The afterlives of 2Pac

Imagery and alienation in Sierra Leone and beyond

Bibliographic Data

ID2172913
AuthorsJeremy Prestholdt
Year2009
Volume21
Issue2
Pages197-218
Publication date2009-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of African Cultural Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1369-6815 • E-ISSN: 1469-9346
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/13696810903259418
OpenAlexW2114211690
LanguageEN
Citations received17
References cited11

The popularity of slain American hip-hop star Tupac Shakur has become a global barometer of youth malaise. Taking a multidisciplinary approach that weaves social history, cultural studies and globalization studies, this paper highlights the convergence of socioeconomic alienation and media proliferation since the early 1990s. I argue that this confluence has given rise to new global heroes such as Tupac, icons that have become components of a planetary symbolic lingua franca that has yet to gain significant analytical attention. I outline the transnational import of Tupac by considering combatants' evocations of him during the Sierra Leone civil war (1991–2002). Militant factions' attraction to Tupac – their use of Tupac T-shirts as fatigues and incorporation of his discourse into their worldviews – offers insight on how young people have sought broader relevance for their particular experiences through the imagery of global popular culture. Tupac references allow for a powerful stereoscopy; they reveal mediated communities of sentiment as well as the psychological traumas of violence and social alienation. The symbolic discourse of Tupac imagery during the Sierra Leone war thus expands the relevance of a civil war to broader patterns of alienation while revealing planetary sentiments in the minutia of Sierra Leone's devastation. Notes Both Carolyn Nordstrom and Tarak Barkawi have demonstrated the importance of seemingly domestic conflicts to the study of globalization (Nordstrom Citation2004; Barkawi Citation2004). Mikal Gilmore described the violence of Tupac's later lyrics as an 'assertion of self-worth' (Gilmore Citation2006, 104). The conflict as a war 'without rules' in the words of the Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) (TRC 3A, ch.4, 15). Lansana Gberie typified the RUF as an amorphous 'mercenary enterprise' (Gberie Citation2006, 153). As Yusuf Bangura put plainly, '[g]uns have an empowering effect on the socially estranged' (Bangura Citation1997, 185). In the TRC's words a 'new human' was born of the initiation process (TRC 3A, ch.4, 120). This phenomenon of victim-turned-perpetrator creates a conundrum of analysis, as Slavoj Zizek has suggested, since it denies the simple dichotomies that we are often more comfortable with: soldier/civilian, victim/perpetrator, good child/bad child (Zizek Citation2000, 60; Mamdani Citation2002). Michael Jackson explores this notion of aggressive violence as born of a defensive psychology in his book, In Sierra Leone (Jackson Citation2004, 38). See, for instance, commanders Boston Flomoh (RUF) and Idrissa Kamara (WSB) (TRC 3A, 3, 93). An RUF base in Northern Province, near Mabang, Tonkolili District was also under the command of a man nicknamed First Blood. Before the war 'Bob Marley Night' was a common theme for dances (Beah 2005, 183). Throughout the war Bob Marley continued to figure prominently in the RUF constellation of icons. In 2000 the RUF in Kono celebrated May 10 as 'Bob Marley Night' (UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Citation2003). The RUF called its practice of chopping off all of a victim's fingers save the thumb 'one love', the term for the thumbs-up gesture before the war (Beah 2005, 21). Reggae-related imagery has more recently been used in the conflict in Congo. For instance, a militia in eastern Congo called itself the Rastas. The feedback loops are constant. Kanye West's 2005 hit, 'Diamonds from Sierra Leone', is a recent example. The video features an introduction in Krio as well as references to children as forced labourers. The films Lord of War (2005) and Blood Diamond (2006) added Sierra Leone to the archive of Hollywood imagery. In 2000 Sommers interviewed refugees in the Gambia who had been in Freetown during Operation No Living Thing. Residents also reported seeing the vehicles of the invaders painted with the words, 'Missing in Action', a reference to the famous Chuck Norris film (Missing in Action 1984). See, for instance, photos taken in Freetown by A. Raffaelle Ciriello Citation(1999) and S. Junger Citation(2000). David Keen suggests that the West Side Boys emerged from a coalition of AFRC/RUF combatants that controlled Okra Hills immediately before the 1999 invasion of Freetown and, in fact, led the invasion (Keen Citation2005, 222). This design was popular in the US and Russia as well (Working Citation1998

Alienation · Appropriation · Archaeology · Epistemology · Ethnology · Globalization · Media studies · Political science · Sierra leone · Sociology · Spanish Civil War · Hispanic-African Historical Relations · Music History and Culture · North African History and Literature · History · Law · Philosophy

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