Hip-Hop: Addressing Social Issues for the Records
Music as a weapon for social change.
Hip-hop has become a channel for addressing social issues as musicians have often engaged in social commentary through their music.
Recently, Nigerian hip-hop stars Vector and MI Abaga featured in a record by skit maker Nas Boi titled " Hunger Games.”
The song is included in the deluxe edition of his project “I.N.I.T (In Nasboi I Trust), and depicts the country's increasing cost of living while capturing the predicaments of the Nigerian masses in the face of biting hunger and hardship.
“Food no dey for boys to focus
Rice no dey even garri cost
Full trouser don turn to bogus
Hunger go kill person for! Lagos.”
The project also features other Hip-hop musicians like Falz, 2face, Wande Coal, and Pheelz.
Over time, the hip-hop genre has a history of opposing the establishment and campaigning for social change even as artists in this genre have deployed confrontational tactics to critique state policies and programs.
Evidence shows that hip-hop has been a potent weapon for social protests in the US and around the world as it has targeted discrimination, racism, police brutality, miseducation, and other social ills.
Globally, hip-hop remains a vital channel for civil society and other state actors to project their views on human rights infringements, corruption, and other social issues.
Hip-hop musicians frequently decry the pervasive nature of corruption in society by calling out specific government policies that infringe on civil liberties and freedom.
These artists may portray these critiques through confrontation or within the subtext of their music.
Tricia Rose, a black culture expert, explains that Hip-hop emanates as a result of the deindustrialization meltdown and the experiences of brutality, marginalization, and wasted opportunity produced by post-industrial oppression colliding with ties of black cultural expression.
“Hip hop emerged from the de-industrialization meltdown where social alienation, prophetic imagination, and yearning intersect . . . [It] is a cultural form that attempts to negotiate the experiences of marginalization, brutality, truncated opportunity, and oppression within cultural imperatives of African-American and Caribbean history, identity and community. It is the tension between the cultural fractures produced by post-industrial oppression and the binding ties of black cultural expressivity that sets the critical frame for the development of hip hop.”
Although local community organizing and mobilization from various non-state actors have contributed to the push for social change, hip-hop artists have contributed to political changes in their various countries.
For example, the Y'en a Marre movement in Senegal led by Keur Gui, a hip-hop group held the Senegalese regimes accountable for human rights abuses in the West African country.
With popular discontent for then-President Abdoulaye Wade, the group mobilized thousands of Senegalese voters to vote against Wade at the polls, denying the incumbent a third term in office.
Similarly, MC Amin a rap artist in the post-Arab Spring Egypt released Mabrouk Ya Sisi” (Congratulations to Ya Sisi) in 2014 to critique President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s human rights record and calls for a “third revolution.
Hip-hop culture has continued to dominate local music practices as young people engage in civic discourses, projecting their experiences and frustrations on the socioeconomic conditions of everyday life.
The artists go as far as infusing creative devices, indigenous lingos, and slang to appeal to the cultural sensibilities of their homegrown fanbase. While these songs stir emotions in listeners, they also help identify problems and call people to action.
Also, these tracks sometimes educate and create awareness on social issues while proffering solutions to distressing problems.
The Nigerian Hip-hop Scene: Early Days
During the early days of Nigerian Hip-hop evolution, the socio-political and economic segments of the country had taken a downturn as a result of the structural adjustment program.
Austerity measures introduced alongside this policy by the then head of state Ibrahim Badamosi Babaginda resulted in the collapse of many businesses and organizations triggering a mass migration of professionals out of the country.
The economic challenges at that time had hit the music industry as music recording companies like Sony, Polygram, and EMl shut down operations in their Lagos office.
Around that period, the development of computer-aided music production also made it cheaper and easier for artists to make music.
Talented music artists with no recording companies resorted to recording digitally and cutting promotional CDs for DJs and radio stations.
Young artists during this period were frustrated with the harsh economic realities that brewed social tension in both urban and rural areas.
Eedris Abdulkareem, a Nigerian rap artiste had formed a hip-hop group known as the” Remedies” in the 1990s.
In a solo project in 2004, the artist released the song “Jaga- Jaga”—highlighting political corruption, state failure, and the collapse of the nation’s economy at that time.
President Olusegun Obasanjo had clocked five years in office and the artiste used the song to critique the administration’s socio-economic policies and programs.
Jaga-Jaga, a street slang in Nigeria, depicts breakdown, disarray, and suffering of the masses.
Undoubtedly, the song became a hit and a street anthem as youths embraced the message as timely and precise.
While making waves on the streets, the song echoed across the corridors of power, where it was received differently with a ban.
According to Edris Abdukareem, the song was not to abuse anyone but to point out the ills bedeviling society to rally efforts towards improvement.
“Jagajaga is not an abusive word. . . . [it] just pin-pointed what is happening in our democracy, in our country, in our society and put it back to our people . . . [it points] to the ills in the society to see how we can improve it. “
The Nigerianization of Hip-Hop
Over the years, hip-hop has evolved through various stages as the use of indigenous languages in place of African-American lingo has led to the Nigerianization of the genre.
2face Innocent Idibia in his 2006 sophomore album, “Grass to Grace” portrayed the social dysfunction in society in a powerful message that addressed the corruption of the Nigerian political elites.
In one of the tracks titled “E be like say", the artist infused elements of RnB to provide a poignant critique of a post-colonial state.
On behalf of the frustrated young youths in the country, the song illustrated the endless antics of the political class who showed little or no attention to the plight of the people.
In the intro, he asserts:
Oh my God E be like say them want to tell us wetin we never hear before
[It’s like they are trying to tell us what we’ve not heard before]
He goes further in the song to call out corrupt politicians who would promise the people heaven on earth during elections only to disappear into thin air when they get the votes.
I dedicate this one to all of the shady politicians
Wey go promise and fail
[That makes empty promises]
And make the people live in harsh conditions
I dedicate this one to all of the shady politicians
The artist advised these politicians to change their ways and improve the standard of living for the people.
Why don't you change your ways
Change your ways now
Make the people live the way they are supposed to live
E no be small thing.
Again in 2010, Hip-hop was a vehicle for the masses to voice out the power situation in the country.
With so much of taxpayer's money pumped into the power sector, electricity remained a challenge for the most populous black nation.
Olarewaju Fasasi, popularly known as Sound Sultan enlisted MI Abaga to specifically address the issue of electricity while creating awareness around the need for stable power supply in his 2010 Light Up Naija anthem.
In local Nigerian pidgin, the artist begins by asking the government when they intend to give electricity to the people.
He reminded them of their promise in the past to light up the country by 2010 and urged them to live up to their promise.
When we ask our Government o,
When dem go give us light
Dem say na 2010,
We don dey wait 2010 since then
But now the waiting must end
Cos 2010 don show,oh-oh-oh
Towards the end of the song, rapper MI Abaga asks the government to show the light they promised the people.
“You said there’s a plan for us, there’s no light, how are you gonna show us?
Although not all Nigerian hip-hop artistes are politically conscious in their music, works from the likes of Edris Abdukareem, Tuface Idibia, Sound Sultan, African China, Burna Boy Falz, Etc offers a new perspective for gauging the public utility of the genre on a disgruntled generation in need of social change.
These artists with their colleagues have in different songs, assumed activist roles against the post-colonial state, using their music as a path of consciousness.
Most times, the anti-state stand projected by these artists in their songs could lead to censorship in the commercial sense.
They risk getting blacklisted from endorsements, a reduction in playtime, and a fall in ratings amidst other extra opportunities for career progression.
As captured by Akpan Wilson, a professor at the Kubu Institute of Science and Technology, the entire infrastructure for showcasing the creative abilities of these artists is owned or controlled by the state.
“[Conscious or rather] ‘recalcitrant’ artists risk career hardships as recording studios, live performance venues, television and radio networks, and other infrastructure for exhibiting creativity are often owned or controlled by the same corporates that dictate the marketing criteria for doing music. “
Commercialization of the Culture: The End?
Looking at the vibrant rich background of politically conscious music in Nigeria, observers notice compromise or even complacency on the side of the artists who today prefer talking about booty-shaking, champagne popping, fraud, and parties rather than using their art to mirror social happenings in the society.
Reuben Abatti, a journalist and social commentator while commenting on the identity crisis bedeviling the nation's culture and traditions, posits that “a country’s character is indexed into its arts and culture, eternal purveyors of tones and modes. Nigerian youths now sing of broken heads, raw sex, uselessness, and raw aspirational emotionalism. A sign of the times?”
With the proliferation of digital technology, the crux is not on how easy it is to make and spread music or its ease of access but the forms of music that are spread through these new media channels.
Already, the activities of the new media hinges on the ideals of a free market economy— which demands that people access the culture they want.
Not only has this new reality accelerated the decline in high art’s position in public life, but we see a situation where politically-conscious music for example, is forced to repurpose itself to fit the demands of its new media context.
Joey Akan, a music journalist and podcaster laments in a tweet, the retrogressive standards of the culture, even as he opined that the next rated headies awards for breakout hip hop artists would take a nosedive due to a lack of mass impact.
“The next set of Headies next rated will be the weakest we have seen in a full decade. He tweets,“ Not in terms of skill, but the mass impact of their art. “Our culture has dropped its standard for novelty and connectivity, and we'll be forced to accept and celebrate this retrogression.
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