Legon hosts author of book on Hiplife in Ghana

Today, Thursday October 18th 2012, the Department of African Studies of the University of Ghana will play host to Prof Halifu Osumare, an Associate Professor of African American Studies at the University of California Davis in the United States as she makes a book presentation of her new book, The Hiplife In Ghana: West African Indigenization of Hip-Hop to a cross section of students, academics, musicians and interested persons.

The presentation which will start at 10am exactly will also feature presentations by MUSIGA President, Bice Osei Kuffour, aka Obour; Hiplife’s living Legend, Reggie Rockstone and the versatile DJ Black. The book, which offers a chronology of Ghana’s Hiplife and a look into aspects of the life of the founder, Reggie Rockstone has four chapters.

The first chapter is “Making an African Out of the Computer: Globalization and Indigenization in Hiplife”. The second is “Empowering the Young: Hiplife’s Youth agency”, and the third chapter is titled “Society of the Spectacle: Hiplife and Corporate Recolonization”. The fourth chapter talks extensively about Bice Osei Kuffour, aka Obour and Okyeame Kwame’s hit song, “The Game”. The chapter has been aptly titled “The Game: Hiplife’s Counter-Hegemonic Discourse”.

The book came about as a result of in-depth field and research work spanning over some time. Some distinguished persons have contributed in various ways to the success of this book. One such person is Professor Emeritus J. H. Kwabena Nketia, the founding Director of the School of Performing Arts, University of Ghana, who thinks that – “this book is an excellent and painstaking review of the circumstances that led to the adoption of this musical genre and its subsequent transformations. . . I have no doubt that readers will find Osumare’s theoretical observations, thoughts and critical comments on her field materials and those related to the operation of multinationals, etc. equally interesting and thought-provoking”.

The book was published by Palgrave Macmillan and was released in the USA and England on September 18th 2012. The publishers of the book do not have a distributor here as such; the book is not yet available for sale in Ghana. If there is anyone interested in distributing this book, please contact the MUSIGA Head office in Accra.

However, the book presentation for tomorrow is open to the public.