Although much studied in anglophone social sciences, and despite the many circulations between rap in France and musicians from Africa (particularly from former French colonies), African rap only became an object of study for French scholars from the 2010s onwards. Faire carrière dans le rap au Burkina Faso, then, is the first francophone publication dedicated to rap in Burkina Faso, and it fills this gap by adopting an anthropological perspective grounded in a detailed ethnographical study of the places, people, networks and imaginative constructs associated with rap music produced in the capital, Ouagadougou, in the 2010s. Cuomo's work is more about rap artists than rap music: she follows rappers through different stages in their careers to chart the production of supposedly ‘authentically African rap’, from recordings in the studios of Ouagadougou and meetings with high-powered Parisian music producers, to walkabouts at the Waga Hip-Hop festival that played a crucial role in the local development of the genre.
Instead of the adhering to the media stereotype of ‘conscious’ rap as the protest music of ‘the poor’ demanding their rights, Cuomo offers an original perspective on the economic, social and political determinants of recognition for Burkinabé rap artists. She argues that artistic achievement goes hand in hand with the desire for material success, as the rappers themselves would be the first to acknowledge, because it guarantees membership of new socio-professional networks and access to the influential local elite. Through the dreams and projects of African rap artists, Cuomo contributes to a rethinking of capitalism, money and success in a postcolonial context, using rap as a prism through which to view power relations at multiple levels. This critical reading of power relations is carried out with great sensitivity and a sense of responsibility, prompting Cuomo to produce long reflective passages questioning her own role within the system she describes, particularly her position as a Frenchwoman considered white by her African interviewees, but racialised in France as the daughter of a pied noir born into an Italian family in Algeria. In other words, Cuomo approaches so-called ‘conscious’ rap from an anthropological perspective that is both ideologically engaged and collaborative.
In contradistinction to the tradition of rap coming from the grassroots or the street, the author demonstrates that, in Burkina Faso, rap is the product of a small minority of relatively well-off young people, and that it involves the participation of French institutions such as the French Institute (a worldwide network of cultural establishments funded by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs) and the radio station Radio France Internationale (RFI), owned by the French state. Both public institutions play a major role in the ‘Africanisation’ of rap. As a result, Cuomo's investigation of the dreams of success of young rappers from Burkina Faso raises questions about the meanings of Africanness in rap music, in light of the complex relations between France and this ex-colony that still suffers from an inferiority complex vis-à-vis the former colonial power.
However, Cuomo does not reduce a supposedly ‘local’ scene to a bilateral interplay between Burkina Faso and France. She shows that the rap scene is also shaped by complicated relations with neighbouring countries such as Ghana, Nigeria and the Ivory Coast, where substantial music industries are emerging. Although musical currents like coupé-décalé and specific self-created artist-entrepreneurs have provided role models for young rappers from Burkina Faso, they also feed into a ‘complex’ (p. 72) dating from the colonial era, when Ouagadougou was considered a ‘large village’ and the inhabitants of Burkina Faso ‘villagers’, compared with the people of neighbouring countries (p. 49). In this sense, Cuomo's work has the merit of demonstrating that the ‘local’ Burkina Faso rap scene, perceived as relatively insignificant in West Africa itself, is an integral part of the wider global context, and that the continual intermixing of local and international crosscurrents produces paradoxical effects. If rappers embody authenticity within global capitalism and market this cultural authenticity as a product that can be localised and exported in a globalised world, they are also perceived as symbols of the modernisation of Burkina Faso within an evolutionist vision of development, which is dependent on the instruments of international cooperation. Indeed, to be ‘modern’ in a local context is to identify as a global citizen, in other words to be urban and cosmopolitan. The most famous rap artists of Burkina Faso know how to express themselves in French and take full advantage of the opportunities offered to them when cooperating with the former colonial power, whether through the infrastructures of cultural activity or international cooperation. Nonetheless, they also wish to defend their so-called ‘traditional’ culture through their choice of dress, language and staging, displaying their desire both to exist and to resist within a globalised world.
This ambivalent aesthetic is known locally as tradi-moderne, a term that encapsulates the contradictions inherent in the omnipresent figure of the conscious rapper who is both rooted in his home ground and capable of constructing modernity and participating in a global world. In this sense, Cuomo's focus on rap music production, rather than on its products (songs), is a worthwhile experiment because it connects the modalities of transnational blackness to its representations at an individual level, while also taking account of postcolonial power relations. Cuomo's insightful analysis thus shows that tradi-moderne rap does not tackle the problem of African identity in a postcolonial context head-on, but instead finds strategies for reimagining this issue in the form of successful careers whose aim is not to eradicate the dominant ideologies, but rather to discover new opportunities within them. Ultimately, Cuomo demonstrates that entertainment, career success and commercial consumption are not incompatible with the collective dynamic of emancipation represented by rap.
The pertinence of Cuomo's analysis became particularly evident in the period immediately after the completion of her research, as briefly outlined in the book's Preamble and Epilogue. For a number of years, Burkina Faso has been affected by the progressive destabilisation of the Sahel region, particularly of neighbouring Mali and Niger. The fall of Blaise Compaoré in 2014 was greeted with unprecedented popular enthusiasm, spurred on by rap artists. Since then, however, the country has suffered multiple terrorist attacks and the military dictatorship has retaken power, adopting a resolutely anti-French and pro-Russian stance. What role can conscious rap, a genre historically dependent on French networks and creative influences, play in these changed circumstances, when the old colonial power has lost its privileged position in Burkina Faso? How are artists reinventing their relationship with globalisation and modernity when movement to and from France has been prohibited, and when the ruling power leans more towards Russia? How do you represent your country and your pride in your homeland in the context of the rapid remilitarisation of the state? Although it does not answer these questions, Cuomo's book provides a remarkable overview of the dynamics of the period immediately preceding the current era, exposing the Western postcolonial cultural model as bankrupt when faced with the assertion of increasingly conflictual African identities.
