Unlike our friend Olopeng Rabasimane, I love and cherish life. I really do. I’ll give anything to live a little double my age. I enjoy every minute of it, I mean growing up in Mochudi, going for my initiation school, (bogwera), enjoying Tirelo Sechaba, enjoying school and now enjoying my work ÔÇô all very enjoyable and now serving Kgosikgolo Kgafela II, and most importantly raising my little daughter Sentle! This is life! We all need to stop hating ourselves, we need to ditch our current education system for all it teaches us is to be dependent and hate ourselves just like bo Rre Rabasimane.
Rabasimane should lighten up. I mean, it’s because of these labels, thoughts, and race, creed, religion, sex, etc that life is this fantastic. I bet Rabasimane does not eat, drink, maybe even have an intimate relationship etc ÔÇô I tell you this brother is bored and hates himself, that is why he hates life.
Let’s take our dear brother back to school. I see that he is discussing the subject he knows nothing about. Rap music is one of the elements of Hip-Hop culture which began amongst the urban African American youth in New York ÔÇô USA. This culture has now spread around the world. At the time, Hip-Hop had four major elements: MCing ÔÇô which is rapping, DJing ÔÇô which is toasting or simply scratching, graffiti art ÔÇô booming or tagging and break dancing. Rap became the most powerful tool for the poor, homeless, minority, uneducated, rural blacks, Hispanics, Latinos and in some cases white rejected Americas. Rap could send the message across without fear however with full knowledge that the former slave trader/master/representatives of the white supremacy is listening and hating it. Hip Hop later adopter nine elements instead of the four listed above; Street knowledge, Street entrepreneurialism, Street Language, Street Fashion, Break-dance, Beat boxing, Deejaying, Emceeing and Graffiti Art.
Rap as Gangster music (remember there’s gospel/Christian rap too): in the late 80s and mid 90s Public Enemy, X-Clan and Paris just to name a few had rewritten the rules of hardcore rap (telling real-life stories & political) by proving that it could be intelligent, revolutionary, political and socially aware, the group called NWA capitalized on that by capturing real life incidents into their records pushing vital commentary or messages. This even caught the attention of the FBI.
Listen to NWA songs such as “Fuck the Police, Dope Man” listen to Paris “Bring It To Ya”, Listen to Ice-T’s “Freedom of Speech, Shut-Be Happy, Code of the Streets”, Listen to Ras Kass “What If”, Listen to Ice Cube’s “its Man’s world, Why we thugging, No Country for young Men”, Listen to 2Pac’s “I wonder if haven has got a Ghetto, Dear mama, Violent”, and then to Mack 10’s, Spousal Abuse” Of course these are rough hardcore gangster lyrics and an average guy like you may not understand them. Most of these rappers like most revolutionaries have either been rightfully or falsely imprisoned (sometimes because the messages deed is deemed radical by mainstream), sometimes because they hold a different opinion or they have discovered the truth and now they’re preaching it. Most of these guys are smart community leaders/activists who have planted their wealth back into the community, stays in their communities, walks/rise and fall with their communities. These people are often jailed, harassed, followed by spy agencies (Scarface of the Ghetto, Ice Cube, Pimp C, Eazy E ÔÇô before he met Bill Clinton for diner ÔÇô who’s next in Bots). They are black males, drugs are flooded in to their neighborhoods to promote violence, in turn they are jailed. Just like our people in Mochudi, drugs ÔÇô not just habit forming but even sick ideologies are being brought in to turn our people against their own ÔÇô what a shame. Do you ever wonder why at least 60-70% of inmates in American jails are African Americans? It’s unfortunate because of your naivety you only look at things at face value. There is always a deeper meaning. Jails in the US are run by private companies, thus the more inmates the more loot one is bound to make. Our jails in Botswana reflect the same and soon they will be privatized. Batho ba modimo ba innela teronko gona le go tsaa mabele a kgomo bebo ba ikela lapeng. Do you know who runs them, by whose instructions? Guess who will be at the forefront (POLITICIANS and the elite they dine with), ruri re mo mathatheng.
To sum this up ask radio Botswana to play you some of the songs and poems they have from some of the Ngwato & Kgatla poetry pioneers, before maboko a nna le di stanza ebile a rutwa ko sekolong, nnya ke bua ka ba boki ba pele.
ÔÇó “Kana gatwe ntwa ga e lowe ka bo kgwaraga fela ke bone ke roba motho mokwatla”
ÔÇó “Gokela ditlhako ngwana wa machama, gokela ditlhako Tau ya matholwa o lekole fatshe la rraago, o tle o bone ditiro tsa boipuso bo ithatelo bo dubile lefatshe bo dubile lefatshe bo le sentse”
These songs and poems were sung before guys like you came around and adopted foreign stuff ÔÇô foreign I refer to Western values & thoughts and ways of life (everything African ÔÇô we can relate to that / check your history books).
Of course, your subject on rap music and rappers seem to be discussing something else. If that is the case, then you are one lost individual, one of those Gaborone intellectuals who would rather support Gaborone United instead of their home teams, who would rather park a half a million car next to a BHC house while his parent in Nshakashokwe cannot even afford a donkey cart, who would rather speak English in a meeting at Nshakashokwe addressing his people.
