This episode of The Hip Hop African Podcast features Dokta, a pioneering Senegalese graffiti artist, cultural organizer, and hip-hop activist whose work has been central to the development of African graffiti and street art since the late 1980s. Coming to hip-hop through graffiti, breakdancing, and MCing, Dokta represents an early generation of African hip-hop practitioners who understood the culture as a tool for education, community engagement, and social critique.

“I don’t make art just to make it beautiful. I make art to talk to the people.”

As a founding member of the Doxandem Squad and the creator of FESTIGRAFF, one of Africa’s most significant international graffiti festivals, Dokta has helped position African graffiti within global hip-hop networks while maintaining its grounding in local realities. In this conversation, he explains how graffiti in African contexts functions differently than in Europe or the United States—serving not only as visual culture, but as a form of public pedagogy that speaks directly to everyday social and political conditions.

“Graffiti is respect—respect for the community, and respect given back.”

Dokta discusses mentoring youth, resisting artistic imitation, and the responsibility of hip-hop artists to remain accountable to the communities they represent. His reflections offer valuable insight into African hip-hop as a lived practice, an archive of urban experience, and a form of knowledge production.

In this episode of The Hip Hop African Podcast, Dr. Msia Kibona Clark sits down with South African hip hop pioneer DJ Ready D — legendary turntablist, founding member of Prophets of Da City (POC), cultural educator, community builder, and one of the most important figures in shaping Cape Town’s hip hop identity.

“We were the first generation, so nobody understood this music — they watched their kids transform in front of their eyes.”

Ready D reflects on discovering hip hop during the final years of District Six, just before families were forcibly removed under apartheid. He discusses how hearing Rapper’s Delight for the first time created an unexpected bridge between U.S. hip hop and his own lived experiences, and how the trauma of displacement and the political climate of the 1980s deepened his connection to the culture.

From the rise of Cape Town’s early B-boy crews, to the formation of an African-centered hip hop movement, to his powerful contributions as a DJ, radio host, mentor, and intergenerational collaborator, Ready D offers a rare and deeply personal account of hip hop’s development in South Africa. He also looks forward — reflecting on the evolution of DJing, the challenges of the contemporary scene, and the community-based projects he’s building today.

“If you want to be good, you must be prepared to be a student for life.”

This is a rich conversation about culture, politics, craft, and legacy — from one of hip hop’s most respected global pioneers.

In this episode, we talk with Simon, rapper and co-founder of Y’en a Marre, the Senegalese movement that turned hip hop into a force for political change. Simon reflects on the group’s impact during the 2011 elections, their call for a “New Type of Senegalese,” and his new project Rapping History, which uses hip hop to decolonize education and reclaim African narratives.

“We realized the fight was not only political — it was also about changing mentality.”

Simon discusses his early introduction to hip hop and political awareness through Public Enemy and The Roots, the creation of Y’en a Marre and their role in mobilizing youth during Senegal’s 2011 elections, the idea of the “New Type of Senegalese (NTS)” — reshaping national consciousness. He also discusses government backlash, arrests, and personal risk in political hip hop activism

“Patriotism is not just voting; it’s wearing, eating, and building African.”