Hip hop identity in a township reality. - Poppunt

to more than just his people. Not only this would make him limit his views, but also
himself.
The next person writing exclusively in English, is the young female coloured MC
Eavesdrop. She speaks two languages, English and Afrikaans, but never doubted to
rhyme in English, because it is her favourite language. She has never actually
considered sitting down to try to write in Afrikaans, because she can only speak the
slang and street Afrikaans. For her, it is an additional advantage that English gives
access to a broader audience. Wherever one goes in the world, there is a chance
that people speak or at least understand English. She does not know where she
could go to, apart from South Africa, if she wrote in Zulu or Afrikaans:
“You do get a greater a greater audience I think / it would be different and nice
if you can rap in many languages / but for me personally I just because those
are my two languages and English is the one that I’ve chosen to rap in that’s
just / and wherever you go in the world if you rap in English people probably
tend to want / they can understand you / where’s I had to go maybe to
America and rap in Afrikaans they’d be like huh? / or if I go to Europe maybe
if I rapped in Afrikaans certain part of you would understand me / but I don’t
know but if I could rap in Zulu I don’t know where else I could go / over the
African continent probably but maybe I’m not.”
Emile YX? from the hip hop group Black Noise also points at the international
capacities of English. From time to time, he writes in Afrikaans, with some songs
written partly in English, having some verses in Afrikaans. Most of their songs are
in English, because English is a language that is widely understood, unlike
Afrikaans, although he thinks this is an unfortunate situation.
“So there’s a couple of tracks that have like a mixture / maybe one or two
verses in Afrikaans / but is like yeah change / because most of the songs is
English ‘cause I always you know / the majority of the people that listen to our
music also when we perform overseas / I think English is widely understood
unfortunately so.”
His first concern is to make sure that people understand what he is saying. He
thinks it would be beneficial if he was able to adapt the language that he uses for
all kinds of different places. It makes perfect sense for him to rhyme and get his
message across in different languages depending on the place where performing. If
he was able to speak other languages, he would do that, but it is just not possible
to accommodate everybody.
1.3. Afrikaans