NPR Weekend Edition
From Ghana To Brooklyn: Learning From Hip-Hop
by Frannie Kelley
July 10, 2011
Blitz The Ambassador is a rapper and teacher. He grew up in Africa, moved to Ohio for college and now teaches songwriting at schools in New York City.
He was born Samuel Bazawule, and he turned 10 in 1992. He was living in Accra, the capital of Ghana, and there was only one thing he wanted: tapes of rap music from the U.S.
"It was hip-hop," he says. "You didn't even have to ask. It was almost cultish. We just spent all our time making tapes. So, when people were traveling, they knew not to get anything but hip-hop."
Groups like A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul and the Jungle Brothers were beloved in Accra for talking about Africa in their rhymes — and dressing the part.
"There were these guys wearing Africa medallions and all these dashikis in really cool colors," Bazawule says. "To us it was like, 'Wow, man, they know we exist.' It was just so cool that these cool guys recognized us."
But his all time favorite hip-hop group was Public Enemy. "Public Enemy was the ultimate edge to me," he says. Twenty years later, Chuck D makes an appearance on Blitz's new album Native Sun.
Blitz didn't move to the U.S. just to become a rapper. He came for school. In his family, he says, "like most African families, it's really about education, having those jobs that are pretty standard — the doctor, the lawyer."
Blitz went to Kent State University and graduated with a business degree. But the whole time he was in Ohio, just like in Accra, he was listening to hip-hop, learning from his big three: Rakim, KRS-One and, of course, Chuck D.
"One thing I have to tell people, and it's very important: Rap is something I learned," Blitz says. "I learned every piece of it. I wasn't born here where it's, like, natural, it just seeps into your lifestyle. This is something that was studied."
Now, when he's not recording or touring, Blitz is a substitute teacher who uses hip-hop in the classroom. He says he realized hip-hop could be an educational tool when he was still in school.
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