University of Wisconsin
The African HipHop Movement: Resonance, Resolution, and Resistance in Senegalse Rap
Scholars have celebrated the Senegalse HipHop
movement for having been instrumental in swaying two presidential
elections. However, they have not interrogated the aesthetic qualities
of HipHop which, I argue, both facilitate and shape the
messages that Senegalese youth express through it. My research reveals
three aspects of HipHop that help explain its impact in this regard.
These are (1) the structure of rap music, (2) its cultural connotations,
and (3) its Black aesthetic politics. My presentation
will describes these qualities of HipHop and how they have impacted and
empowered Senegal’s youth movement over the last two decades. These
qualities are contrasted with the cultural mediums of previous
generations of Senegalese youth movements, including
the aesthetic and discursive framing of francophone poetry (L’etudient
Noir), Marxism, and the previous principal cultural vehicle of youth
mobilization: sports clubs.
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