Rick Ross in Nigeria, Solange in South Africa – whose story do they tell? By J4 on October 3, 2012 in Feature stories

Rick Ross is not the first American hip hop artist
to enjoy touring the African continent; ever since
the late eighties when LL Cool J performed in
Abidjan there’s been the occasional motherland
trip for a major artist, and in recent years a
steady stream of emcees, from the big names to
the underground, have been setting foot in Africa.
Where ‘Africa’ used to invoke fear of sickness, war
and crime in the hearts of the aspiring traveling
emcee, nowadays many artists have a more
reassuring image of the continent. Also, there’s
more cash and infrastructure available facilitating
a US artist’s tour, whether it’s a president looking
to brush up his political campaign, a middle man
connecting local promoters and US based
rappers, or NGO’s inviting a well known emcee to visit there local project™™ The discussion has a similar tone to when BBC
shot a documentary series called ‘Welcome to
Lagos’ which painted the lives of some of Lagos’
poorest inhabitants. There was hardly a sign of a
middle class or a lifestyle away from extreme
poverty, which infuriated Nigerians fed up with
the one-sided picture existing of their country
abroad. One of them was author Wole Soyinka
who was quoted as saying: “There was no sense
of Lagos as what it is – a modern African state.
What we had was jaundiced and extremely
patronising. It was saying ‘Oh, look at these
people who can make a living from the pit of
degradation’.” Rapper M.I. joins Soyinka: ‘It burns
you, does it not? To have some foreigner- who
knows nothing of your history and pain, of the
stories that flow within your blood- to have this
foreigner come in and tell your story?‘
Other voices counter that the poor still amount to
the majority of Lagos inhabitants, and their story
is not often heard, while the middle class does
have the tools (and internet access) to be heard.
So, are we looking at a genuine attempt by
western artists to embrace the ‘couleur locale’?
Do they know enough about the society that they
are showing in their videos or are they relying on
stereotypes? Our bet is that most artists are
actually making an effort, but many videos are
more of a reflection of all they  know of urban
Africa. This doesn’t necessarily paint a realistic
and balanced picture, even though they end up
representing an entire country via popular
culture. Solange actually had been researching
African culture, music and fashion for a while
before she decided to involve Congolese sapeurs
in a video shot in Cape Town.