“cr azy white men” 247ship (“You don’t know how hard it is here / The streets is tricky in these
parts here”). This is part of hip-hop’s “keeping it real” discourse, which
also echoes the comment quoted above that contrasts Mzungu Kichaa’s
presumably humble self-portrayal with the rather grand attitude of U.S.
rappers. The debate over EES and Gazza’s video versus K’naan’s T. I. A.
is continued by someone criticizing K’naan for having “lost his African
roots,” before returning to the Namibian song, which a certain Mattman
Key believes “is better than K’naan’s” because it “has a Kwaito sound.” The
reply by MissDark Angel777, who seems to be a black Namibian woman,
is harsh:
K naan is awesome.... He is true and good and I am proud to be a[n]
A frican when he is singing, which is a lot more than I can say for EES....
Nothing about him is real.... And he is probably some afrikaans kid, and
has to change his accent just to sound slightly kwaito.... He is such a wan-
nabe wigger.... I am ashamed to call myself a namibian when I hear this
shit, and I can’t believe he is spreading it to the rest of the world.... EES is
like a disease!!!Calling EES not only a “wigger,” which is a conflation of white and nigger,
usually considered derogatory, but even more so a “wannabe” wigger, is
to deny the Namibian’s musical project of any legitimacy. Moreover, it ex-
presses a sense of perplexity in view of EES’s claim to represent Namibia,
and between the lines is also an allegation of cultural appropriation. I
return to this point later. Mattman Key replies by pointing out: “He’s
not really the first W hite person to do Kwaito,” and referring to Lekgoa,
a “W hite dude from South Africa.”^18 And Sam Miwe, a user who claims
to be from Zambia, suggests, “We have to [be] open-minded that Africa
is white and black.”
IN SEARCH OF EUROPEAN AUDIENCESW hether black or white, making a living from music is not easy in Afri-
can countries where the buying power of the majority is low and ordinary
people are less likely to spend money on music. EES and Mzungu Kichaa
run their own labels, EES Records and Caravan Records, respectively,
using their own websites and iTunes and amazon for distribution and