For over a decade, Dr. Msia Kibona Clark has worked alongside African hip-hop artists and fans to capture the diversity of the genre across the continent. Born in Tanzania and raised in the United States, Clark’s connections and commitments to hip-hop culture across borders have found a home at Howard University’s Department of African Studies, where she is Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies. In 2016, Clark, along with her students, launched the Hip-Hop African podcast to provide social and political commentary on hip-hop in Africa.
Two years later, she published her book Hip-Hop in Africa: Prophets of the City and Dustyfoot Philosophers, a thoughtful exploration of African hip-hop from its origins in the 1990s to present-day. An invaluable contribution to African music and cultural studies, Clark’s book surveys the diversity and complexity of hip-hop culture throughout Africa which centers the voices of MCs across the continent.
A feminist at heart and in practice, Msia’s love for African women’s creativity and agency underpins all of her work. Here she shares more about her journey and what to look forward to, including an upcoming anthology on African women’s digital activism.
Who have you been listening to lately? And can you share some new or veteran African female MCs, any number you like, that you think should be on our reader's radar?
Wow. Whoa. Okay. So one of the artists is ENNY. She's a Nigerian British MC and my God! I first heard Peng Black Girls a few months ago and just fell in love with the song, the video, everything about it. There’s also Shaybo, another Nigerian British MC. As an artist, Shaybo speaks to and captures radical ratchetness, and in her video for Dobale, she is Queen of the South. She’s getting cornrows, rocking African prints and stilettos, owning that she’s the baddest, and I just love it to death. There’s also Isatta Sheriff, grime artist and producer, who is also in London. She is the daughter of Sierra Leonean immigrants. Gigi Lamayne, Kanyi Mavi and Yugen Blakrok, all out of South Africa, are also some of my favourites.
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Where does your journey with hip hop begin and how has it evolved over time? Who are artists, albums/EPs that shaped your girlhood and teenage years?
MC Lyte was my favourite artist. I knew every line of every song on Lyte as a Rock. I just dug everything that she was saying. She had such a huge influence on me - also, Yoyo and the Intelligent Black Women's Coalition, and Roxanne Shante. There were men, like Rakim and KRS-One, but it was always women that were always the most influential in my life, who made me feel like I could conquer and overcome anything.
Hip hop was my battle music because hip hop teaches you to fight through it all, and that was always important to and for me. Through women in hip hop, I’ve also learned to be more empathetic and hold multiple experiences, perspectives, and truths. In a recent interview with Kanya Mavi, she talks about not identifying as a feminist. She feels that feminists aren't really helping the women who are in the house, women who aren’t wealthy, women who experience domestic abuse. So in a recent song, she talks about teaching women self-defence and the need to teach women how to use a gun. “She needs to learn how to use a gun because we're dying,” she said. When she broke down the lyrics, it just made me love her work even more.
As you transitioned into womanhood and navigated multiple societies, how did hip-hop’s role in your life expand? What ultimately contributed to and shaped your commitment to African studies, feminism, and diaspora studies?
Studying abroad in Tanzania in 1996, gravitating towards the early hip-hop scene and befriending several hip-hop artists was the starting point. This is right before the first academic articles on hip-hop in Africa begin to emerge - some of which featured interviews from artist friends I mentioned earlier. Early work was written by anthropologists, musicologists, people who were not hip-hop heads. It was reading the work of Adam Haupt, along with the encouragement of my artist friends that motivated me to start writing about Hip-Hop in Africa and it was important that the community be involved and invested in whatever I produced.
Your research, scholarship, and activism have allowed you to facilitate story-telling, knowledge sharing, and archiving that is of immeasurable value to African and Black cultural and feminist studies. What was the catalyst for the Hip-Hop African and how has the project grown over time?
I really wanted to share these great conversations I was having with artists from across the continent. I also wanted to bring these artists’ work and commentary into an academic space. A podcast felt like the best platform, and since launching, we’ve had so many great conversations with artists on language, sexuality, religion, and more.
What aspects of your work have brought you the most joy and have made you feel most proud?
I think what I’ve enjoyed most has been meeting and talking to artists whose music I like, who are down to earth. And I think the diversity of artists represented has been what I'm most proud of. We’ve gotten folks from Gabon, Togo, Algeria, Tunisia. I was able to do a few episodes in Swahili. We got to speak to several queer and nonbinary artists as well, including Nazlee Saif and Dope Saint Jude.
I am looking forward to your upcoming project with Ghanaian feminist activist and scholar, Dr. Wunpini Muhammad, African Women in Digital Spaces: Redefining Social Movements on the Continent and in the Diaspora. Can you share information on the project’s origin and when we can look out for publication?
That project was born out of seeing and interacting with Black women activists, specifically African women, online. And seeing Wunpini’s boldness and audacity online, without having tenure, I had to reach out. And I've learned a lot from Wunpini throughout this project. Millennials and post-millennials are using social media and loudly saying, “No, we have zero tolerance for patriarchy, zero tolerance for racism! We will call you out! We will shame you! We will drag you on social media!” Also seeing women holding space for each other, so when one person is being shamed, the community across borders rallies and says, “you will not.” Just amazing. I was just so impressed and realised that something was happening. These women are fearless, and they've got each others’ back, and this is amazing.
"I think it’s important for Black women to always hold space for each other."
Do you have any final thoughts, reflections, love notes or offerings?
*This interview has been edited for length and clarity.