Choices Of Language In Tanzanian Rap Music example essay topic

Going from the urban scene to all over the country, FUBU gives other business owners the chance to witness how diversity is changing the marketing world. This gives other businesses a chance to compete against companies like FUBU, using popularity as an advantage in creating new types of clothing with the same brand names. Tommy Hilfiger is a good example, since his clothing line has gone from a nice casual look to baggy pants and larger shirts, etc. These changes also point to the importance of world globalization and its need to acknowledge different cultures and ethnic areas of the United States. FUBU's marketing mix came to a start in a small area. When they began, it wasn't easy to distribute their product among customers.

They had to go out on the streets and sell their clothing out of bags. FUBU wasn't yet available to many people because it was unheard of outside of Daymond's home town. It would have stayed that way without promotion; if they didn't have determination to sell, FUBU surely would have gone out of business as fast as they started. Obviously the thought of being homeless was not appealing to Daymond, because he took out two mortgages. He was determined to succeed and motivated enough to take some big risks. Even though Daymond could not afford to advertise his clothing line commercially at first, he managed to promote FUBU at rap concerts in his area.

With FUBU being seen in photo shoots containing LL Cool J a launch" hit the clothing line and persuaded many young people around America that FUBU was the "cool" thing to wear. Daymond's talents as a salesperson really stood out in this test of time. His product truly became a satisfaction to consumer wants and needs, and thus became a "trend". If FUBU didn't become trendy", value would have made the clothing seemingly as cheep as it was to make. Yet it was the price of those trends that gave Daymond the initiative to start FUBU in the first place. FUBU, along with every other fashion industry, has a number of challenges that they have to face as time goes by.

One major changing element is what the next generation of young people considers to be a good trend. Not only do trends in the hip-hop culture play a crucial role, but so do the continual diverse changes. Indeed, the appearance of the hip-hop lifestyle is international in its nature. Let us try to examine language choices made by Tanzanian and Malawian hip hop enthusiasts and artists. This topic is although somewhat unusual yet it perfectly illustrates the point of how hip-hop develops and thrives in different cultures. Tanzanian youths draw from both English and Swahili, using whichever language is appropriate to a particular situation, while Malawian youths follow a similar pattern utilizing either Chichewa or English.

Language use patterns in the two countries diverge, however, with regard to country-specific social and economic dimensions of rap musical practice, defined here as including performance, clothing styles, dance, and discourse about rap music. Since Malawi and Tanzania border one another, the distinct yet overlapping uses of language among local hip hop artists emphasize cultural and historical differences that have influenced the development of the two national scenes. What are these differences and how do they play out in each country's respective hip hop musics? What is distinctive about each country's language use and how does this affect local hip hop music? Following several positions outlined in the recent volume Regimes of Language (Kroskrity), we treat the processes of language choice in Tanzanian and Malawian rap practices as a function of language ideologies -- both explicit and implicit -- that underlie social life. Language ideologies are people's beliefs and interests concerning the structure and use of language within social experiences (cf.

Silverstein: 193). In the first section, Alex Perullo analyzes the interplay between English and Swahili rap lyrics, the development of vernacular, and the influence of commercialization to comprehend the complex relationship between English and Swahili in Tanzania. In the second section, John Fenn examines the Malawian hip hop scene, relating the ways youths strive to express themselves in both English and Chichewa as they generate and interpret the "messages" and meanings of rap music. Each of the authors draws on ethnographic fieldwork they have conducted separately in Tanzania and Malawi. In both countries, recent political, economic, and social changes play a significant role in the development of rap music and the choice of language for performance of and discourse about it; the differences between Tanzanian and Malawian histories convey the unique avenues of language choice in each country's rap scene. The choices of language in Tanzanian rap music, whether English, Swahili, or a combination of the two, reflect particular ideologies held by hip hop musicians.

English rap tends to borrow heavily from American hip hop discourses and American culture. Songs are often about parties, friends, or self praise for the group and the individual rappers in the group. Rap in Swahili moves away from the more celebratory rap and focuses on topics pertinent to Tanzanians, such as AIDS, drug use, government corruption, lack of jobs, and the impossibility of attaining a visa to leave the country. While groups who use English also rap about important social issues and Swahili lyrics contain self-praise and other features associated with rap discourses, generally the two languages offer different avenues for rapping and reach different audiences within the Tanzania hip hop scene. To better comprehend how English and Swahili developed in hip hop culture, we must look at the early history of rap music in Tanzania. In the late 1980's, as the Tanzanian government opened up its economy to outside markets, hip hop began to filter into the country, first on cassettes, then on television and radio.

Many Tanzanian youths taught themselves to rap by imitating the lyrics, mannerisms, and gestures of the hip hop artists they were heating. II Proud, who also uses the name Mr. II and is currently one of the most popular rappers from Tanzania, explained to Perullo in a 1999 interview that he would listen to rap cassettes repeatedly until he could mimic the English lyrics. Though he did not speak English at the time, he would sound out the words until he had a sense of the rhyming and "flow" of the song. After establishing the song's feel, II Proud would create his own lyrics and rap over the music of the American rap tape. In rap concerts observed in 1998, rapping original lyrics over recycled music was still prevalent, with many musicians using the same background music throughout an entire competition.

Only more recently have musicians created their own music, much to the credit of local music engineers-programmers.