Table Of ContentPOP MUSIC, CULTURE, AND IDENTITY
Rap Music and the
Youth in Malawi
Reppin‘ the Flames
Ken Lipenga Jr.
Pop Music, Culture and Identity
Series Editors
Stephen Clark
Graduate School Humanities and Sociology
University of Tokyo
Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, Japan
Tristanne Connolly
Department of English
St Jerome’s University
Waterloo, ON, Canada
Jason Whittaker
School of English & Journalism
University of Lincoln
Lincoln, Lincolnshire, UK
Pop music lasts. A form all too often assumed to be transient, commercial
and mass-cultural has proved itself durable, tenacious and continually
evolving. As such, it has become a crucial component in defining various
forms of identity (individual and collective) as influenced by nation, class,
gender and historical period. Pop Music, Culture and Identity investigates
how this enhanced status shapes the iconography of celebrity, provides an
ever-expanding archive for generational memory and accelerates the
impact of new technologies on performing, packaging and global market-
ing. The series gives particular emphasis to interdisciplinary approaches
that go beyond musicology and seeks to validate the informed testimony
of the fan alongside academic methodologies.
Ken Lipenga Jr.
Rap Music and the
Youth in Malawi
Reppin’ the Flames
Ken Lipenga Jr.
University of Malawi
Zomba, Malawi
ISSN 2634-6613 ISSN 2634-6621 (electronic)
Pop Music, Culture and Identity
ISBN 978-3-031-15250-4 ISBN 978-3-031-15251-1 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-15251-1
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A
cknowledgements
There are a lot of people and organisations who have contributed to the
production of this book, and I would like to take this space to acknowl-
edge them.
My initial thanks go to the many rap artists in Malawi. Without them
producing the music, there would have been nothing to discuss, and this
book would not have come about. I thank them for producing this unique
sound, and look forward to enjoying much more of it. Special thanks are
due to the artists who granted me interviews, and responded to my nag-
ging requests for information and permission to reproduce their lyrics.
Much respect to Suffix, Fredokiss, Krazie G, Phyzix, Ace Jizzy, BeeJay,
Macelba, Waxy K, Kyc Nyimbo, Hyphen, SeveOmore and of course the
many other artists that I was unable to interact with, but whose work has
nevertheless been formative to this project. I appreciate your humility and
your willingness to contribute to academic scholarship on Malawian
rap music.
The book is also, in part, the fruit of discourse within the Malawian
hip-hop community. There are many people I can mention, but for so
many years, I have engaged with discussions of rap music with people like
Andrew Dakalira, Akulu Lipenga, Timwa Lipenga, Maurice Monjerezi,
Ishmael Ntenje and others. There are many others who wondered why I
had particular songs on repeat, wondering what I found in this sound.
Some tolerated me; some grew to love the music, once I pointed out cer-
tain significant nuances within it. My appreciation of the Malawian hip-
hop community includes many people I have never met, and who have
never heard of me. These include the thousands whose opinions on social
v
vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
media, radio and TV stations have also helped to shape my own. I would
like to believe that this book is a contribution to this community, and that
it furthers conversations about, and the appreciation of, rap music in the
country.
I have received a lot of help, in the academic sense. I appreciate the
contribution of the University of Malawi. This includes the administrators
who approved my sabbatical leave; my colleagues in the English
Department, off of whom I have always bounced my ideas; and the stu-
dent community that keeps me connected to the more youthful music
vibes. I would like to thank the US Embassy in Malawi and the Fulbright
Program, for awarding me a grant to travel to Wesleyan University, where
I wrote most of the chapters in this book. Additional thanks are due to
Tendai Banda from the embassy for the support given regarding travel
logistics, and to the embassy as a whole for granting me a platform to give
a talk about my research at the John F. Kennedy Centre in Lilongwe. A lot
of people at Wesleyan University played key roles in ensuring that the
research bore fruit. My thanks go to Eric Charry, for supporting my
research and linking me to other hip-hop music scholars. Thanks also go
to Banning Eyre of Afropop Radio, for inviting me to an interview to talk
about Malawian rap music. Thanks are also due to Laura Ann Twagira, for
inviting me to the African Studies seminar to talk about my work, and for
her overall welcoming demeanour at Wesleyan University. The staff at
Olin Library at Wesleyan University were indispensable in helping me to
navigate the library and obtain useful research material. Aaron Bittel and
Jennifer Hadley—thank you for all your help.
Lastly, my gratitude is due to my wife, Funny, and my daughter, Okota,
for their love, and for their insightful contributions to the book. Some of
the more enduring ideas in this book emanated from dinner table
conversations.
Praise for Rap Music and the Youth
in Malawi
“Reading this book gave me enormous intellectual pleasure and powerfully recon-
nected me to the creative energies of Malawi’s youth. It is a pioneering survey of
the country’s vibrant rap music scene, and a significant contribution to the study of
African hip hop cultures, about the local specificities of production, consumption,
and discourse. It presents an insightful exegesis on the domestication and develop-
ment of this musical genre that has captivated the world since its emergence in the
African diaspora in the United States several decades ago. Lipenga writes with the
felicitous discernment, infectious delight, and intellectual sophistication of an afi-
cionado of the music and a sharp literary and cultural critic. The book presents a
remarkable contribution to the study of Malawian performance arts that scholars
and the public will equally find stimulating and informative.”
—Paul Tiyambe Zeleza, Associate Provost and the North Star Distinguished
Professor, Case Western Reserve University,
Ohio, USA; formerly Vice Chancellor (President),
United States International University- Africa, Kenya
“Rap Music and the Youth in Malawi is a much-needed analysis of the role popular
music plays in shaping our understanding of youth aspirations, imaginations, and
practices in Malawi. It opens a new world of understanding youth identity
through rap.”
—Mwenda Ntarangwi, author of East African
Hip Hop: Youth Culture and Globalization
“A sensitive and authoritative account of Malawi’s rap music, showing how it
expresses the “waithood” in which many young people find themselves trapped.
Lipenga offers a masterly analysis of the linguistic and cultural creativity that
enables rap artists to assert agency in often adverse circumstances … original and
compelling.”
—Kenneth R. Ross, Professor of Theology and Dean
of Postgraduate Studies, Zomba Theological University
“The sudden death of a young Malawi rapper, Martse, exposed the gap between
middle Malawi and its youth. Young people filled the Civo Stadium to mourn his
passing, leaving significant sections of the elite wondering who the deceased per-
son was. Ken Lipenga Jr, based on experiential and extensive academic research,
fills this gap, explaining how social, economic, political, gender disadvantages, and
inequalities have led to the development of rap music in Malawi. Lipenga explains
some of the linguistic, cultural, marketing, social and political aspects. Rap music
may still be a ‘marginal’ protest and entertainment voice that still mostly speaks
within its own ‘alternative public sphere,’ but, it is a voice that is growing stronger.
This ground-breaking and timely book demands the attention of general and aca-
demic reader alike. Its contents will give us an informed insight into the world of
Malawi’s youth.”
—John Chipembere Lwanda PhD, Honorary Senior
Research Fellow, School of Social and Political Science,
Glasgow University
“With Rap Music and the Youth in Malawi, Ken Lipenga immerses us into the
Malawian hip-hop wavelength, and turns up the volume on a lively scene of artistic
creation and debate that has been largely bracketed off the national, continental
and global soundscape, thanks to rigid assumptions about what ‘authentic’
Malawian music is. Lipenga invites us to attend to Malawian hip-hop artists’ inno-
vative repurposing of the global genre to produce a distinct sonic vernacular that
draws on indigenous verbal arts while remaining in communion with the global
hip-hop movement. For the Malawian youth at the centre of this book, rap music
and hip-hop cultures serve as a powerful resource for identity-formation, a mode
of relation for community building in the face of uncertain futures; and a vehicle
for voicing their linguistic, artistic and socio-political preoccupations, whose com-
plexity is often flattened out by competing institutional interests that variously
associate youth in Africa with crises. Rap Music and the Youth in Malawi is an
eloquent addition to the growing library of work on the specificities of African
popular cultural practices; and the multidisciplinary debates they convene.”
—Grace A. Musila, Associate Professor, Department of African Literature,
University of the Witwatersrand
c
ontents
1 Introduction 1
2 Locating Rap in Malawi’s Music Industry 7
3 The Language of Malawian Rap 37
4 Verses of Youth Political Participation 63
5 Youth, Alcohol and the Forging of Community 95
6 Reppin’ the Ghetto: Space and Identity 111
7 Social Consciousness: The Rapper as an Activist 133
8 Making Rap Malawian: Cultural Appropriation and
Authenticity 161
9 Conclusion: The Future of Malawian Rap 181
Index 189
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