Hip hop identity in a township reality. - Poppunt

they mainly rap in, to gain a clear view of the situation. We have interviewees who
rap mainly in Xhosa, English or Afrikaans. Of course this classification is somewhat
generalising, because some of our interviewees use more than one language to rap
in, but in these cases we can point to the reasons why.
1.1. Xhosa
As became clear in the biographies, most of our interviewees were black South
Africans living in Gugulethu. Research amongst this group resulted in seven
completely useable interviews for this subject. A major part of these interviewees,
six out of seven, predominantly use their mother tongue Xhosa in their rap lyrics,
along with our only interviewee living in Wesbank. In all of these interviews we
explicitly asked questions about the language they rap in and the reasons for
making their particular language choice. In some cases interviewees started talking
about this language issue themselves (e.g. Mayja and El Nino), but usually we had
to ask for it.
Before we start with the overview, we would like to make a note about the concept
‘spaza’. Spaza is basically rap music in the Xhosa language, and most of our
interviewees living in Gugulethu, occasionally use this term. According to some of
them, such as X and Shaun, spaza is a word that originated in Gugulethu.
Originally, it only referred to typical small township shops often based in
containers. Youngsters would gather around these shops and open a cipher 14 and
freestyle, mostly after school. A typical question amongst themselves would be:
“Tomorrow spaza nè 15 ?”, and after a while spaza did not only refer to the place they
met, but also to what they were doing there. We did not investigate the origin of this
word any further, so we do not actually know this explanation is wholly correct.
Shaun told us that everybody has their own explanation as to where the word spaza
for Xhosa rap comes from.
Full Stop raps totally in Xhosa. The only English words that appear in his lyrics are
usually fillers to join together sentences. He summarises the reasons why he has
chosen his mother tongue Xhosa as follows:
“I feel more free in Xhosa because that’s my mother tongue / I think that’s the
reason why / because if I would rhyme in English actually my English’s not
14
A cipher is an informal gathering of rappers where they can show and prove their rap skills.
15
A frequently used Afrikaans stopgap.