It has been half a century of hip hop, with both mainstream and underground artists showing off their lyrical prowess over the years.
With the 50th year celebration, rappers have been busy releasing music to mark the momentous occasion.
And locally, it's been 40 years of the hip hop culture and the significant accolade has been celebrated in events since the beginning of the year.
One of the celebrations will include Africa’s largest hip hop festival, Back To The City.
Drum speaks with one of the brains trust who are orchestrating this annual event at its iconic location at Mary Fitzgerald Square in Newtown for its 17th year.
The method to the madness
Newtown might be a seedy area of the city but is that not what hip hop encompasses? The streets are cracked, dingy and have played host to a movement that has grown to be the face of pop culture.
At the festival, this music and outlook on life is celebrated in every way possible. Traditionally the pillars under the highway are repainted by celebrated graffiti writers and street artists. Break dancers take to the mat to battle and push each other to new creative heights while rappers, DJs and producers alike are entrusted with moving the crowd and supplying sonic shocks to the souls of all in attendance.
An old heads appreciation
A custodian of the culture and once highly celebrated wordsmith Ammunition has taken a few steps back from the microphone and studio, using his talents to aid in organsing this event and he has been doing this for quite some time now. He is best known for being one of the first rappers to fuse vernacular lyrics with English over local rap beats.
Touching on the development of local hip hop he says the culture has gone through stages, “I look at it, like a 50-year-old. It went through its inception when it was still trying to find its feet. People were experimenting a lot, trying to find the sound.
"I mean, if you look at the Sugarhill Gang, they were trying to still find the sound of Grand Master Flash and they invented a lot of stuff that is being used in hip hop now like the breakdancing, the DJing, the turntablist aspect of hip hop, the rapper,” he says about the multi-faceted street culture movement.
He believes hip hop has gone through its infancy and went on to a party phase that some call the jiggy era.
“Then came the political phase, then the street gangster phase, then came the making money we’re rich, let's flaunt it phase. Currently it's reflecting the youth. It's mostly about mental health issues and drug use and just kids being lost.”
Back to the City encompasses every aspect of hip hop, from graffiti to the breakdancing and DJing and emceeing.
Read more | Rapper L-Tido on his move from raps to podcasting
“So globally, I think what I've liked about Back to the City and Ozmic is that they've always tried to make it not specifically a South African or a Joburg festival. It covers South African hip hop from old school to the new school and international acts that we grew up listening to. It's a chance for us to see those guys, you know, like your Mobb Deeps, your EPMDs."
This year’s headlining international act will be Mobb Deep who performed a few years ago at Zone 6 in Soweto when one half of the legendary duo, the late Prodigy was alive. His partner in rhymes, Havoc will be on hand this Saturday along with Big Noyd to cap off the day.
For a country that loves DJ culture as much as South Africa, people often shun the role hip hop had in influencing the various movements that rest on turn tables. Amu thinks that locally, hip hop has had more of an influence on other aspects.
“I would say it has influenced the fashion especially. If you look at a lot of these amapiano kids, they are actually hip hop heads and the whole imagery is that hip hop image, the streets, urban image. Hip hop has always given township youth and suburban youth a platform to speak their mind.”
