Global and African: exploring hip-hop artists in Philippi Township, Cape Town

Abstract

This article investigates hip-hop, identity and global cultural flows among young people in contemporary Cape Town. We argue that hip-hop functions as a vehicle for identity negotiations in contemporary South Africa. The discussion of hip-hop in an ‘African’ township shows that the search for local forms of African identity in the time of globalisation does not necessarily mean the confirmation of old boundaries or the construction of bounded ‘new ethnicities’. Instead of dismissing forms of global popular youth culture as a threat to presumably ‘authentic’ African culture, the protagonists of the spaza hip-hop culture coming out of Capetonian townships have appropriated hip-hop in their quest for alternative, fluid African identities in contemporary South Africa.