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POP 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 marketing. 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 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: caesargfx / Getty Images This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland 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 development 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 academic 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 ix