Hip hop identity in a township reality. - Poppunt

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e explained by the fact that coloured people were the first people in South Africa to do hip hop (this can have many reasons but is not relevant at this point). Black people followed afterwards and thus are still ‘new’ in the scene, so they still have to prove themselves towards their peer group. SYNTHESIS The overall purpose of this synthesis is to centralise all of our previous findings. After every chapter we have already summarised our preliminary findings. It is our aim now to assemble everything into one global outline. During the writing of the previous chapters, we have noticed that each of the different subjects we dealt with, were eventually closely linked. The first three themes covered, were the languages our informants use in their lyrics, the topics they treat and the way they position themselves towards gangsta rap, respectively. As we will show more thoroughly
further on in this chapter, these themes are intrinsically connected. When we add the part on code-switching and crossing, it seems that all of our findings, in one way or the other, have something to do with the issue of identity. We started with analysing the different reasons our interviewees have for choosing a particular language to rap in. For a certain group of them, it was essential to rap in their mother tongue, mainly as a way to show their pride about who they are and where they come from. In a society dominated by English, they want to prove that Xhosa and Afrikaans are not inferior languages, but are deserving of an equal status. The language they rap in also depends upon the public they want to reach. This coincides with the topics they write about. If they want to reach their ‘own’ people with their positive message, they will rap in their mother tongue, because that is the language these people understand best. Since it is their ultimate aim to change things in their environment, it is vital these people understand the message that they want to spread. When they only want to rap about fun times they might turn to English as a way to reach a bigger audience, which is not confined to their ‘own’ people. In that respect, the content of the songs determines the play list. They feel that there is a time and place for making fun and a different one for discussing more serious matters. For instance, when young people go out they want to have fun and might not be willing to listen to some conscientious lyrics at that time, while they might do so when they are at home. That is a reason why they do not only write songs about big and urgent township issues, because you cannot always be aware. If they aim towards a mixed audience they need to differentiate the topics they write about, since those people living in other conditions and will not always be able to empathise with what is being said. They would constrain their audience if they only rapped about conscientious issues. The fact that some of our interviewees only have a limited knowledge of English creates a problem that they can only talk about a limited number of issues. The last thing we can link together is their position towards gangsta rap. Since they all try to a large extent to spread a positive and conscientious message, they cannot be categorised as gangsta rappers. They are very delicate upon this matter though. For them, gangsta rap is a valuable genre, because it tells something about the deprived neighbourhoods the American rappers have to live in. Since the living conditions of our interviewees are similar, they can understand what they are rapping about. This is what they told us about their rap music, and the things mentioned above already indicate something about the identity they want to express to the outside world. In chapter five we attempted to reconstruct how they told us these things.
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Universiteit Gent Faculteit Lettere
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3. Conclusion 52 4. GANGSTA RAP (KD
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music they make). The concept of id
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the Hoofweg Primary School in Wesba
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There is no further message in the
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adopted it for the name of their gr
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songs, he will perform his own acts
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where the many townships arose. The
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were forced to move during this per
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protests; many people were killed c
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The unemployment rate is very high,
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apartheid state imposed before 1990
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particularly interesting that we fo
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100% perfectly so I wouldn’t be e
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y writing a song in English in orde
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If he does not understand the langu
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to more than just his people. Not o
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2. Findings When we examine the rep
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English is used by our interviewees
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The reason why we discuss the topic
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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
Page 63 and 64: ecause it suggests it is all right,
Page 65 and 66: In this part we assess the given an
Page 67 and 68: Our interviewees do see a bigger pi
Page 69 and 70: 2.1. Generally accepted opinion and
Page 71 and 72: themselves was: what do bilingual s
Page 73 and 74: Code-switched speech itself by the
Page 75 and 76: used codes (in contradistinction to
Page 77 and 78: ethnic boundaries, and it raises is
Page 79 and 80: 1998a: 272) states that three dimen
Page 81 and 82: about seven million black second-la
Page 83 and 84: for example the features of BSAE ar
Page 85 and 86: 2) Omission of articles How many pe
Page 87 and 88: Gough distinguish, but that did not
Page 89 and 90: - to battle: to compete, usually fr
Page 91 and 92: Those guys that I was rolling with.
Page 93: American code to claim membership o
Page 97 and 98: CONCLUSION For a particular segment
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Hip hop identity in a township reality. - Poppunt

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