'Spray It Loud': Hip hop graffiti culture and politics in Dar es Salaam, 2003-2018

Abstract

This essay is a critical examination of the origins and evolution of hip hop-influenced graffiti in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (East Africa). It sets out to explore questions of identity, criminality, visual aesthetics, independent entrepreneurship, social group dynamics, mentorship, and grassroots community organizing. Informed largely by multi-sited ethnographic research conducted between 2003 and 2018, 'Spray It Loud' seeks to show how the embrace and practice of graffiti writing among urban Tanzanians in a hip hop cultural context can shed significant light on processes of transnational identity formation and community building in Africa's neoliberal era. While hip hop has given Tanzanian graffiti writers a sense of purpose and belonging, economic motivations and the lack of competition and rivalry among and between the low number of hip hop graffiti artists and crews have stagnated the movement's growth and expansion in Tanzania's most populated city.