THE Afrikan Hip-Hop Caravan is about to sweep through six African cities, from Cape Town to Timbuktu, over the next two months.
The grassroots educational movement aims to use hip-hop as a vehicle to educate people.
Organiser Anele Selekwa, who is part of the arts collective Soundz of the South (SOS), says the initiative has been an unwritten vision since the 2008 Makinika Southern Afrikan Hip-Hop Caravan in Nairobi.
The aim is to encourage social responsibility.
"We constantly push boundaries.
"We are not about reaching markets or selling CDs," Selekwa says.
The line-up for the tour includes American artists Mic Crenshaw, DJ Radical Klavical, SOS and Zubs, to name a few.
It took anthropology student Lauren Kent a year to learn about the movement on the African continent.
While conducting research for her thesis at Rhodes University titled "Hip-Hop Identity and the Youth", she discovered that hip-hop was growing in Africa.
In 2011, Kent travelled from the east coast of Africa, from Mozambique to Congo and Uganda.
She says she discovered that hip-hop can be a springboard for youth development.
"It is not about big rappers and their money. Hip-hop is a lot bigger than that," she says.
Kent's findings are spot on because in Senegal, the genre is said to be the unofficial political opposition. Last year during the Senegalese elections, hip-hop artists stopped President Abdoulaye Wade from running for a third term by forminga coalition called Yen a Mare, meaning "We are Fed-up!"
The caravan of scholars, activists and hip-hop artists will spend a week in each city that they visit.
Cape Town will be the first, from February 13 to 17. A symposium will be held in the city centre, followed by a show in a township. Wherever the caravan goes, 10 people will be co-opted to join the journey to the next city.
Tunisia will be the last stop where a big symposium, themed World Social Forum, in opposition to the World Economic Forum conference in Davos, Switzerland, which took place in January, will be held.
"The future of the world should be within the hands of the people. The key is to mobilise people who see the faults in the system. That is why we want to move from townships to the cities so we can unify the people," Selekwa says. - mahopoz@sowetan.co.za
Hip-hop caravan teaches people
THE Afrikan Hip-Hop Caravan is about to sweep through six African cities, from Cape Town to Timbuktu, over the next two months.
The grassroots educational movement aims to use hip-hop as a vehicle to educate people.
Organiser Anele Selekwa, who is part of the arts collective Soundz of the South (SOS), says the initiative has been an unwritten vision since the 2008 Makinika Southern Afrikan Hip-Hop Caravan in Nairobi.
The aim is to encourage social responsibility.
"We constantly push boundaries.
"We are not about reaching markets or selling CDs," Selekwa says.
The line-up for the tour includes American artists Mic Crenshaw, DJ Radical Klavical, SOS and Zubs, to name a few.
It took anthropology student Lauren Kent a year to learn about the movement on the African continent.
While conducting research for her thesis at Rhodes University titled "Hip-Hop Identity and the Youth", she discovered that hip-hop was growing in Africa.
In 2011, Kent travelled from the east coast of Africa, from Mozambique to Congo and Uganda.
She says she discovered that hip-hop can be a springboard for youth development.
"It is not about big rappers and their money. Hip-hop is a lot bigger than that," she says.
Kent's findings are spot on because in Senegal, the genre is said to be the unofficial political opposition. Last year during the Senegalese elections, hip-hop artists stopped President Abdoulaye Wade from running for a third term by forminga coalition called Yen a Mare, meaning "We are Fed-up!"
The caravan of scholars, activists and hip-hop artists will spend a week in each city that they visit.
Cape Town will be the first, from February 13 to 17. A symposium will be held in the city centre, followed by a show in a township. Wherever the caravan goes, 10 people will be co-opted to join the journey to the next city.
Tunisia will be the last stop where a big symposium, themed World Social Forum, in opposition to the World Economic Forum conference in Davos, Switzerland, which took place in January, will be held.
"The future of the world should be within the hands of the people. The key is to mobilise people who see the faults in the system. That is why we want to move from townships to the cities so we can unify the people," Selekwa says. - mahopoz@sowetan.co.za
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