Kwaito = Hip Hop???

[TATEguru v.2K9]

[Vexer]

I think both Supa and D Planet have a point.

If my understanding of what Supa is saying is correct, it means that Hip-Hop is identified by its ideals and spirit and ultimately the consciousness and perspective of its artists.

So what makes music Hip-Hop is the underlying artistic objectives.

This means if US catz rap about their situations i.e. their strife, pains, successes & excesses as an urban people, and they do it within a medium we call Hip-Hop, it follows that a similar genre of music that captures the same essence of the urban SA or African situation would also be Hip-Hop.

In this case that musical medium is Kwaito which captures the same ideals of the urban population here.

D Planet on the other hand suggests that categories of music exist independently and people can capture the spirit and essence of their situation wherever they live and call the musical vehicle they use to do this with any name they choose.

Hence Dance-Hall is Dance Hall and people don't call that "Jamaican Hip-Hop" or Grime isn't called "UK Hip-Hop".  

I think D is right.We can't use "Hip-Hop" as a de-facto default term for every form of urban music that captures the spirit of the urban generation within each and every context.

Its a bit arrogant and condescending bcoz it implies that Hip-Hop itself is the unquestionable authentic parent of modern "youth state of mind" music.

In-fact it creates the impression that Hip-Hop is the only authentic means by which the spirit of the urban generation can be accuratley captured, depicted and conveyed.

This is obviously not true.

So the question Kwaito = Hip-Hop is in itself arrogant bcoz it a**umes that Kwaito requires parallels to Hip-Hop in order for it to be a legitimate art form, and specifically a "youth state of mind music" artform.

Almost as if there is something to be gained for Kwaito by being compared to Hip-Hop. Like it amounts to some sort of "elevation" of Kwaito now that parallels can be drawn between it and Hip-Hop.

Why can't the parallels be drawn vice-versa?

Hip-Hop is not the only authentic musical art form by which the youth can express their state of mind.

I think questions like this subconsciously re-inforce the superiority complex of Hip-Hop headz and the unquestioned artistic legitimacy they bestow on Hip-Hop.

Its as if Hip-Hop has a monopoly on what's real.  

I criticised myself over the very same subject the first time I saw Kabelo performing "Dubula" for the first time on that SABC 1 programme One.

His whole steez & flow includng how he was dressed (Bald head, White Wife Beater and buff torso reminded me of Pac and DMX).

Even the verses and his state of mind from his own lyrics seemed Hip-Hop.Like the whole "I'm a hustler" thing.

I said to myself what he's doing is obviously on the Hip-Hop boundary now.

Then I checked myself and asked whether Hip-Hop owned the state of mind and the steez Kabelo was portraying.

It doesn't bcoz every young person in SA or anywhere for that matter has a right to express themselves in that way and call it whatever is relevant to where they're living at the time.

The state of mind is found everywhere and catz can call their music whatever they choose.

Its like catz dissing Mandla Spikiri for trying to act like Snoop.

I don't understand it coz when I listen to Mandla's music and his whole steez its actually authentic and the fact is its similar to Snoop's on a "state of mind" level but Mandla's state of mind reflects the SA situation.

When headz diss him for that I feel like they're being arrogant coz his shit is dope and it really does explore the good and gangster times of living in SA exactly like how Snoop's music explores the same shit but in the USA.

The only problem is that headz don't want Kwaito to be on the same level as Hip-Hop.

But headz need to understand that Kwaito doesn't need Hip-Hop to be legitimate and they need to bring Hip-Hop down from the pedestal they've put it on coz it only serves to alienate headz from their own context.

[TATEguru v.2K9]

PASI nemaLawyer!

[Sduhla]

Kwaito artists ahve persisently maintained that their genre has it's roots in hip hop. Though both genres owe their existence to similar and at certain conjuctures identical experiences, I'd argue that Kwaito's conception of that experience is landlocked, immobile, static, and transhistorical. Hip hop on the other hand is mobile, fluid, adaptable, transmodern, and embodies various forms of social and rhetorical flow that are fully realised within thenarratives of urban experience.... In layman's terms Kwaito is Hip hop gone RETARDED!
Another myth that needs to be dismantled  is kwaito being an urban phenomenon. When one consideres the Land Areas Act and the subsiquent utalization and usage of urban spaces by black people, it becomes patently clear that Kwaito's origins are in apartheid's concentration camps, the townships NOT the city. Some might argue that the dichotomy I'm makin between the city and the township are cosmetic. But, I'd encourage yall to consider the different temperaments and energies that are produced by the two spaces.
Havin said all of this, if  JAY-Z or NAS were to come live in South Africa for a year or two, they would definately identify wit Kwaito audience and artists more than the gentrified hip hop community in South Africa.

[mizi.]

In the December/Jan issue of HYPE, we had an interview with Zuluboy and we asked him:

People say kwaito is the ‘real’ voice of the South African youth. Where does that leave hip hop?

I still listen to old school kwaito. I still listen to Mdu singing Tsiki-Tsiki-Iyo. Mandoza asking us how we would get loot while sitting on the corner. I love old school kwaito. I think kwaito was a language that spoke to us when we needed a voice as the youth - when we got our independence in 1994. It was something that was there for us. Right now kwaito is not what it used to be. It has no foundation. If house starts selling well, kwaito starts to sound like house and when hip hop starts getting the gigs, kwaito will sound like hip hop. Hip hop’s time is here now. Abashone eceleni (they[kwaito] should step aside)

What saddened me was an incident where an old man was speaking to his little daughter on the phone, and they were both singing ‘Sika Le Khekhe’…

For sho y’all… That’s it yo but eish…

[/b]

[sips]

Well according to sum catz i've heard_ i can say some niggaz have put a fusion to the whole.
Lyk D@ nigga Bozza does the normal thang that we'd probably expect from a hip hop point of view wen he wit Skwatta. Bt then his album Sounded more on a Kwaito Tip wit all those beatz N wat not.
Selwyn too..... probably the same could o been said abt him.

Bt lyk the bottom line is that maybe these catz are tyrna create that SA feel to hip hop. Bt as for Bugga Luv being dscribed as a hip hop artist. I donno, yeah! he probably got the flow bt Damn! I wud not go that far.....

[Last of the old AG Hittaz]

I also understand how Kwaito has changed from the 90s to today. Kwaito back then wasn't only representing Black South Africans but it was political as well (Arthur's tune "K*ffir", Boom Shaka's version of the S.A. national anthem).

Today now you've got songs that are all about partying and mackin. Worst yet, you have Kwaito stars poising somewhat as US Hip-Pop stars
through fashion.

This kinda remindes me of how Garage music has changed. When it started in the US, it was based on Souful disco and House music  during the late 70s and early 80s. When it came to the UK around the early 90s
during the Acid House and Drum & Ba** craze, Garage still had that House sound (as Kwaito did then) but the D&B along with the Hip-Hop and Dancehall Reggae sound it became more of a UK sound. Up until 2004 I think that Garage during it's "Grime" phaze has hitten a low. It was cool with So Solid, Roll Deep, Dizzee Rascal, and Sticky but now with these new cats like Lethal B, Fumin, and all these other punks have killed the
music. It's all about who can murk who on a riddim instead of being good music.

[TATEguru v.2K9]

Is this hip hop or kwaito?:

[Koli qha]

^ Hiphop straight up! There is a kwaito track ka Pro feat. Bricks i heard tho. Its mad nice