Nairobi Is in the Building-Kenyan Hip Hop by Davey D

We sat down with Kenyan rap stars Attitude, Bamboo and Missy Maira collectively known as Project 254 to find out what’s cracking in Kenya’s burgeoning Hip-Hop scene.

We were quickly put on notice that Kenya and much of Africa is not ‘primitive’ and out of step the way it get depicted on TV. We also found out that Hip-Hop in Africa is huge. The artists we interviewed while relatively unknown here in the states are mega superstars on the continent. They have billboards all over. They have their own public bus routes. They are heard on the radio everyday. They were recently featured in the award winning documentary ‘Hip Hop Colony’ which shows the ins and outs of Kenya’s Hip-Hop scene.

In this interview we not only play the music , but we talk to these artist and find out the challenges they face and how Kenya is trying to fight the corporate co-optation of Hip-Hop.