How Hip-Hop Should Shape Our Identity As Afrikans

When studying kingdoms, civilizations and people groups historians often search for first-hand historical documents. These historical documents can range from physical artifacts to preserved art; and in the case of Afrikans, even oral histories. In my research of Afrikan People throughout the globe I often find examples of how our People have kept their histories and traditions despite the continued genocide we have faced. Hip-Hop, a modern rendition of Afrikan poetry, should be taken for exactly what it is: a tradition of our People that links us to The Continent of Africa, and connects us as One People and One Nation.

Please do not misconstrue my declaration of Afrikans as One People and One Nation as some notion that we are all the same. But what hip-hop provides us with is a historical document we can then compare and contrast and analyze amongst our People and other historical documents to ground us in our Afrikanity.

“It is little known Somali is a nation of poets… every household might produce a poet… we talkin about poetry that is in life. Poetry is not clean and goody-goody in Somali … the guy with the gun, the most violent man could be the illest poet in the country. It doesn’t have any distinction from life as we live it”

K’Naan