Hennessy unites Africa’s prolific rappers through its 2024 cypher: Watch Young Lunya, Maglera Doe Boy, Didi B, Sarkodie, Ladipoe, and Khaligraph Jones shine brighter
It is always great to be African, but this week is another reason why.
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Yesterday, Hennessy shared its most iconic music-related content piece to date. The world-renowned cognac brand paired with Africa’s hottest rappers for its Africa Cypher 2024 to spotlight the rich continent’s gifted songwriters and performers. Amid the pack were two of our favourites: Ghana’s effortlessly flowing Twi/English speaking champion Sarkodie and South Africa’s sharp-dressed rising Hip-Hop star Maglera Doe Boy. Also present to represent the effervescent and distinct cultures across the continent were Tanzania’s great Kiswahili/English spitter Young Lunya, French-speaking Ivorian talent Didi B, Kenya’s poetic emcee Khaligraph Jones, and Nigeria’s rapping eccentric talent Ladipoe.
The eight-minute performance video starts with views of a train station’s platform, where the gentlemen are under heavy surveillance. Kicking off the six-person star-studded cypher, Young Lunya—wearing a mustard vest and chains delivers bars about yesterday’s price rise and never taking a loss before switching up and increasing the speed of his bizarre bilingual flow. After embracing Young Lyna on the train, Maglera Doe Boy, the Reitz-born South African legend in the making, mentioned the legendary American rapper and actor Tupac, former South African President Nelson Mandela, the government, his mama borrowing sugar from their neighbours, infamous townships in South Africa, and likened his unique style to “homerun raps” in his well-articulated verse spoken in English mostly. We don’t understand as much French as we should, but the Ivorian star rapper and Ivory rap pioneer Didi B passionately covers ideals of world peace and more in French. In his teaching moment verse, Sarkodie details his transformation through fashion, building his career independently for a decade, how people in the music business will rob you, how things have changed and the hoops he had to jump through to get a verse from bro now that there are other people involved due to the label structure. Ladipoe, the mainstay rapper on Nigeria’s celebrated record label Mavin Records, suggest the following cypher gets shot in a church in his verse. The most compelling lyrics addressed how people back home judged Nigerian rappers (it was a thing on Twitter, now known as X) and Afrobeats artists alike and how there is merely a popular dozen out of hundreds of artists spotlighted. He knows his music is good, how people without an invite want to advise him on how to dress/behave in English/Nigerian pidgin, and how he’s proof that any flower could bloom.
Ending the cypher, Khaligraph Jones spends his first minute addressing his competitor’s beat choices and comparing his opponents to Fashion Nova-wearing models (a slick way of calling the men out their names), but what stuck out to me most was when he rapped about the people from his region not getting the shine he believes they should. Some of Khaligraph Jones’ lyrics are a headstrong take or the truth, depending on your perspective. We’ll let you be the judge when it comes to his views on West African music versus East Africa’s grind, how he’s needed if his Lagosian pals want to make the music spread further, and calls out what he sees as “repetitive songs” and “lame ol’ covers” in the Nigerian music space. But it doesn’t end without the Kenyan superstar stating the others are good, but no one is better than him—in an authentic competitive sport kind of way attached to the culture since the genesis.
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