Gender politics of hip-hop and hip-life music in New York and Ghana.

Jabbaar-Gyambrah, Tara

Introduction

Over the last thirty years, hip-hop has become a national phenomenon that was cultivated out of the youth resistance movement that emerged in the South Bronx of New York during the 1970s. It ultimately transformed its segment of popular culture into a worldwide entity. Known as the headquarters of hip-hop, the South Bronx continues to serve as its birthplace. It is a community where Black and Latino Youth used their creative voices of expression to speak out against poverty and inequity in American society through emceeing, djing, breakdancing and graffiti. Several factors set the stage for hip-hop's emergence in the seventies, including, but not limited to: job loss, cutting of music programs, migration of Black middle class from the Bronx, white flight, the building of the Cross Bronx Bridge Expressway, increased drug trafficking, and the rapid building of housing projects that did not provide families with a good quality of life. Although hip-hop started as an underground movement that spread from the South Bronx community to other areas of New York, one song on the radio spurred its international growth.

In 1979 the Sugar Hill gang's song "Rappers Delight" put hip-hop on the map as a new innovation of popular culture. While there were other hip-hop artists who were notable contributors to its success--the God Fathers of hip-hop: Gil Scot Heron, DJ Kool Here, Afrika Bambaata and Grandmaster Flash--their music was not selected to be played on the radio. The late Gil Scot Heron was famous for his song "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" which critiqued the mass media for its representation of the Black community. DJ Kool Here was known for his signature song "Apache" and the invention of the breakbeat. Afrika Bambaata formed Zulu Nation, a group named after the fdm Shaka Zulu (1964) to represent the uniting of gangs in the South Bronx community. Grand Master Flash was known for the quick mix theory and the song "The Message." Hip-Hop had a powerful impact on youth across New York, New Jersey, California, and several other states. Each community had their own cause to fight and resist. By the late eighties and early nineties, police brutality became the center of discussion. NWA's "F*** the Police" (1988) addressed excessive force in the Compton community of California with its own unique style. It was not long before hip-hop became a global phenomenon in the 1980s spreading to France, Japan, Ghana, South Africa, and Nigeria.

Although many people are aware of the transformative nature of hip-hop in New York, most are unaware of the transnational influence of the New York-born musical subculture in the continent of Africa. One such genre emerged in the early 1990s in Ghana--hip-life. It is the combination of African American style hip-hop (e.g., rapping) and highlife music created by Ghanaian youth. It is not just a blend of other forms of music, but it is a combination of local rhythms like the Adowa, (1) instruments such as Kpanlogo drums (2), xylophones, flutes, thumb pianos, and samples of old highlife favorites like Alhaji Frimpong, Abrechieba Kofi Sammy, CK Mann, Gyedu Blay Ambolley, Amakye Dede, Nana Tufour, and A.B. Crenstil. Reggie Ossei Rockstone, (3) a famous Ghanaian musician, introduced hip-life music to Ghanaian youth by infusing styles and lyrics with traditional African music when he returned from London in 1994. Rockstone not only transferred hip-hop's style to Ghana, but he integrated it into Ghanaian cultural music for the youth. In hip-life, hip-hop's cultural values remained intact, such as the social consciousness to engage in political struggle, the wearing of various fashion trends, and the style of rapping. Hip-life music gained its popularity through television, radio, nightclubs, music videos, local drinking spots in Ghana, and through the circulation of newspapers, CDs, and cassettes.

JJC, a Nigerian hip-hop artist created a four-part documentary entitled Afropop: The Rise of African Hip-Hop, focusing on how hip-life has given youth a new type of African identity. Through a series of interviews with producers, DJs, artists, music talk show host Bola Ray and Reggie Rockstone, he explores the cross-cultural connections of hip-hop and its African roots. At the core of hip-hop is the West African tradition of storytelling, which is often passed down through the griot in an oral history form. It is this African culture that was brought to America, grew during the slavery plantation era and was re-created in the form of hip-hop in the [South] Bronx in the 1970s. Ironically, this same tradition traveled back home to Africa in the 1980s but with an African American and New York influence.

Panji Anoff, the first producer of hip-life of Ghana, furthers this argument as he believes that hip-hop is derived from a traditional African tradition that has been reinvented in America. According to Anoff, "The source of hip-hop is an African tradition, an ancient African tradition of freestyling, which is spontaneous poetry to a rhythmic pattern." (4) One of the core connections between hip-hop and hip-life music is rapping, which is the art of sharing one's story. In this way, hip-hop globally adapted to cultural expressions of each region it encountered and served as a platform for a variety of voices in collaboration and in competition with its original message.

Although they have often been overshadowed by their male counterparts, women played a key role in the founding moments of hip-hop. In New York, women artists and emcees such as MC Lyte, Salt-N-Pepa, Lauryn Hill, Nikki Minaj, LiT Kim, Foxy Brown, and the Real Roxanne illustrate how hip-hop culture is infused with various meanings and cultural strategies. These strategies are not gender neutral but take on the message of the emcees. For women emcees, this can be read as both lessons of liberation and tales of caution.

This article examines the ways in which women in hip-hop and hip-life navigate a male-dominated music genre by embracing cultural strategies of global liberation. By focusing on the similarities and differences of experiences women in these different geographic contexts, I address the following questions: (1) What is the relevance of the birth of hip-hop in New York to its various global transformations and hip-life in particular? (2) How do the roles of women in hip hop and hip-life music industries differ based on their locations in Ghana as compared to New York-based artists? What are women's roles in hip-hop and hip-life music?

New York Origins and Global Transformations

The music of the Black Atlantic world was the primary expressions of cultural distinctiveness in which populations in New York and other areas across the African Diaspora seized upon and adapted to its new circumstances. Black and Latino youth used these separated, but converged musical traditions of the Black Atlantic world to create itself anew as a conglomeration of communities as a means to gauge the social progress of spontaneous self-creation. All of this was cemented together by the endless pressures of economic exploitation, political racism, displacement, and exile.

In his book The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (1995), Paul Gilroy indicates that as music travels across the Diaspora it adapts to new ascribed conditions to which it is subjected, thus creating a space whereby traditions are upheld and creatively sculpted to fit the location, time, socio-cultural factors, and the individual and communal life experiences of the people. It is through these factors, the transatlantic flow of Black music via the Diaspora, that creative expressive culture is reborn. I posit that hip-hop and hip-life (5) music are two forms of music that have traveled across the Black Atlantic and embody Gilroy's definition and are representative of "Sankofian Diasporic" connections. (6) Furthering this idea, in Dangerous Grounds: Popular Music, Postmodernism and the Poetics of Place (1997), Lipsitz states: "hip hop and other forms of Diasporic African music participate in constructing these local identities, but they bring to them a global consciousness." (7) In other words, when music travels across the diaspora, it is sort of like a butterfly--it goes through a metamorphism that creates a hybrid form, sculpted to its particular locations, culture, politics, and economic status.

Hip-hop and hip-life music industries are two Diasporic communities where there are complex and contradictory hierarchies centered upon socio-cultural histories (i.e., colonialism, cultural reproduction of youth identity, etc.) that are continually reproduced through lyrics and music videos that create a patriarchal illusionary image of women. Gender inequity in both of these male dominated music industries stems from societal views and cultural influences from different groups of people that have been reproduced to fit today's world.

In his book, Hip-Hop Generation (2003), Bakari Kitwana says that the gender problem between Black men and women are related to the generational divide between the Civil Rights generation and what he calls, the hip-hop generation, those born between the years of 1965-1984, which essentially boils down to the older vs. younger generation ideology. Disparities in housing, education, health care, mortgage loan programs, public policy, and the negative portrayal of Blacks in the media have led to increased tensions within the community that have turned into misdirected anger towards Black women. (8) Misrepresentations of the Black community, especially women in hip-hop music videos sparked some of the conflict between the older and younger generation. And, Byron Hurt unpacks this in his film, Hip-Hop Beyond Beats and Rhymes (2006) that explores issues of masculinity, violence, and sexism in hip-hop music, ultimately finds that hip-hop is a reflection of American society's view on gender roles.

Even though hip-life's historical location are firmly placed in Ghana, it was born out of the cultural history of Ghanaians and African Americans through migration. In this sense, factors such as the generational divide in West African communities and the African Americanisms in hip-hop culture have shaped hip-life. Studying these elements will help us understand the ways in which hip-life artists represent themselves in the music industry. As a result, some hip-life artists emulate some forms of African American hip-hop culture in the music genre while others uphold a strong Ghanaian cultural heritage through their music. In other words within the hip-life music industry there are two primary forms of expression:

1. Hip-life artists imitate African American culture (e.g., hip-hop). Musicians do this by using similar messages in their lyrics, adopting dress code values of hip-hop, hairstyles, and using African American slang in their music.

2. Hip-life artists maintain strong Ghanaian cultural traditions through their music. Hip-life artists symbolize and preserve their culture through the types of clothing that they wear, hairstyles, the production of metaphorical "creative" messages in their songs that addresses socio-cultural and political issues of the Ghanaian community and the use of native languages and/or dialects. (9)

The above examples show that there are West Africanisms in hip-hop and African Americanisms in hip-life. There is a reciprocal relationship between hip-hop in the United States and hip-life music in Ghana. However, these connections do not mean that one hip-life artist cannot possess cultural representations of both African Americans and Ghanaians. For example, Sidney, a popular hip-life artist in the Ghanaian song "Abuskeleke,"U) degrades women by using misogynistic lyrics and making fun of the newest sexualized Western fashion style of wearing half shirts." By imitating the language used in African American hip-hop, Sidney is expressing his disapproval of the Ghanaian female fashion that was adopted from Western culture in the 1990s. In another song called "Scenti No," (12) he plays the role of revolutionary who speaks about corrupt behavior in the government system that goes against Ghanaian ethical values. Both songs send two different messages which fall into two categories--"negative" and political. Within the hip-life industry, themes ranging from social, cultural, political, and African/Black feminist perspectives have emerged. The categories discussed above do not exempt the continual emergence or integration of other musical forms or cultural ideologies into hip-life.

The British Post-Colonial Effects on Hip-Life Music

Although hip-life is a genre of protest music that emerged from Ghanaian youth expressing themselves, some British colonial influences have appeared in the genre which creates a contradiction of cultures. Many historians such as Adu Boahen, Jean Allman, Victoria B. Tashijian, Amina Mama and others have studied and researched economic, political, social structure and religion on West African countries, but do not explore the impact of colonialism on hip-life music. Kofi Agawu believes that scholars have "ignored" colonialism's impact on music because it is such a complex area to study. According to Kofi Agawu, "... unlike political history, with its kingdom wars, migrations and inventions, music-an art of sound and a performing art in an oral culture-leaves different, more complex and elusive traces on the historical record, which may explain why historians of Africa have ignored its music." (13)

In other words, according to Agawu, music is a creative form that is bound by complicated oral histories where only traces are left behind to be examined on record. Music includes a wide variety of styles and practices that continuously re-invents itself through migrations. Colonialism has produced a complex musical society in Africa. Similar to the way Black music in the United States has been shaped by structural forces of slavery and Jim Crow, in contemporary Africa a bewildering diversity of inter-and intracontinental musical influences have shaped hip-life. Agawu urges us to consider that these 'foreign' modes of expression sometimes retain their original forms in the new environment, at other moments they transform indigenous forms. As we think about the place of hip-life music and the legacy of hip-hop in Africa, postcolonial Africa is thus best characterized as a constellation of musical practices. (14)

One example of these "constellations" at work in postcolonial Africa is a specific music form called highlife, "a blend of traditional Akan rhythms and melodies with European musical elements, such as the European instruments and harmony. It encompasses a variety of artistic expressions: music, dancing, storytelling, and theater." (15) Highlife music origins reside in English speaking West African countries of Liberia, Sierra Leone, Ghana, and Nigeria. (16) These influences evolved from contact with soldiers stationed on the Guinea Coast, African American seamen, centuries of church music, and adaptations of Western ballroom music. In its modern form, highlife music includes traces of African American blues, Caribbean reggae, pop and rock music all blended in a unique African style. Similar to hip-hop, highlife music is a multi-ethnic and cultural blend of music that represents a constellation of traditions across the Diaspora.

As Gilroy argues extensively in The Black Atlantic, there are no pure forms of Black music. There are distinctive attributes of Black cultural forms that are "modern" because they are hybrid and have origins in the West and Creole. Gilroy states:

   They [Black cultural forms] are modern because
   they have struggled to escape their status as
   commodities and the position within the cultural
   industries it specifies, and because they are
   produced by artists whose understanding of their
   own position relative to the racial group and of
   the role of art in mediating individual creativity
   with social dynamics is shaped by a sense of
   artistic practice as an autonomous domain either
   reluctantly or happily divorced from the
   everyday life world. (17)

In the end, Gilroy argues that the Black cultural forms derive their power from Western and modern ideals and that a doubleness of locality comes along with them, where in fact the music is being produced with unique attributes produced by their experiences.

Extending Gilroy's argument related to the presence of hip-hop in Ghana, I believe that hip-life follows a similar trajectory, whereas there is a distinct Ghanaian cultural dynamic embedded within the music, related to an artist's experiences and creativity. There are significant cultural markers and societal themes such as gender roles, economic, political, social, and cultural issues that have been influenced Ghanaian society are evidence in new cultural forms of the music.

Facing similar commercial scenarios that hip-hop and Black cultures have historically encountered in the United States, aspects of Ghanaian popular culture have also struggled to escape commoditization. This is an important and integral theme in hip-life music that makes it worthy of comparison to hip-hop. There has been a steady shifting of power between artists and record companies that, as they have in the United States, have the ability to influence the production of the music and its meaning as they filter life experiences and socio-cultural histories through various media.

Elements of African traditional music often resurface in the face of the rebirthing process of highlife and hip-life bringing together events, location, time, language, traumatic events (e.g. slave trade experience and colonialism) and space. Hip-life music was birthed out of this very process of remixing Diasporic voices of African American hip-hop, highlife music, and Ghanaian youth, to confront the effects of British colonialism.

Roles of Women in Hip-Hop and Hip-Life Music

Ghanaian and African American women often face challenges when addressing sexuality in their songs. This is frequently met with backlash from the media and community. The globalization of hip-hop has brought a variety of images that continues to transform the perceptions of Black women in Africa and the African Diaspora. In her work, Black Feminist Thought, Hill-Collins, discusses the irreparable damage of the jezebel, mammy, matriarch, and hot momma plays in the United States against Black women. These images did not grow over night, but has historically been developed for hundreds of years through the pre-colonial, colonial, and Jim Crow eras.

The perpetuation of Black women's beauty, sexuality, and personas have manifested through various media forms, including but not limited to commercial ads, films, and music videos. It is not the fact of these being developed and shown to the global world that makes them so powerful, but how others perceive Black women through media experiences without knowing their true character and how the development of the self-fulfilling prophecy drives the identity of so many young Black women in society today. Self fulfilling prophecy is the idea that when one is presented with the same image over and over again, they begin to take on those characteristics. Now, while I love hip-hop culture and the socio-cultural movement that grew out of resistance, I cannot deny the fact that over the last 10 years, I have grown to question the ways in which women's bodies are canvassed and utilized in music videos to shape their identity. But it has become an intricate web that points to the complexity of economics, privilege, and how colonial history has shaped our perceptions of Black women's body, beauty, and sexuality.

Hip-hop is no stranger to the discussion of derogatory lyrics and music videos that subject the Black female body into submission through the power of patriarchal ideals. Nelly's received backlash from Spelman College students in 2004, when he released his explicit music video "Tip Drill" which displayed Black women in various comprising positions. In one scene, a credit card was swiped down the buttocks of a young African American woman, signifying that her body can be bought. More than this, the ideology itself connects to aggressively sexual behavior that was displayed during slavery, thus emerging through the stereotypical image--jezebel. As time has passes by, I have tried to unpack the multidimensional representations of Black women in media, namely hip-hop videos, and the benefit that we receive as Black women, and the greater international community.

In the U.S., artists like Salt-N-Pepa, Lil' Kim and Foxy Brown set the stage for Black women expressing their sexuality in music videos through their dress and lyrics. Salt-N-Pepa's "Push It" (1986) was one of the first songs to express Black women's sexuality from their perspective. Nearly ten years later, under the mentorship of Biggie Smalls, Lil' Kim released her album Hardcore (1996) which took the idea of Black womanhood to another level of expression. While on one hand, Lil' Kim challenged the notion that African American women did not have control over their bodies. On the other hand, her crass but explicit lyrics, fed into patriarchal illusions and fantasies of men about Black women's bodies and sexuality. Sut Jhally's Dreamworlds 2 (1995) considers how these narratives are shaped through a narrow set of myths of gender and sexuality in music videos, sometimes blurring the division between reality and fantasy. Consequently, the emotional ride given by the male viewer can often times lead him to believe that all women want to be engaged in their sexualized fantasies, thus erupting in more sexual assaults and rapes in American society.

Black women who encounter these personas and attempted to engage broader themes in the African Diaspora face significant challenges. In Ghana, hip-life artists like Mzbel have used their music to address gender issues such as sexual violence and harassment under the shadow of colonialism. Mzbel's career began in 2002 with Hush Studios but skyrocketed after the release of her two most controversial albums Awoso Me (Give It To Me) (2004) and 16 Years (2006). In between the releasing of these albums, Mzbel (2005) was brutally attacked (18) and sexually assaulted. (19)

The first incident occurred in October of 2005 Mzbel was invited to perform on campus of Kumasi Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Kumasi in celebration of Art Society week at the college. Mzbel was dressed in a "white unzipped long-sleeved mini-jacket; a glittering pink bra, a pair of white 'track' trousers and a pair of white sneakers" (20) Mzbel was accompanied by her female dancers who wore "red-checkered mini-skirts." She performed three songs solo, one being a hit, with hip-life artist Castro, "Awoso Me" (Give It to Me); a song about two lovers who create a dialogue about their intimacy with one another. Core themes of the video are freedom of female expression, reclaiming sexuality, and the ability to assert sexual desires. In one of the verses, Mzbel provides directions to her lover Buk Tye and warns him against infidelity:

   That's how it is, let's do it as it is
   It's so sweet, very sweet
   Can you? No, don't rush. Take it easy
   Don't be busy like a player
   I'm about to give you flavor
   Something sweet which you can never stop eating
   Give it to me (21)

During the performance the two hip-life artists play the role of lovers who create a dialogue about their sexual experiences and pleasures. Mzbel gave a compelling performance with many of the students demanded an encore but she was unable to comply because other artists were waiting to perform. Nothing could prepare her for what happened next. A riot erupted, with audience members lurching forward stripping Mzbel naked citing her refusal to comply with the demands of the crowd. Although some students tried to carry her off to safety, there were others who blatantly assaulted her by ripping fondling her breasts and buttocks. Ultimately, three students at Kumasi Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) were implicated in the molestation charge of Mzbel, Alex Dapaah, Aaron Adusah-Poku and Theodore Djokoto. Each of the students was suspended from the university for one year.

The second incident occurred in September of 2006 Mzbel and her dancers were attacked, raped, and robbed at her home in Accra, Ghana. According to news reports from ghanamusic.com, Joy FM and myzongo.com, thieves stole items such as DVD players, laptop computers, jewelry and clothes. While there is still a debate as to whether Mzbel and her dancers were raped, Mzbel reported verbally in an interview with Joy FM that she was in fact raped. Although the experience was horrifying Mzbel continued to write and sing her music. Is it because of the way that she dresses? Or, is it because she has chosen to voice her opinion as a Ghanaian woman?

In her article, "African Women, Fashion, and Scapegoating," Audrey Wipper talks about controversy surrounding "appropriate" dress of African women in East and Central parts of Africa. In the excerpt below Wipper explains how the wearing of mini-skirts sparked a massive riot in Ethiopia:

Mini-skirts were blamed for widespread rioting in Ethiopia in which 50 persons were injured, 100 vehicles destroyed, and schools closed for two weeks. There has been vigilante mob action. 'Offending' women have been jeered at, physically assaulted and stripped of their clothes in public by youth wingers and college students. (22)

Many of these types of attacks have occurred in Kenya, Uganda, Malawi and Zambia. These attacks are as a result of the deep-rooted social changes that urban Africa has been experiencing over the last several years and African women are being used as targets of aggression to symbolize the strains of these changes. (23)

Mini-skirts in particular provoked the government to put a ban on wearing short skirts and dresses that were deemed "inappropriate." As Wipper states, "in Zambia, President Kenneth Kaundra ruled that all skirts must be at least three inches below the knee. And one of the most authoritarian of all heads of state, Dr. Banda, forbade women to use lipstick, straighten their hair, paint their fingernails, and wear trousers or shorts." (24) African women who wore Western fashions, make-up, wigs, and lightened their skin were ridiculed because they were moving away from being "African." Some African countries, in an attempt to preserve "traditional" African culture banned such items from being used. (25)

Mzbel has used the site of the concert as a form of resistance in which she challenges African traditional roles subscribed to women in the community by using dress. According to Allman:

   Dress and fashion have been centrally
   implicated in the forgoing of a distinct African
   modernity, through slavery and freedom,
   colonialism and conversion, ethnicity and
   nation, gender, and generation, hybridity and
   cosmopolitanism, state-building and state
   authority, subjecthood, and citizenship.
   Moreover, as part of their agenda of liberating
   modernity from Eurocentric paradigms, they
   dismantle the tradition vs. modernity binary by
   demonstrating that tradition does not exist either
   prior to or in opposition to the modern. (26)

In other words, is it possible to be "modern" and "traditional" at the same time? Mzbel has been cited for being dressed inappropriately, and not serving as an "appropriate" role model for young girls in the community. In the end, there is a merging of African and Western culture ideologies through Mzbel's song "Awoso Me." Through the influence of colonialism, Ghanaian women were encouraged to wear clothing that did not reveal their breasts or butts [bottoms?], as they were thought of as "sexual beasts."

In 1957 under Kwame Nkrumah's presidency, Hannah Kudjoe, a woman's rights activist, began to campaign for women to wear European style clothing. Her purpose appeared to be different from that of Ghana's former colonial master, Britain, because she wanted to "uplift" women and create an atmosphere of self-reliance. It is however ironic that her leadership role to empower women mirrored that of colonial guidelines given Britain's influence on Ghana. There has been a complex merging of African patriarchy and Western ideologies that continues to resurface in Ghanaian society. Mzbel resists both African and British patriarchy by straying away from the "norm" by wearing mini-skirts, dresses, halter tops, and shorts.

Dress is important because it has been influenced throughout Ghana's colonial history with Britain. Dress can be used as a form of power and it is deeply embedded in economic, political, the gendered perspectives of the British and culture. The ways in which women dress in the community gets played out in these areas because it is a complex realm of socio-cultural realities. Over time it has become a hybrid form that either resists African patriarchy or plays into Western ideologies about African women. For example, the British attached the way in which women dressed in African communities to their sexuality. Through the use of educational services, missionary groups such as the Basel and Wesleyan Mission encouraged and promoted the idea of wearing European clothing, suits for the men and flowery long dresses for the women.

The current debate surrounding young girls and women's choices to be more "sexy" in the way that they dress is said to be moving away from the more "traditional" forms of dress in Ghana towards Western fashions. However, is it possible that women are reverting back to Ghanaian traditional forms of dress prior to colonialism? Or, is the way in which young girls or women choose to dress a reflection of the shift in gendered perspectives of Ghanaians as a result of colonialism? The patriarchal relations in Ghanaian society disregard the significance of women's experience which suggests that violence against women in Ghanaian societies is deeply rooted in "gender power relations, identities, and social institutions." (27) Inevitably, young women are violated to maintain systems of oppression that subordinate their roles in society.

Riot outbursts are not just limited to economic and political concerns. There are other factors such as gender inequities and women's public invisibility, which partially emerged as a result of British colonialism. The attack on Mzbel at the KNUST concert in 2005 emerged as a result of complex social and cultural contradictions. What transpired at this concert and at other similar events over the last several years in Ghana are traceable to the influence of British colonialism. For example, the way in which Ghanaian women dressed became associated with her sexuality during colonialism. Wearing little or no clothing for the British symbolized a "loose woman." The ideology that women are to wear clothing that covers their entire body emerged during colonial rule and has been internalized in Ghanaian culture. The young women who were at the concert stepped out of roles that have been inscribed by British colonialism and that are continually carried out as a "norm" of Ghanaian society. By wearing clothing that revealed "sacred" parts of the body they resisted British and Ghanaians subscribed roles. While dress may seem to be a big part of the issue, it is only part of the equation. Dress was used to create subscribed gender roles for Ghanaian women in the community.

Similar to its American counterpart, hip-hop, hip-life is often characterized by male aggression with women largely absent in the industry. When women are present, their ability to articulate authentic critiques of serious societal issues is muted by hyper masculine sexual objectification of their bodies and music. This aggression has serious consequences in a transnational context that have been more carefully scrutinized in the United States than abroad.

The riot at Mzbel's concert emerged as a result of a complicated web stemming from Ghanaian society's transitions between the economic, social, cultural, and political sectors. Mzbel who was attack at the concert at KNUST in 2005, then, serve as "scapegoats" for the real issues that plague Ghanaian society such as high unemployment rates, the meshing of Ghanaian and British patriarchal views of women, and subscribed gender roles.

Conclusion

Comparing the impact of hip-hop culture on hip-life artists in Ghana, several important issues become apparent. Music is not simply a passing culture form relegated to the aesthetic realm but rather it becomes a conduit for political, cultural, emotional, and sexual trauma. From the experiences of Mzbel and others we can see how the remix of hip-hop in a West African context both challenged and confirmed traditional roles assigned to women in West African societies. As a platform hip-life has great potential to challenge Western patriarchal stereotypes about a "woman's place," however it also can exhibit and amplify the same misogynistic and anti-feminist qualities that characterized aspects of the subculture in the United States

Despite these contradictions, understanding hip-life as a strategy of liberation for women is important for a variety of reasons. First, it broadens our understanding of the power of Black music by engaging the international dimensions of its appeal. We see a New York form that was developed to address a certain socio-political context taking on new forms to challenge colonial and patriarchal systems of power. While much has been discussed about how African American youth have interpreted hip-hop music as a venue for their political affirmation, we also see that Ghanaian women can engage the music and the culture as a platform with the same fervor.

We should carefully consider the connection of regional and cultural influences in New York to a broader conversation about gender, power, class, and culture. Instead of thinking of New York as a separate microcosm, we can use stories of trauma and musical performance to interrogate patriarchy and violence directed against women on a global scale.

(1) The adowa is a local rhythm that has several different meanings that can be used in the musical and theatrical concept. It is connected to the cultural heritage of the Ga people of southeastern Ghana. It is a body of songs and/or dance that is utilized as a rite of passage for all Ga people which are performed by women. For example, a particular dance form may be named after a drum, and an adowa would be an example of this.

(2) The kpanlogo drum is a musical instrument that is used to signify the culture of the Ga people in Ghana's Accra region. It is used for marking the rhythm for traditional kpanlogo dance performances. It is a hand crafted dram made of tweneboa wood, with a calfskin dram head attached to wooden pegs with round ropes. Although it is derived from the Ga people of Ghana it is popular throughout West Africa because of its defined characteristics (e.g. deep and loud sound).

(3) Although Reggie Rockstone invented hip-life music in the early 1990s, he did not release his first commercial album until 1997. His album Maaka Maka (If I said so I said it) was produced by Ghanaian Michael Coalhouse Horthman, who was familiar with Britain. Rockstone was finally recognized internationally in March of 2001 for his creation of hip-life in The Source Magazine in the United States. Other Ghanaian artists such as Freddie Funkstone, Lord Kenya, Michael Cook, Talking Drum and Panji Anoff of Pidgen music soon followed suit by releasing their own albums.

(4) "Accra Reclaims Hip-Hop", BBC News, accessed February 13, 2015, http://news.bbc.co.Uk/2/hi/africa/3241007.stm

(5) It is a combination of African American style hip-hop (i.e., rapping) and highlife music.

(6) The literal meaning of sankofa is "se wo were fi na wosan kofa a yenki " (it's not a taboo to go back and fetch what you have forgotten). The Sankofian Diasporic connection is the way in which hip-hop and hip-life music participates in constructing cultures and identities by traveling from locality to another.

(7) George Lipsitz, Dangerous Grounds: Popular Music, Postmodernism and the Poetics of Place (New York and London: Verso, 1997), 33.

(8) Bakari Kitwana, The Hip Hop Generation (New York: BasicCivitas Books, 2003), 87.

(9) Tara Jabbaar-Gyambrah, "Hip-Hop, Hip-Life: Global Sistahs" (PhD diss., University of Buffalo, 2007)

(10) The translation could mean mini skirt, or short dress that women wear that show body parts that are not to be seen in public according to Ghanaian cultural values.

(11) John Collins, "A Social History of Ghanaian Popular Entertainment Since Independence" (unpublished paper presented at the Ghana Historical Society, August 2005). To be published in Transactions: Journal of the Ghana Historical Society in 2006-2007.

(12) The translation literally means smell and signifies something is rotten or not good in reference to Ghanaian government politics.

(13) Kofi Agawu, "Colonialism's Impact," in Representing African Music: Postcolonial Notes, Queries, Positions, ed. Kofi Agawu, 1-22 (New York: Routledge, 2003), 2.

(14) Ibid., 22.

(15) Sjaak Van Deer Geest and Nimrod K. Asante-Darko, "The Political Meaning of Highlife Songs in Ghana," African Studies Review 25 no. 1 (March 1982): 27-35.

(16) John Collins, "The Early History of West African Highlife Music" Popular Music, 8 no. 3 (October 1989): 222.

(17) Paul Gilroy, The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double-Consciousness (New York and London: Verso, 1993), 73.

(18) "Mzbel Sues KNUST 600m," Ghanaweb, accessed February 13, 2015, http://www.ghanaweb.eom/GhanaHomePage/entertainment/artikel.p ho?ID-98252

(19) "Mzbel: Standing Strong," Modern Ghana, accessed February 13, 2015, http://www.modernghana.com/music/3393/3/mzbel-standing strong.html; "Mzbel's Attackers escape from police custody," GhanaWeb, accessed February 13, 2015,

http://www.ghanaweb.eom/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.p hp?ID=114962; "Mzbel rape story turns dramatic Laptop Found in

Hairdressing Salon," GhanaWeb, accessed February 13, 2015, http://www.ghanaweb.eom/GhanallomePage/entertainment/artikel.p hp?ID=192612; "Goodies Hits back at Mzbel," GhanaWeb, accessed February 13, 2015,

http://www.glianaweb.eom/GhanaHomePage/entertainment/artikel.p hp?ID= 192790; "Mzbel was not raped," GhanaWeb, accessed February 13, 2015,

http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArc hive/artikel.p hp?ID=110552; and "Mzbel Damns Manager," GhanaWeb, accessed February 13, 2015,

http://www.ghanaweb.eom/GhanaHomePage/entertainment/artikel.p hp?ID 1927S0

(20) "Mzbel Sues KNUST 600m," Ghanaweb, accessed February 13, 2015,

http://www.ghanaweb.eom/GhanaHomePage/entertainment/artikel.p hp?ID 9S252

(21) This part of the song was originally sung in Twi and translated into English by Hannah Essien of Indiana University.

(22) Audrey Wipper, "African Women, Fashion, and Scapegoating," Canadian Journal of African Studies 5, no. 2 (1972): 329-330.

(23) Wipper, "African Women, Fashion, and Scapegoating," 330.

(24) Ibid., 335.

(25) Ibid., 331.

(26) Jean Allman, "Introduction" in Fashioning Africa: Power and the Politics of Dress (Indiana University Press: 2004), 5.

(27) Ibid., 166.