Hip hop identity in a township reality. - Poppunt

“(…) The first groups that were MC’ing over here in Cape Town were like b-
boys / [they would] just rapping other people’s rhymes from the States that
were [chanted] and they were breakdancing too / and then from that day they
started writing their own lyrics / (…) / so a lot of the people who were involved
with breakdancing became the first rappers.” (Emile YX?)
The first rap groups were only formed a couple of years later, between 1984 and
1987 (Africasgateway) and also according to Emile YX?:
“That was the start of most of the like MC’s like around about ‘84-‘85 / and
then the signing of the deals happened a bit later.”
At that time, hip hop received no airplay on the South African radio stations, and
performances remained limited to local musical venues (Africasgateway), so it was a
while before the music industry discovered hip hop as a genre.
“And then the first group that actually started signing a deal was Prophets of
da City / and they were the first in the whole of South Africa.”
Hip hop at that time was predominantly the occupation of coloured working-class
youths living in coloured townships (Badsha: 133) such as Mitchell’s Plain, which is
generally recognised as the original breeding ground of hip hop in Cape Town.
Emile YX? indicates two reasons for hip hop being so popular in his community.
Firstly, he remembers how their parents listened to a lot of American music such as
Motown. When hip hop groups used samples from these songs, they already felt a
connection, as it was these songs their parents listened to. Secondly is the fact that
in the Western Cape there exists a mixture of races, which is mainly the reason why
it was so popular amongst the coloured community. Coloured people do not have a
specific identity according to him, which is also applicable to the people who
created hip hop in America.
“Identity with so called coloured people / they don’t really have a specific
identity (…) / and that’s exactly the same thing that happened with the people
who created hip hop in America / ask somebody from the African and
American descendant or Afro-American / they’ve very little knowledge about
the African history / so it’s a very similar background.”
To a large extent the Cape Flats fit into the stereotype of a ghetto, similar to where
hip hop originated in America. In her article, Badsha gives an account of the
context in which to situate this peculiar evolution in South African youth culture.
In the following quote she considers the consequences of the limitations the