Msia Kibona Clark is an Associate Professor of African Studies at Howard University. She has been photographing and writing about hip hop in Africa since 2009. Now, the culmination of a lot of her hard work is now presented in the form of the book, Hip-Hop in Africa: Prophets of the City and Dustyfoot Philosophers.

Hip hop has been a global phenomenon for some time, and its roots in Africa go back into the eighties, so there’s a lot to unpack in a book like Hip-Hop in Africa. Fortunately, Clark is more than up to the task, and she manages to organize the book in such a way to make things easy to process. Over the course of the book, Clark breaks down some complex issues, such as gender, religion, and language in such a way to give you an idea of how different artists from different parts of the continent interact with hip hop and use it to express themselves and represent their culture to the rest of the world. We also get some insight into how current migration within the continent, from the continent, and back to the continent is reflected through the music and careers of artists like Blitz the Ambassador and K’Naan. What Clark does especially well is creating a dialogue in each chapter, giving you insight into how each factor, such as language is approached differently across different parts of the continent, but then also how they come into dialogue with each other and present different view points to the rest of the world. It’s an incredibly rich and dense text, just packed with information, but also very accessible and easy to understand.

If your knowledge of African hip hop is at the novice to beginner stage, this book is for you. Clark uses Hip-Hop in Africa to present a great introductory course in the subject material. It takes on a lot, but Clark does a commendable job of organizing the material, presenting a little bit at a time, connecting the pieces, and building upon the knowledge already presented. By the time you get done with the book, you’ll be thirsty to learn more about African hip hop.