 Brian Khoza, Image: Jonathan BurtonJoin us on FacebookFollow us on TwitterInstitutional Profiles      | SOUTH AFRICA  ‘Hip hop was my first academic qualification …’ Brian Khoza 02 September 2021 Tweet In 1994, I started grade 8, my first year of secondary education, when less than 10% of the school population was black. It was a great time in a new world. Democracy was on the horizon and, as South Africans, we were in a fishbowl being studied. What got me through and helped me understand a lot of what was going on was getting into hip hop after my friend gave me my first rap tape, Dr Dre’s 1992 classic The Chronic. He lent me many others and, in strange ways, they helped me navigate the rest of my life, especially South African society and its politics. I consider rap and hip hop culture my first academic qualification and, to demonstrate my point, I will zoom in on West coast or California rap. The first lesson, and there were many, was about branding through catchy artist names. Political violence As a 20-year-old rapper, Snoop Doggy Dogg introduced the album of his mentor, Dr Dre, by challenging his enemies to “handle it in the streets”. Snoop was from the infamous Crips Gang that wore blue clothes or bandanas and whose rivals, the Bloods, wore red. Dr Dre’s former partner and new enemy was an older, richer and higher ranking Crip and this brought Snoop the wrath of some of his fellow gang members. The Bloods versus Crips to me, as I started to understand the culture, were basically like the old Inkatha Freedom Party versus the African National Congress (operating as the United Democratic Front while it was banned) battles of my 1980s childhood, in particular in the province now known as KwaZulu-Natal. At the time, political battles between these two parties were intense, often deadly. The black residential areas were partitioned and different parts belonged to different organisations. Phrases like “where are you from?” were similar to what I went through from ages six to nine moving around the different townships. Being from the wrong neighbourhood could be deadly in the Los Angeles ghettos, similar to South African townships like Pietermaritzburg’s Imbali 1 ruled by the ANC and Pietermaritzburg’s Imbali 2, which was mostly IFP. Motives for violence differed, too, of course. Snoop’s utterance led to violence as his age-mate Crips gang members harassed him for insulting their boss, Eazy-E. This violence led to Snoop’s infamous murder trial, which may or may not have been linked to the rivalry with Eazy. He was eventually acquitted but, right before that, he welcomed controversial rapper 2Pac joining him at Death Row, by then the most successful rap record label. 2Pac immediately got involved in local politics but mostly found comfort and refuge from what he felt was victimisation by New York’s Bad Boy Records boss Puff Daddy and his artist Biggie Smalls, that 2Pac was mentoring. It became an eventually deadly rivalry, which made Dr Dre leave his lucrative company and war-weary Snoop reluctant to join the conflict. Eazy had died suddenly and mysteriously of AIDS in March 1995. Suge Knight and 2Pac became Batman and Robin fighting the now late Eazy-E’s people who are rumoured to have formed an alliance with Bad Boy. A car with both of them inside is shot at in September 1996, killing 2Pac. In March 1997, Biggie Smalls dies in Los Angeles in a similar manner, believed to be retaliation. Business studies and economics Snoop’s youth deemed him weak against a political senior, multimillionaire Eazy-E although, in the music business, he had become the biggest star. The corporate world had embraced the art form called Gangsta Rap that Eazy-E had monetised and built a business model around. Rapper Ice Cube had been the lyrical force behind it and Dr Dre the sound. Dre was signed as an exclusive producer to Ruthless Records but had mistakenly believed he co-owned Ruthless Records. This meant that, whatever future work he did, put money into Eazy-E’s Ruthless Records, like the rumoured 50c for every one of the five million copies sold of The Chronic. We now know from the documentary The Defiant Ones that negotiations had to be conducted with Ruthless in order for Dr Dre’s first album to be released. Here I was learning about contracts and legal obligations. In an ominous monologue, Eazy-E speaks of Dr Dre fabricating his criminal background (never broke a law in his life), of Snoop Doggy Dogg being financially exploited (played not paid) and other matters. Ice Cube, after being the head lyricist or content creator, had left Ruthless Records over financial matters, is known for also not having a criminal background, but more so being a ‘lyrical political’ for the underprivileged black masses who turn to crime, drugs and violence due to political oppression. He was controversial and lyrically brilliant, but had a concern about how the New York magazines considered rappers and lyricists from other regions to be mediocre. This seemed to echo 2Pac’s feelings about New York, but 2Pac’s issue was personal issues with people from there and it was a street fight. Cube was fighting for artistic acceptance, saying West coast hip hop was more than monotonous violent content and “all the critics in the NYC/ Trying to get an East hip hop monopoly” should be careful because it can get dangerous. Interestingly, Dr Dre later on cited one of his reasons for not engaging in a regional fight as, because more than 50% of their sales came from New York, so the East-West thing was really propaganda. Academic debating When Ice Cube left Ruthless Records, he made a classic, political and polarising project called AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted where he calls out America for being a racist country and political system. His second album, Death Certificate’s, cover artwork is a body covered in the Confederate flag with the toe tag saying ‘Uncle Sam’, which is the personification of the United States of America. More memorable, however, is a song that was the rebuttal to his former label mates’ taunts for leaving Ruthless Records that was entitled No Vaseline. This was alluding to everybody being financially ‘screwed’ by the record label. Ice Cube became a dominant force in what was called conscious hip hop as well as battle rap, which involves humbling other rappers with your lyrical prowess and insults. Cube took exception to the ostracising of California rap and he addressed perceptions that West coast rappers were less talented. A controversial conflict he had to back down from was when he clashed with Latino rap group Cypress Hill. They had made him listen to a song for a movie soundtrack and, instead of using it, he had made a similar song. The deaths of Biggie Smalls and 2Pac, universally known as the darkest moment in hip hop history, inspired him to make a phone call to make peace. A friend of mine told me that Latino gangs would have run him out of Los Angeles because Cypress Hill was their voice and they outnumber the black population. Connecting the dots All these stories are from my teenage years and the discussions I had as a child may be hyperbole, but they helped me understand many concepts I would later study. Political Science, sociology and other social sciences were relatively easy but I could not freely accept when the best teacher I ever had, Professor Laurence Piper, called me an organic intellectual. I’m more comfortable with him calling me “very observant; more so than most people”. This commentary has been written by Brian Khoza. He is an author, columnist and hip hop artist with a passion for gender dynamics. Receive email updates from UWN Global newsletters Africa newsletters Other (other includes related events and webinars) Data will be processed according to our standard terms & conditions and our Privacy Policy. |            Sponsored Article  Most underwater robots record the sea. This one understands it Khalifa University staff |
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