The main goal of this paper is to review the current state of political hip hop in Tanzania as a direct critic to the government policies and the growing censorship and repression against hip hop artists.
Paper long abstract:
During the first decade of this century Tanzanian hip-hop, one of the most studied popular items in Africa, become archetypical as a cultural protest movement which showed how young people criticized political and social problems such as corruption and abuse of power. Also, Tanzanian hip-hop shared the feature of not suffering censorship by the government and even having a collaborating relation between artists and authorities. From 2011 until the present time the situation has changed with aspects that initially had not been seen, such as the direct involvement of hip-hop artists in politics with posts in the Parliament; the confrontation of some hip-hop artists with the policy of certain national media networks about discrimination and inequality of opportunities to those artists who keep the ujumbe mkali (protest message) in their songs; The apparent change in freedom of speech's policies by the current Tanzanian government and the clear uncertainty of success as hip hop artist in economic and social terms. The aim of this paper is to reflect about these transformations and the expectative of Tanzanian hip-hop not only as political movement but also as a music industry in the years to come.