New World Order Hip Hop

A dynamic consciousness is emerging in the African Hip Hop soundscape, and this has been happening for a while now; with old-skool voices like Aziz Ndiaye and Nix of Dakar Allstars from Senegal inspiring Luga Flow Army from Uganda, Metaphysics from Zimbabwe and many others across the continent. These artists have sustained a culture free of violence and petty feuds, and their significance relies on the bonds they have made with people of Africa.

“African hip hop has developed considerably in many ways. The industry got bigger because we have more young African talented rappers,” says the Gabonese born MC who has been residing in South Africa for the past six years. “Even the US, the patriarch of that culture, got involved in African hip hop. So the evolution of African hip hop has reached a point where everyone can see them.”

On the local scene, collectives like Tumi and The Volume, Basemental Platform, Hymphatic Thabs, Ozmic, Kanif, Robo, to name a few, were engaged in politicised hip hop that superseded simple-mindedness; a dextrous lyricism is still rattling nerves in our age with memorable verse. They made anthems that will forever be viewed as an advocacy for the best interests of the boys and girls in the townships around Johannesburg, while remaining a symbol of dissent by the nation’s youth. I fondly recall sonic excursions into Sistamatic’s vaults which were the rhythm of gatherings at The Songwriter’s Club, as well as the exhilaration of Open Microphone sessions at Horror Café, where fiery artists were putting ample charisma in the service of greater ideas.

When a rapper dared to perform what can be termed “New World Order Hip Hop”, their artistic integrity was often met with predictable conservative outrage.  When more social commentary is being censored in the face of commercialism and sexualised exhibitionism, once in a while a poet hits the airwaves, often rendered irrelevant with hip-hop’s pervasive crossover trends which are more palatable to mainstream media moguls, corporate broadcasters and record company law makers. When most NWO MC’s negate belonging to the category of celebrity artists detached from politics altogether, they will feel the brunt of poverty and not high-profile squabbles.

But then springs “Rodzeng” on the street scene, an artist from Gabon, who after noticing how local Hip Hop music (like in his home country) has always had a volatile relationship with commercial radio, decided to venture into indie strategies of distributing the unsavoury message of conscious hip hop. Now in today’s South African hip-hop the battle lines have been redrawn, and message-driven hip-hop has begun to find a reception and street creed, not just on the fringes, but near the centre of the often called “imported genre”.  Social media platforms are their preferred super tool of disseminating viral codes and messages of dissent in the face of global occupations, of continued recessions, of deflated idealism of elitist political organizations and corrupt governments.

He’s an enlightened thinker, a gifted orator who is still not flamboyant in his beliefs. “Being raised in a country ravaged by a strong impact of French colonialism, I noticed how the majority of Gabonese youths were led into a system which destroyed their roots and their origin. Poor education at schools, cultural alienation at churches, corruption of a dictatorial government, and ignorance of mother tongues by the youth were some of the principal facts or sicknesses which fed the passion of this stubborn kid to decided to fight through the mean of his voice and try to re-educate the youth drifting far away from freedom.”

“Rodzeng” a k a “Dr Ndzeng”, a pseudonym derived from NDZENG MINKO Rodney Patrice, is one of the best Gabonese hip hop artists of his generation. Born in July 1989 in Libreville, the Capital, it was in the biggest township “Nzeng Ayong” that he fell in love with hip hop and lyrical rhymes found in French and indigenous dialects. Influenced by his older brother member of the mythical Rap group of Gabao “Movaizhaleine”, which enjoyed incredible fame throughout Africa, he continues to express subversive critiques of the Gabonese social climate.

With regards to the new conscious and political mind-set of today’s artists Rodzeng admits that “new African MCs are most of the time ignorant of who they really are and what they really need to spit about. They try to be American. Our continent, split like a cake by the colonists, continues to experience the worst living conditions in the world. I think new MCs must talk about these situations, which relevant to them. Moreover, they are called to participate in the continued fight that Africans must stand up and be proud socially, culturally and spiritually.”

“Dr NDZENG 2” – a follow-up album to the 2010 his self-titled street debut release is in the oven. Through his vigorously blatant denial of mainstream association, he will tread in the steps that bred hits like “Bad Boy” where he explodes with sensibilities of typical Gabonese teenager, expressing his unhappiness with the depraved conditions of living of African people worldwide.

“Despite the fact that hip hop nowadays is seen as an ordinary music, media are still caught up in the dogma which takes hip hop as a non-substantial, and brutal music. They don’t perceive the deep message of unity that African hip hop carries, they don’t play real hip hop.” And with a multitude of interventions by conscious thinkers like Rodzeng, this trend will see its grave before African Hip Hop becomes another escapism from African realities.