Hip Hop Activism
Dynamic Tension between the Global and Local in Mozambique
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/jwpm.36673Keywords:
local African languages, linguistic citizenship, Mozambique, relocalization, temporalityAbstract
From its inception in the late 1980s to the present day, hip hop culture in Mozambique underwent several stages in which the process of “keeping it real” was in constant negotiation with the association of the Global Hip Hop Nation (GHHN), and its local cultural and linguistic elements. This article, using tropes of temporality as the main framework, discusses how relocalization of the GHHN is constructed in Mozambican hip hop. There is a progressive connection between the past, present and future which is highlighted by local rappers. The article argues that Mozambican hip hop activism is built through acts of engagement in political tropes, in which local rappers are acting as spokesmen of the marginalized population through lyrics that claim citizenship. The political discourses produced during the Frelimo’s socialist governance era are rescued to challenge the liberal politics developed in the present democratic period, which, in large part, is contested by the population at the margin of the development. Therefore, local rappers’ lyrics address popular complaints related to some political decisions that negatively affect the population at the margins and lead to general societal malfunction. The local African languages that were ideologically marginalized since the colonial regime are now being rescued by local rappers as a way to contextualize them into contemporary, metropolitan and transnational languages. This linguistic relocalization indexes a new present and an aspiration for a different future, where these languages will be inserted together with Portuguese to allow communication in urban spaces. This engagement by rappers can be perceived as acts of linguistic citizenship.
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Sitoe, Tirso. 2012. Comunidades Hip Hop na Cidade de Maputo (Tese de Licenciatura não publicada). Maputo: UEM, Departamento de Arqueologia e Antropologia.
—2013. “Música RAP e identidades na cidade de Maputo: buscando pegadas e analisando discursos”. AGÁLIA 107: 51–65.
Stroud, Christopher. 2001. “African Mother-tongue Programmes and the Politics of Language: Linguistic Citizenship versus Linguistic Human Rights”. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 22/4: 339–55. https://doi.org/10.1080/01434630108666440
—2009. “A Postliberal Critique of Language Rights: Toward a Politics of Language for Linguistics of Contact”. In International Perspectives on Bilingual Education, edited by John Petrovic, 191–218. New York: Information Age Publishing.
—2015. “Linguistic Citizenship as Utopia”. Multilingual Margins 2/2: 22–39.
Stroud, Christopher and Manuel Guissemo. 2015. “Linguistic Messianism”. Multilingual Margins 2/2: 7–21.
The Temple of Hip Hop. The Hip Hop Declaration of Peace. Available at https://thetempleofhiphop.wordpress.com/hip-hop-declaration-of-peace/ (accessed 20 December 2016).
Westinen, Elina. 2011. “‘Bättre folk’: Critical Sociolinguistic Commentary in Finnish Rap Music”. Tilburg Papers in Culture Studies 16: 1–17.
Williams, Quentin and Christopher Stroud. 2013. “Multilingualism in Transformative Spaces: Contact and Conviviality”. Language Policy 12/4: 289–311. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10993-012-9265-4
—2015. “Linguistic Citizenship: Language and Politics in Postnational Modernities”. Journal of Language and Politics 14/3: 406–430. https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.14.3.05wil
Alridge, Derrick. 2005. “From Civil Rights to Hip Hop: Toward a Nexus of Ideas”. Journal of African American History 90/3: 226–52. https://doi.org/10.1086/JAAHv90n3p226
Androutsopoulos, Jannis. 2009. “Language and the Three Spheres of Hip Hop”. In Global Linguistic Flows: Hip Hop Cultures, Youth Identities, and the Politics of Language, edited by H. Samy Alim, Awad Ibrahim and Alastair Pennycook, 43–62. London: Routledge.
Blommaert, Jan and Piia Varis. 2011. “Enough is Enough: The Heuristics of Authenticity in Superdiversity”. Tilburg Papers in Culture Studies 2: 1–13.
Carmine, Fr. 2012. “Cesária Évora – Barefoot singer”. SouthWorld News & views from emerging countries. Available at http://www.southworld.net/cesaria-evora-barefoot-singer/ (accessed 4 May 2017).
Cunliffe, Ann, John Luhman and David Boje. 2004. “Narrative Temporality: Implication for Organizational Research”. Organization Studies 25/2: 261–86. https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840604040038
Dinerman, Alice. 2007. “Moçambique Depois do Socialismo: A Independência Revisitada”. Relações Internacionais (September): 101–124.
Dolby, Nadine. 2006. “Popular Culture and Public Space: The Possibilities of Cultural Citizenship”. African Studies Review 49/3: 31–47. https://doi.org/10.1353/arw.2007.0024
Dovchin, Sender. 2017. “Translocal English in the Linguascape of Mongolian Popular Music”. World Englishes 36/1: 2–19. https://doi.org/10.1111/weng.12189
Dovchin, Sender, Shaila Sultana and Alastair Pennycook. 2015. “Relocalizing the Translingual Practices of Young Adults in Mongolia and Bangladesh”. Translation and Translanguaging in Multilingual Contexts 1/1: 4–26. https://doi.org/10.1075/ttmc.1.1.01dov
Eisenlohr, Patrick (2004). “Temporalities of Community: Ancestral Language, Pilgrimage and Diasporic Belonging in Mauritius”. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 14(1), 88–98. https://doi.org/10.1525/jlin.2004.14.1.81
Hoy, David. 2009. The Time of our Lives: A Critical History of Temporality. Massachusetts: MIT Press. https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/9780262013048.001.0001
Isin, Engin. 2009. “Citizenship in Flux: The Figure of the Activist Citizen”. In Citizenship Rights, edited by Jo Shaw and Igor Stiks, 367–88. New York: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.1057/sub.2009.25
Jornal Notícias. 2014. “Entrevista: Ivete Mafundza Histórias do ‘Hip Hop’ com normas jurídicas.” Available at https://tinyurl.com/caderno-cultural-18634 (accessed 20 January 2017).
Milroy, Lesley. 1987. Language and Social Networks, 2nd edn. Oxford: Blackwell.
Milroy, Lesley and Matthew Gordon. 2003. Sociolinguistics: Method and Interpretation. Oxford: Blackwell. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470758359
Muhonen, Anu. 2014. “There are No Ghettos: Indexing Global Rap and Hip Hop in Local Finnish Youth Radio Discourse”. InterDiciplines 1: 127–59.
Omoniyi, Tope. 2006. “Hip Hop through the World Englishes Lens: A Response to Globalization”. World Englishes 25/2: 195–208. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0083-2919.2006.00459.x
Osumare, Halifu. 2012. The Hiplife in Ghana: West African Indigenization of Hip Hop. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137021656
Parmentier, Richard. 2007. “It’s about Time: On the Semiotics of Temporality”. Language & Communication 27: 272–77. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langcom.2007.01.006
Pennycook, Alastair. 2007. Global Englishes and Transcultural Flows. New York: Routledge.
—2010. Language as a Local Practice. London: Routledge.
Pennycook, Alastair and Tony Mitchell. 2009. “Hip Hop as Dusty Foot Philosophy: Engaging Locality”. In Global Linguistic Flows: Hip Hop Cultures, Youth Identities and the Politics of Language, edited by H. Samy Alim, Awad Ibrahim and Alastair Pennycook, 25–42. New York: Routledge.
Phelan, Shane. 1995. “The Space of Justice: Lesbians and Democratic Politics”. In Social Postmodernism, edited by Linda Nicholson and Steven Seidman, 332–56. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511520792.014
Pöysä, Anna and Janne Rantala. 2018 “Who has the Word? Mc Azagaia’s Intervention into Past and Politics in Mozambique”. In Lusophone Hip Hop, edited by Rosana Martins and Massimo Canevacci, 222–39. Wantage, UK: Sean Kingston.
Rantala, Janne. 2016. “‘Hidrunisa Samora’: Invocations of a Dead Political Leader in Maputo Rap”. Journal of Southern African Studies 42/6: 1161–77. https://doi.org/10.1080/03057070.2016.1253929
Revista Missanga. 2015. “Orgulho e Miséria do 2Hustler na Literatura”. Revista Missanga 43/16: 30–33. Maputo: Sol do Índico.
Revista Omenelick2o Ato. 2012. Palavras Certeiras Principal nome do rap moçambicano da atualidade, Azagaia fala em entrevista exclusiva à revista OMENELICK2o ATO: “A África e o Brasil são muito mais do que as emissoras de TV transmitem”. São Paulo: São Caetano do Sul. Available at http://omenelick2ato.com/entrevistas/azagaia/ (accessed 24 August 2015).
Shusterman, Richard. 2005. “Rap Aesthetics: Violence and the Art of Keeping It Real”. In Hip Hop and Philosophy: Rhyme 2 Reason, edited by Derrick Darby and Tommie Shelby, 54–64. Chicago: Open Court Publishing.
Sitoe, Tirso. 2012. Comunidades Hip Hop na Cidade de Maputo (Tese de Licenciatura não publicada). Maputo: UEM, Departamento de Arqueologia e Antropologia.
—2013. “Música RAP e identidades na cidade de Maputo: buscando pegadas e analisando discursos”. AGÁLIA 107: 51–65.
Stroud, Christopher. 2001. “African Mother-tongue Programmes and the Politics of Language: Linguistic Citizenship versus Linguistic Human Rights”. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 22/4: 339–55. https://doi.org/10.1080/01434630108666440
—2009. “A Postliberal Critique of Language Rights: Toward a Politics of Language for Linguistics of Contact”. In International Perspectives on Bilingual Education, edited by John Petrovic, 191–218. New York: Information Age Publishing.
—2015. “Linguistic Citizenship as Utopia”. Multilingual Margins 2/2: 22–39.
Stroud, Christopher and Manuel Guissemo. 2015. “Linguistic Messianism”. Multilingual Margins 2/2: 7–21.
The Temple of Hip Hop. The Hip Hop Declaration of Peace. Available at https://thetempleofhiphop.wordpress.com/hip-hop-declaration-of-peace/ (accessed 20 December 2016).
Westinen, Elina. 2011. “‘Bättre folk’: Critical Sociolinguistic Commentary in Finnish Rap Music”. Tilburg Papers in Culture Studies 16: 1–17.
Williams, Quentin and Christopher Stroud. 2013. “Multilingualism in Transformative Spaces: Contact and Conviviality”. Language Policy 12/4: 289–311. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10993-012-9265-4
—2015. “Linguistic Citizenship: Language and Politics in Postnational Modernities”. Journal of Language and Politics 14/3: 406–430. https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.14.3.05wil
Published
2018-06-08
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Guissemo, M. A. (2018). Hip Hop Activism: Dynamic Tension between the Global and Local in Mozambique. Journal of World Popular Music, 5(1), 50-70. https://doi.org/10.1558/jwpm.36673
