Abstract:
This thesis works to put the cultures of dispersed peoples into conversation with one another. It takes up Hiplife and the African diaspora as a framework for understanding black cultural production while remaining mindful that black internationalism is by no means caged by the literal or imagined territory of Africa, and that all of humanity is, in a sense, part of an African diaspora. The radiation of new thought in the field of diaspora studies, becoming prominent in academic discourse in the early 2000s, ironically mirrors the cultural radiation of Hiplife and its North American forbearer Hip-Hop. I posit that the cultural and academic assertion of the value, merit and utility of global black production, coinciding with both technological advancements (music video technology, the advent of the internet, online streaming) and dramatic shifts in politics (the re-democratization of Ghana) attest to the inherent politicization of global black productions.
