsigned, an African company that presents the New African Sound.
Africa Unsigned is taking African music to a whole new level by linking fans directly to musicians and leveraging those relationships for the creation of new, well recorded, African music. We do so by helping unsigned African artists to record music funded by fans. Music fans from all over the world can browse through artists on AfricaUnsigned.com - African Unsigned, 2010
With as little as 1$ you can support these artist to get a professional recording by helping them raise the $10.000 target. In return you recieve the recording and the generated net income from the music sales is shared equally between the artist and you.
What I really like about this whole thing is that 22tracks.com is supporting it. I've mentioned 22tracks.com before (A jukebox consisting of 22 playlists of different genres, each playlist filled with 22 tracks, selected by specialized DJs). 22tracks provides a quick overview of the latest music, promotes new artists and lets you discover new genres. What makes it even better is you don't have to registrate or pay and you can compose your own 22tracks list called 'MY22'. Once in a while they temporarily add a special list like African Unsigned which makes 22tracks.com an absolute number one bookmark!
One of the great hiphop tracks you can find in the African Unsigned list is 'Msimu Kwa Msimu' from the X Plastaz. This rap group is situated in Arusha, Tanzania. A year ago Thijs Bazelmans and Mo Assem, two Image and Media Technology students, travelled to the Kilimanjaro Film Institute (KFI) in Arusha. KFI is a training institute based in Arusha which educates youth from disadvantaged backgrounds in different disciplines of filmmaking, in order to help them gain the necessary skills to find employment. Thijs and Mo guided a couple of dedicated students from the KFI during the making of the X Plastaz music video 'Furaha'. Check out the video here and the making of here.
Another great hiphop video project comes from Uganda. This is a project I already talked about a couple of times before. Mambapoint host Evelien Bosch and Mark Gademan aka PerCeptie (also founder of Habek) spend a week in Uganda giving hiphop workshops to younsters. In only five days they produced a song called ‘life’ and made a very nice videoclip.
The song ‘life’ is about the life of these younsters. Most of them had a tough life. Raised in the ghetto, mostly without parents because they died of AIDS or were murdered by rebels. Life can be cruel, but they all share one thing in common: Music! Hiphop gives meaning to their lifes. They express themselves through rhymes and support eachother by making music.
Well, that was all for now. I look forward to more of these projects and of course I will keep you posted!