On Friday a group of Maru-a-Pula students and young aspiring Hip Hop artists enrolled in “Rhyme Lab” a music workshop conducted by visiting American Christian Hip Hop musician, Michael Boyer II aka “Verbs” and formerly known as “Knowdaverbs”. Read the rest of it here.

“Afrobeat is a sound and a movement, music and a state of mind. It’s the joyous awakening of a continent from a colonial nightmare and the crushing realization that the nightmare isn’t over yet, anguish and happiness whipped together with traditional drums, cheap guitars, and even cheaper amps.” I came across this tight article about Afrobeat on the Pitchforkmedia website. Check it out here.

Over the past few years the South African rap game has grown into a formidable and firm firmament in which South African rappers can come out and shine. Basking in this success are emcees like Zubz, Proverb, Amu and many more whose contribution to the game has been indispensible.

Elizabeth Mendez-Berry wrote a story about violence against women in Hip Hop for Vibe’s March issue, and she thought you might be interested in checking it out. Here’s the link (PDF Format). If you like the piece, please circulate/publicize/share with friends—it took a lot for these women to share their stories, so I’m really hoping that as many people read it as possible. As you can imagine, there has been some backlash. Lots of love, Elizabeth Mendez-Berry.

It rained this morning at the airport and when I saw the plane it seemed as though the weather just got worse. As soon as I boarded I fell asleep, damn I was tired. Besides I get motion sickness so it’s probably for the best…

Kenyan hip hop artists are yet to scale the same heights that their ‘kapuka’ counterparts are currently reaching. Is it the fans? Is it the quality of music, or is it the artistes’ own reticence? We let hip hop musicians fill us in on the situation.  Read the entire article at the Pulse website.

I cannot speak more words than I can think, I can only try. So as I put this ink to paper in the hope that my thoughts will be expressed to the best of my ability, I can only wish that you will try and understand to the best of yours…

We have all become familiar with terms like “street teams” and “guerrilla promotional tactics“. Because not only are many companies like Hip-Hop and Skateboard labels employing this grassroots style marketing as their primary method of getting the word out, but it has also become a perfect marketing tool used by big corporations to promote their products…

In my mind hip-hop had just been a musical concept derived from the United States of America and the phrase “hip-hop you’re the love of my life “ was just another line I sang on my way to somewhere. But you see, my thoughts are not your thoughts and in Pretoria hip-hop has truly become the love of ones life.

Pseudo Hip Hop Fundamentalists are really the most sickening people in the whole movement.  Embracing the culture fully does not mean you have to box the rules, if that was the case we would still be wearing shell toes to board meetings, we would still be dropping two words to roughly chopped breaks, while a DJ is scratching one deck through barely audible mics, but we don’t.  Do you know why?  With changes in time and various advancement we are exposed to mediums that are better suited which allow us to “let it out”.