Hip hop identity in a township reality. - Poppunt

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area. A lot of black people lived illegally on the Cape Flats, because the government had designated them as residents of the Bantustans, which meant they actually had to go and live there, even though many of them were born in Cape Town. As a result of the forced government relocations, they constructed informal settlements, which is a rather vague word for a gathering of shacks made of wood, cardboard and sheets of corrugated iron (Wikipedia). All of the Cape Flats communities are until today characterised by different degrees of poverty. The Cape Flats have almost become a synonym for serious social ills, such as a high rate of unemployment, little schooling, criminality, drug abuse and a lack of decent housing. In short, the Cape Flats have all the hallmarks to be considered as urban ghettos. The majority of the black and coloured people of Cape Town still live in townships on the Cape Flats. Most of these townships are home to coloured people, and only four (Gugulethu, Khayelitsha, Langa and Nyanga) are the home of black people. 8 Gugulethu, meaning ‘our pride’, is one of the oldest black townships in the whole of South Africa, and is the result of the migrant labour system. 9 In 1958 Gugulethu was established, because Langa had become too small. 10 Most of the migrant workers living in Gugulethu, originally came from the Transkei and Ciskei homelands, where they left their family on their search for work. These migrant workers were accommodated with dormitory-style hostels, where living conditions and facilities were extremely poor. As a result of these poor living conditions, the migrants started to build their own shacks. Later, formal houses were built to accommodate a part of the migrant workforce. 11 Initially, women were not permitted to visit their husbands, but after a period of time, this ruling was lifted. Gugulethu currently has a population of approximately 325 000 people, and thus is one of the fastest developing black townships in South Africa. The average monthly income is no more than R 1.126 (135 €) (PubMed Central 12 ). The Bonteheuwel township was the result of the previously mentioned Group Areas Act. Most of the people who live in Bonteheuwel were inhabitants from District Six and Diep River and were forcibly removed from these places. Bonteheuwel is a mainly coloured working-class community in which the majority of the people still rent their houses from the state. 40% of the Bonteheuwel population is younger than nineteen years old, hence the youth is a key demographic and social factor. 8 http://www.cape-town.info/cape-town-attractions/cape-flats/ 9 http://www.uwc.ac.za/ems/is/somditti/Rep_Gugulethu.pdf 10 http://www.popularmemory.org/archive3.htm and http://www.uwc.ac.za/ems/is/somditti/Rep_Gugulethu.pdf 11 http://www.uwc.ac.za/ems/is/somditti/Rep_Gugulethu.pdf 12 http://www.pubmedcentral.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=471560
The unemployment rate is very high, with an estimated 70% of the population having no job. 40% of the people have had no schooling at all, or attended only a few years at primary school, only 12% has obtained his or her matriculation or attended higher education. There is also a growing poverty, with a lot of households depending on state grants or employed family members for subsistence. 33% has no income at all, 25% earns less than R 1.200 (144 €) per year and 41% less than R 18.000 (2160 €) per year (IJR – Institute for Justice and Reconciliation 13 ). All of these figures, together with the poor living conditions and inadequate access to social and recreational facilities, result in social problems, such as alcohol or other substance abuse, gangsterism, child abuse and so on (IJR – Institute for Justice and Reconciliation). 4. History of hip hop in Cape Town In this part of the introduction we want to give a brief outline of the origins of hip hop in Cape Town. We did not find a lot of sources to document this overview, nor did we pay a lot of attention to it in the interviews we did. This is rather unfortunate, since we only realised afterwards that this history is a very fascinating matter and it did spark our curiosity just a bit too late. Most of the quotes in this part are from Emile YX?, because we did ask him about the early days of hip hop in Cape Town, although also rather briefly. Still before the commercial breakthrough of hip hop in the USA, from the mid and late eighties on, hip hop emerged on the Cape Flats in the early eighties, with 1982 as often mentioned year to mark some kind of starting point. At that moment, especially b-boying (breakdancing) and writing (graffiti) were the most popular elements of the hip hop culture on the Cape Flats. It was far more important to gain recognition for being a good dancer, rather than for being an MC, as Emile YX? recalls: “When we started out it was like be famous for dancing / for like being a good dancer.” The first people who started rapping were b-boys who just rapped the rhymes of famous American rappers, without yet writing their own lyrics. 13 entire paragraph: http://www.ijr.org.za/reconciliationreconstruction/memoryhealing/communityprofiles
Page 1 and 2: Universiteit Gent Faculteit Lettere
Page 3 and 4: 3. Conclusion 52 4. GANGSTA RAP (KD
Page 5 and 6: music they make). The concept of id
Page 7 and 8: the Hoofweg Primary School in Wesba
Page 9 and 10: There is no further message in the
Page 11 and 12: adopted it for the name of their gr
Page 13 and 14: songs, he will perform his own acts
Page 15 and 16: where the many townships arose. The
Page 17 and 18: were forced to move during this per
Page 19: protests; many people were killed c
Page 23 and 24: apartheid state imposed before 1990
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Page 27 and 28: 100% perfectly so I wouldn’t be e
Page 29 and 30: y writing a song in English in orde
Page 31 and 32: If he does not understand the langu
Page 33 and 34: to more than just his people. Not o
Page 35 and 36: 2. Findings When we examine the rep
Page 37 and 38: English is used by our interviewees
Page 39 and 40: The reason why we discuss the topic
Page 41 and 42: Secondly, he tries to motivate yout
Page 43 and 44: apartheid, somebody that passed awa
Page 45 and 46: narrative. As such, the songs are e
Page 47 and 48: “That’s what we doing / make su
Page 49 and 50: man I’ve got guns / yeah right sh
Page 51 and 52: nigga who was like you know not an
Page 53 and 54: “More and more of the kids are re
Page 55 and 56: They are giving advice through the
Page 57 and 58: audience, in the mid nineties, it h
Page 59 and 60: will try to reach the same luxury,
Page 61 and 62: “But it’s being portrayed by th
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Page 65 and 66: In this part we assess the given an
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themselves was: what do bilingual s
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Code-switched speech itself by the
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used codes (in contradistinction to
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ethnic boundaries, and it raises is
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1998a: 272) states that three dimen
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about seven million black second-la
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for example the features of BSAE ar
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2) Omission of articles How many pe
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Gough distinguish, but that did not
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- to battle: to compete, usually fr
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Those guys that I was rolling with.
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American code to claim membership o
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further on in this chapter, these t
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CONCLUSION For a particular segment
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