the different townships where black
people lived, but I had never used
the one to describe the other.
The walls of apartheid were
coming down just as American hip-
hop was blowing up, and hip-hop
made it cool to be from the hood.
Before, living in a township was
something to be ashamed of; it was
the bottom of the bottom. Then we
had movies like Boyz n the Hood
and Menace II Society, and they
made the hood look cool. The
characters in those movies, in the
songs, they owned it. Kids in the
townships started doing the same,
wearing their identity as a badge of