The State of South Africa’s rap/hip-hop as it relates to our current times.

I agree with astrophysicist, Mr. Neil deGrasse Tyson’s comments; “that rap goes through various artistic phases depending on the times” and with this piece of writing I will critically consider the state of South African rap/hip-hop.
Personally I think there is a distinct difference between Rap music and Hip-hop music. Rap music is more like poetry; it is underground, deep and has meaning and substance. Mostly used to tell positive and inspirational stories and convey deep messages from artists to consumer. Whilst Hip-hop on the other hand is so called “turn up” music, used to make people dance, brag about woman, cars and money, sell the idea of sex , basically music without substance that nothing positive can be taken from it. Some websites even have different categories for Rap and Hip-hop music when wanting to download the music, to further prove my observation and opinion.
“Hip-hop cleans out at SAMA’s”, Sunday Times headline. In South Africa Hip-hop/Rap music is currently dominating the music industry, it is the “it” genre at the moment in the country. Its artist get paid the most, are booked at almost every gig, all over the airwaves, it is basically all that you hear on radio these days. At our current time Hip-hop/rap is all about egos, money and who has more fans/awards hence there is what these cool hip-hop heads call “Beef” which according to the dictionary is meat from a cow or to make something bigger/stronger but according to them, it’s when two or more artists take a go at each other by “dissing” each other and seeing who would come out tops.
In South Africa Hip-hop/Rap music used to be such a small genre and a risk to pursue, in terms of taking it up as a career and making some money out of it. They used to call it “Underground music”, which meant that not everyone listened or had access to it , it was simply a small movement of spoken word. Now it is way too commercial, everyone jams to it and sponsors are throwing at it but it has lost its authenticity, now it is all about catchy hooks (a chorus) and funky beats instead of the power of the lyrics.
When conducting the TOP10 MTV Base MC’s of the year list, one of the judges Amu said, “Half of these artists on the list wouldn’t have been on the list if Hip-hop was still Rap and had the lyrical power it had” and that was a huge statement coming from a man who is considered to being the Godfather and pioneer of South African Hip-hop/Rap music.
In closing, the current state of South African Hip-hop/Rap is at the “party rap phase”, there’s nothing revolutionary or conscious about it, it’s all about the money. The only good thing about the state of SA’s Hip-hop/Rap is that it has shown immense growth.