In recent years, several books have been published concerning African hip-hop, including Eric Charry’s Hip-hop Africa: New African Music in a Globalizing World (2012) and Mwenda Ntarangwi’s East African Hip-hop: Youth Culture and Globalization. While these books tackle some aspects of the societal implications of the music genre, they tend to focus on globalization, youth culture, or the music alone. The work under review is sharply focused on a critical examination of hip-hop and social change, whether by political and social commentary or by actually changing traditions and behavior. Furthermore, the book is unique in that it blends essays written by scholars as well as by some African hip-hop artists themselves, which allows for an exploration of the topic from both academic and firsthand perspectives. . . .The essays are thoughtful, insightful, and well written. All academic libraries with substantive African studies and/or world music collections. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries.

Choice Reviews

This story of hip-hop in Africa, as heard from the voices of artists, activists and academics, is a crucially important work on the history and politics of the African contribution to the global hip hop movement. Instead of acting as passive observers to or victims of government corruption, poverty, police brutality, gender discrimination, and exploitation by the hands of multinational corporations, African hip hop artists are acting as rebel agents of change in their local communities. By calling into question the triumph of neo-liberal economic policies, Hip Hop and Social Change in Africa has given us an insightful and comprehensive analysis on how hip hop speaks truth to power and oppression.

Seth Markle, Trinity College

Hip Hop and Social Change in Africa: Ni Wakati positively broadens our understanding of hip hop on the continent. It shows how hip hop in its spoken, written, and visual form has created outlets for Africans north-south and east-west to recognize, perceive, understand, and respond to the problems of the twenty-first century. In short, Clark and Koster bring together important contributions from scholars and artists that illustrate the pan-African force that is hip hop.

P. Khalil Saucier, Bucknell University