What’s good Hip Hop Challengers! Today’s challenge acknowledges the global reach of rap and hip hop. We know that hip hop started as a way to give voice to the voiceless in a Bronx neighborhood that struggled in the midst of NYC’s tumultuous late 70s/early 80s, and we also know that the genre, the culture, and its adherents spread far and wide over the decades.

And we should remember that hip hop culture is not just an expression of African American culture, but that it has become an occasion and context for innumerable communities throughout the world to articulate local identities and express the realities of political marginalization, institutional racism, and street culture. Even in America we have Native American rappers and Latino rappers, for example, who have used the context of hip hop to rep their hoods, tell their stories, and encourage solidarity, operating outside of even the more discerning understandings of the history of this music.

Global hip hop started to really come into its own in the late 1990s, with Missy’s remix of ‘All n My Grill’ featuring Senegalese rapper MC Solaar being an early entry point:

This track, released solely for the European market, blew up in a major way, putting French rap out there for those who didn’t speak the language and encouraging other communities to step up to the mic. And they did!

French hip hop is the 2nd biggest market in the world now. Out in the UK artists like Little Simz, Wiley, and Stormzy have gained massive popularity from their home-grown sound that may have its roots in US hip hop, but is proudly resting on and building its own traditions. This young man, Niska, is a superstar in French rap, selling millions of records and continuing on his come-up:

It’s amazing to listen to the echoes of what those of us who are used to listening to US rap/hip-hop reverberate through a very specific and different flow, swagger, and point of view.

So!

1.) The tricky/fun thing about this 30 day ‘challenge’ is that you get one choice (see, it’s a challenge!). What we’re trying for today is any non-US hip hop you may have come across, or listen to. You don’t have to be an expert, you may not even understand what they’re saying, but you feel it, and that’s what matters!

2.) In order to keep the thread from borking, please limit yourself to one YouTube/media link per post. If someone ‘beats you to it’ and posts a song you would’ve posted, reply under their post saying why you like this song/why it was your pick as well, etc. Let’s not give Disqus a reason to make the thread hard to navigate for those of us listening to the songs!

3.) Let’s keep this as positive as we can. Don’t yuck anyone’s yum, don’t snark on someone who may not be as familiar as others, don’t ‘Um, actually’ people, etc. Ain’t nobody earning any Internet Points out here.