Snoop Dogg as cultural imperialist? Is Hip-Hop killing African culture?

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Is Hip-Hop the music of a foreign devil with designs on paving over African cultural heritage and stealing the souls of the continent’s youth? Cultural imperialism is an age-old debate, really, updated for the era of globalization, where everything from art to people to culture has been reduced to economics. With this in mind, we ask: Do the art forms of economically stronger markets blot out traditions residing in smaller marketplaces?

“I don’t like Hip-hop because I don’t like the way they dress,” One of Hi-Life’s greatest masters, Ben Brako, recently told myjoyonline. “[W]e should be able to promote and project our own culture, and this is not about being patriotic, but it is also about economics,” he said. “We should be able to create our own music, with our own clothing, and fabrics – that way we would be creating more jobs,” he explained.

The best way to keep High-life alive, he said, is to make it more palatable to young people.

From Adam Smith to Bob Marley
Yet not everybody thinks that culturally aggressive art forms are such a bad thing for smaller countries trying to keep their traditions alive. Tyler Cowen, an author and professor from the United States, claims that almost all art forms, whether food or music or writing, are the products of cultural hybridization. Different traditions come together through the marketplace, which supports cultural diversity and a freedom of choice for end users. Enhanced trade – in the larger sense – offers artists a greater opportunity for expression. Artists not only need ideas and inspiration, he says, but they also need somewhere to sell their wares and the physical materials to create their art. “When two cultures trade with each other they tend to expand the opportunities available to individual artists,” he said at a talk sponsored by the Cato Institute.

He provides the example that the internationally renowned Cuban music or the equally celebrated Jamaican reggae are both products of expanding and competing markets. (Bob Marley admitted that ideas from his early music came from listening to artists like James Brown, which he heard through American radio beamed to Jamaica.) Finally, Cowen argues that countries with well developed markets – like the U.S. – offer music lovers a wide palate of choices: rap, jazz, classical, Cajun, trash metal, psychobilly, etc. “When the cost of supplying products goes down, people tend to use culture to differentiate themselves from other people, to pursue niche interests, to pursue hobbies,” he argued.

Nobody likes a bully
To some cultures, music may not be merely a commodity (or even an art form), but an expression that accompanies social and religious rites: weddings, baptisms, funerals, etc. It is true that transistor radios – and accompanying recorded electronic music – have penetrated even the most out of the way places. This expansion has certainly led to the death of some forms of music, further unmooring people from their cultural foundations. But, aren’t cultures always evolving?

With music streaming across radios being less particular to a specific place or culture – because radio travels over such great distances – Dr. Tran Van Khê argues that younger people are drawn in by easy-to-play and more aesthetically palatable music, further sanitizing cultures into a single mass product. There is no way to fight this because free traders (like Cowen) don’t understand that markets are not created equally. Benjamin Barber, another professor/writer-type from the States, argues that when one culture meets another culture in the marketplace of ideas, the larger culture may be able to bully the smaller into submission.

The problem is that when America meets another culture, it’s not, as you might imagine here, just two guys in the woods. It’s not an American wearin’ his Nikes and eatin’ his burgers meeting up with a Nigerian who’s singing a different kind of music, and they have a little exchange, and when it’s done the American’s a little different—a little more Nigerian—and the Nigerian’s a little different—a little more American—and we’re all the better off for it. Rather, you’ve got to imag- ine the American armed, sort of like the soldiers in Iraq are armed, with all of the goods and brands of modern technology, modern commerce, hard and soft power, hegemonic economic power over the globe, hegemonic military power over the globe. That’s the culture that’s meeting up with some little Third World culture that’s got some Navajo blankets or some fusion music that we’d kind of like to collect.

I understand how important it is to “know” your culture, and how art forms like music help shape one’s worldview. That’s all good. I also have a lot of respect for arguments and movements against cultural imperialism. But I think some of these arguments may lack a little nuance. I have always been a bit reluctant to claim that African youth are all attracted by Western music. Yes, rap and hip-hop are popular dress styles; but how many young people really listen to it? Culture, unlike economics, is not zero-sum. I doubt that Hip-Hop’s rise is equal to the decline of West African music.

There’s another issue that has always nagged at me. Why are some aspects of American culture supposedly so popular abroad? I am not only referring to music, but movies and the like. It’s a question I may never answer.

Being the dancing fool I am, I went out over the weekend and found the music clubs we frequented played a smattering of (admittedly lame) Western dance music, along with a cluster of Middle Eastern pop music. However, most of the music these clubs played was created in Africa for Africans. Sure, performers like Meiway and Douk-Saga and Koffi Olomide may resemble “western music” because they utilize guitars and synthesizers, but the cultural codes their songs adhere to are strictly local. That’s a good thing. What’s better yet, it doesn’t bar me from liking it.

Globalization with an African face

There’s been a lot of talk, maybe too much talk, about the effects market liberalization has on the lower end of a country’s economic stratum. We’re talking globalization, and at least some of the research I’ve read claims the poorest of the poor (read: low-skill workers) fail to make short-term gains when a country opens itself up to foreign trade and investment. No matter what precautions a government may take (temporary tariffs to protect certain industries, for example), the low-skilled sector oftentimes find its wages cut and/or its jobs outsourced.

Now, people debate whether this is a causal relationship or not (globalization = keeping the poor poor?) or how much it depends on the level of economic liberalization a country undergoes. Then, debate rages whether low-skilled workers eventually find better work and higher wages in the long-term.

Yes, some of this stuff may sound arcane. But I think the poor track record globalization has with the working class is the major reason it seems so unpopular in places like South and Central America.

One interesting aspect of this research on countries going through globalization is how little of it focuses on sub-Saharan Africa. That probably says a lot more about the impact globalization has had on the continent than about the availability of researchers willing to slug it out in the slums of Nairobi. Let’s be honest, in the past decade perhaps only a few African countries could candidly speak about opening up their industries to outside investment. Off the top of my head, the list could include: South Africa, Kenya and Uganda (maybe), Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal (sort of), and the countries of North West Africa.

There’s other countries that belong on this list I am certain, but that’s only due their mineral and oil deposits. What I am interested in is finding African countries with professional manufacturing sectors. (That’s why I included Nigeria.) It would be interesting to find how how this handful of countries deal with the upgraded connectivity with the rest of the world.

What I do know is that most of Africa remains shut out. In places like the Sahel (high transportation costs, low education levels, expensive goods and services, expensive banking structures), I just don’t see much export-quality manufacturing taking place. That’s why globalization hasn’t had much of an impact here because nobody is looking to invest in those countries. (Now, on the level of cheap plastic stuff and fake soccer jerseys, globalization has definitely made its presence felt.)

This doesn’t mean all of Africa will lag behind forever.

In lieu of this week’s Connect Africa conference in Kigali, Amii Omara-Otunnu argues that Africans must grapple with globalization, even though its present incarnation has what he would describe as globalization with an American Face – dominated by American styles and rhetoric. I don’t quote too many pieces that use the word “dialectic,” but this is an interesting argument on Africans’ responsibility to take globalization and make it their own.

Because this American-sponsored technology has made borders porous, Africans must cross the digital divide and join the rest of the world. However, in doing so, they must tackle these difficult challenges, Omara-Otunnu says:

The first is how to share equitably the information and knowledge that propel globalization. The second is how to utilize this knowledge and information to foster human understanding and solidarity across regional, religious, gender, racial, and class boundaries. And the third is how to bridge the gap between theories and actions in such a way that building of Internet infrastructure is relevant to the lives of Africans. It is therefore not sufficient to create conditions for private investment and for the maximization of profit without taking into account the fundamental issue of the human rights of Africans.

If globalization is not to be a zero sum game but rather a win-win process, progressive Africans must make the case to those in power that globalization should not be only about profit maximization but also about globalization of ethical values. The humanistic accent on life and thought that is pronounced in African conception of social existence should be the continent’s area of comparative advantage that can contribute to a more humane globalization.

African contribution to give globalization a human face would indeed draw on the African genius, which despite centuries of exploitation resulting into material poverty, still boasts of spiritual wealth, which are captured in various proverbs or adages…The underlying meaning is that “no one is completely self-sufficient and sometimes we may have to work with even our rivals to achieve a greater good in society.

People as products: immigration, remittances and development

The question is posed: In this era of globalization, should people be allowed to move across borders as freely as products?

Philippe Legrain, author of Immigrants: Your Country Needs Them, in an interview with the Freakonomics blog in the New York Times:

“When it comes to the domestic economy, politicians and policymakers are forever urging people to be more mobile, and to move to where the jobs are. But if it is a good thing for people to move from Kentucky to California in search of a better job, why is it so terrible for people to move from Mexico to the U.S. to work?”

…

“From a global perspective, freer migration could bring huge economic gains. When workers from poor countries move to rich ones, they can make use of the advanced economies’ superior capital, technologies, and institutions, making these economies much more productive. Economists calculate that removing immigration controls could more than double the size of the world economy. Even a small relaxation of immigration controls would yield disproportionately big gains.”

Immigration as development program
Most development aid is only effective through some sort of divine intervention, or the perfect alignment of stars. That is, goals and actions must be completely harmonized amongst the development agency, the host government and local people. Most will agree that too many things can go wrong for aid to be effective in the long term.

Immigration’s simple aid package is remittances, the transfer of money home through informal means or with a carrier like Western Union. According to a study by the International Fund for Agriculture Development, 150 million immigrants sent more than $300 billion in 2006, which is three times the amount of the entire international aid budget.

The driving force of these remittances is usually smallish amounts, about $100 to $300, but enough to greatly assist immigrants’ families, “a lifeline that lifts them out of poverty,” according to the study’s authors. At least 80 to 90 cents of every dollar sent home is spent on basic needs, keeping many families above water. The other 10 to 20 cents is spent on various formal and informal savings and investments.

The Remittance Sweepstakes: Winners in Africa
Country	Amount in $ millions	Percent of GDP
Morocco	6,400	11.2
Congo Brazzaville	423	7.4
Mozambique	565	7.4
Rwanda	642	6.9
Tunisia	1559	5.1

Sub-Saharan Africa, which counts more than 30 million people in its Diaspora, received $21.7 billion in 2006. That amount represents roughly four percent of the continent’s GDP and four percent of its exports. Africa’s migration is predominately intraregional, especially in West Africa, whose countries share a cohesive culture and a common language and currency. (As much as 14 percent of all of West Africa’s remittances originate in Cote d’Ivoire.) Yet, “significant” out migration exists to countries in Europe, especially the former colonial powers of England and France. The Netherlands and Italy also boast large African populations.

A large portion of the funds received in West and Southern Africa goes to rural areas. At least two-thirds of immigrants living and working in Ghana send money home to rural areas. Here is a list of the Remittance Sweepstakes winners in West Africa: Gambia, where immigrants sent home $87 million, the equivalent of 17 percent of GDP; Mali received $739 million, 12.5 percent of GDP; and, Burkina Faso's Émigrés sent back $507 million, about 8.2 percent of its GDP.

But problems do exist. In Africa, 70 percent of all transfers are handled by a single operator. Service charges for remitting declined over the past decade, but still remains a hurdle. Part of the problem is financial institutions are now obliged to better monitor their transactions to be more vigilant against funding terror groups. This added scrutiny comes at a cost.

Also, even with banks maintaining such a large market share in Africa, these institutions don’t reach out to the migrants to allow them to open accounts or gain credit. Other than granting more access to the banking system, the authors noted that increasing financial literacy may help unlock the development potential of remittance flows.

Why do people leave?
If people in rich countries want to stop immigrants from entering their lands, we must ask why people come in the first place. The poor of the world live mostly in the world’s poorest countries, places not only plagued by staggering unemployment, but a mushrooming population. Employers from rich countries, however, constantly hunt for workers to fill low-skilled jobs and many developed nations (at least in Europe) are fighting against an aging population. For example, demographics show that the Italian workforce is expected to shrink by one-third by 2050, while in Egypt the workforce will double in that time.

There is more. Today, at least “five irresistible forces” are at work applying pressure for the increased mobility of people across national boundaries. According to the economist Lant Pritchett, those five include:

• The Wage Gap. At the end the nineteenth century, the difference between poor nations and rich nations hovered around 2 to 1 and 4 to 1. Today, that number reads 10 to 1.
• Differing demographic futures. Because these wage gaps are explained by address more than anything else, the future of people born in rich countries remains very bright and decidedly less difficult than those originating from a poor country.
• The globalization of everything but labor. The mobility of labor is small compared to the flows across national borders of goods, capital and communication.
• The rise of employment in low-skill, hard-core nontradables. Some jobs cannot be outsourced, and health aides, janitors, fast food workers are some of them. Because of aging populations, the rich world will need more of these workers.
• Lagging growth in “ghost” countries. Think of some poor countries as the converse of the Great Plains of the United States. In 1930, more than a million people lived in the sandy flats of America. By 1990, its absolute population fell by 27 percent and created “ghost towns” populated by the very old or very young. However, per capita income remained steady with the rest of the country. However, in Zambia, the population tripled between the mid-1960s and 2000 while the per capita income feel by one-third.

Pritchett proposes a comprehensive guest worker program to alleviate these irresistible forces. Here’s the fix:

• Let the host nation choose who comes. Don’t create general multilateral agreements, but bilateral agreements between two or a small group of countries. This may help stem the argument against culture clash or the dissolution of culture.
• Workers stay short term. In a New York Times Magazine story, Pritchett claimed workers should stay three to five years and not be offered a path to citizenship.
• Workers will only be employed in specific fields with labor shortages.
• The host country must not only enhance the development of the sending country, but work with this country to enforce labor laws to ward off people becoming prey to employers and traffickers.

It’s a radical plan, by most thinking. In that New York Times Magazine profile, writer Jason De Parle makes the argument that it can be described in terms similar to Saudi Arabia’s guest-worker program where laborers arrive from poor nations, remain for a time in the Kingdom, yet exist permanently separate from mainstream Saudi society. However, Michael Clemens points out in a blog post for the Center for Global Development that Pritchett’s plan doesn’t resemble Saudi Arabia so much, but the contemporary United States. During the 1990s when 350,000 unauthorized workers annually entered the country, “America took in three million low-skill workers with no citizen rights and, thanks to the recent failure of the immigration reform bill, little prospect of such rights.”

Opponents have their say
From the U.S perspective, here is what economist George Borjas thinks about a guest worker program.

“Let me ask a few simple questions that proponents of guest workers programs should answer in the context of U.S. laws and norms.”

I quote:

• What guarantee is there that the guest workers will in fact be temporary workers? How can such a guarantee be enforced in the United States?
• What will happen when the judicial system puts its fingerprint on the program? All it takes is for one activist judge to invent some right out of thin air, and--presto--it will be hard to repatriate many more guest workers.
• Doesn't a guest worker at the end of the visa term have incentives to become an illegal immigrant? How are we going to prevent that? How are we going to catch them?
• Why would one want to start a program that essentially creates a huge class of disenfranchised workers in the labor market? Isn't there a real danger that the exploitation of poor foreign workers--the new crop of second-class citizens--becomes a trademark of that segment of the labor market?
• Surely a guest worker program of the magnitude contemplated by Bush-Kennedy-McCain must have some impact on the relative wage of competing workers. I realize that more than a few economists are willing to forget the law of demand they teach in Econ 1 when it comes to immigration.
  

The kicker: “But think of it another way: why would employers spend so much lobbying for guest workers if the program didn't benefit them?”