About this item
Throughout Africa, artists use hip-hop both to describe their lives and to create shared spaces for uncensored social commentary, feminist challenges to patriarchy, and resistance against state institutions, while at the same time engaging with the global hip-hop community. In Hip-Hop in Africa, Msia Kibona Clark examines some of Africa's biggest hip-hop scenes and shows how hip-hop helps us understand specifically African narratives of social, political, and economic realities. Clark looks at the use of hip-hop in protest, both as a means of articulating social problems and as a tool for mobilizing listeners around those problems. She also details the spread of hip-hop culture in Africa following its emergence in the United States, assessing the impact of urbanization and demographics on the spread of hip-hop culture.
About the Author
Dr. Msia Kibona Clark is an Associate Professor in the Department of African Studies at Howard University. She is originally from Tanzania and received her doctorate in African Studies from Howard University in 2006. Her research has focused on African migration and identity, as well as hip hop and popular culture in Africa. Dr. Clark has published several scholarly publications on African migration, African immigrant identities, relations between African migrants and African Americans, and hip hop culture's intersections with social change, gender, and politics in Africa. She has published two books (Hip Hop and Social Change in Africa: Ni Wakati and Hip-Hop and Social Change in Africa: Prophets of the City and Dustyfoot Philosophers) and over ten scholarly articles and book chapters, and currently produces the Hip Hop African blog and monthly podcast hosted at hiphopafrican. com. Dr. Clark is also an accomplished photographer. She has particpated in exhibits in Tanzania and the U.S. Her work was also featured in the book project Mfon: Women Photographers in the African Diaspora. A former Fulbright Scholar recipient, Dr. Clark has also received several institutional grants and awards.
