Was not a documentary I expected. Funny thing is my friend and I were probably one of 15 people in the theater, unusual for a DC film fest screening. We made instant buddies with some other hip-hop aficionados who were not the typical tweed-blazer adorned DC film-fest goer.
Long for a documentary, the movie was refreshing in the way it was framed. First starting off with an introduction to Africa and Kenya by a British narrator, I was annoyed (I'm annoyed by most narrators if you can't tell, however, George of the Jungle gets props for having the best use of a humorous narrator) because I thought it was rather 'colonial' to have a white-sounding Brit narrate the advent of hip-hop in Kenya, a musical form imported from the United States. However, as the director showed Kenyans making hip-hop their own, transforming it into 'genge,' we heard less of the narrator and more from the seemingly tight knit family-like community of Kenyan artists.
When I think hip-hop, I'm used to thinking about American hip-hop where wealth is prominently displayed, women are sub-human objects, and lyrics glorify gangster life-styles. Hip Hop Colony showed how Kenyan genge demonstrated none of these characteristics, rather the music was about identity in Kenya and adjusting to the world changing around them.
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