I woke up to a YouTube notification at 5:10am on Saturday. An hour ago, Eminem had posted an eleven-minute beat-less freestyle rap recorded in his childhood neighborhood of Detroit, USA. The anger that has fueled his successful two-decade rapping career couldn’t be missed. Culture is a respected word in the hip-hop world. For instance, you can’t be a rapper unless you can write your own bars (lyrics). On his latest album, Kamikaze, Eminem raps that, ‘I don’t believe in ghosts.’ In hip-hop, rappers who can’t write theirown lyrics use ‘ghost writers.’ Ghost writers are paid to remain faceless because it would be career-threatening to reveal that a rapper doesn’t write their own lyrics. It would mean they are not ‘street-authentic’ and have no life of their own to rap about because rappers, rap from their own life experiences. I know a female journalist in Kampala who had a ghost-writer. The writing was so good that a newspaper in Kigali hired her. But she left her ghost writer in Kampala. She didn’t last long here. Despite Eminem’s rise to fame as a white rapper, rap music is genre rooted in Black African-American neighborhoods. It is a form of protest-poetry and commentaryonaspects in their communities such as poverty, drugs, broken families, crime, police brutality, etc. There is a philosophical explanation to, when you watch music videos by most rappers, and you see them showing-off luxury cars and houses, throwing money in the air, in company of pretty girls; they are celebrating breaking-free from their childhood poverty. They made it! This comes with problems at times. Two things may happen to a person who breaks-free from childhood poverty to become rich and gain some symbols of wealth such as a car, which is a big deal, in the context of most developing countries where such things are status symbols. I remember a social classification in Beijing that was based on cars people drove; the ‘new money rich’ are people who drove black Audis; the black WV Passat was for local government officials while the Mercedes-Benz was a status symbol for ‘the old-money rich.’ A person that breaks free from poverty may become arrogant and resent everyone else in their previous situation and always attempt to prove to everyone that they are no-longer poor just like the others. They tend to mistreat servants and try to claim respect where it is not accorded. But sometimes, the person may become humble and respectful to others, remembering that they were once poor and acknowledge the fact that they could go broke; such people be kind to the less-privileged and will not try to impose their social status on others. Our roads tend to have these types of characters. We have kind drivers. We have arrogant drivers. Maybe we also have ‘ghost drivers’…those driving cars that belong to others. They all behave differently towards other road users, especially pedestrians…there’s no binding culture. Two days ago, I figuratively buried my head in sand like an embarrassed ostrich when a respectable person nearly knocked an elderly male ambler at a zebra-crossing sign somewhere in Remera; the speeding driver was forced to a grinding stop, in time for the ambler to jump. Three weeks ago, I was driving to drop a Police officer friend of mine to their headquarters, when, just after the roundabout in front of the American embassy, I stopped to give-way to a car joining the main road from the taxi-park behind the Education Ministry in Kacyiru. As I did so, a speeding taxi-motorist heading towards the National Library nearly rammed into the car, as it entered the main road; it took the driver’s fast-breaking to avoid hitting the taxi-motorist who sped off, to an unknown future. The police officer remained calm but visibly irked. “You see what we have to deal with on these roads every day? In truth, we kind of gave up on these taxi-motors; they are reckless you would think they carry a spare life just the way they have a spare helmet for the passengers,” the police officer remarked. Last week, as I drove from the Rwanda Revenue offices, three elderly women and a man, attempted to cross the road just as the traffic lights flashed green for the motorists to move; the terrified amblers froze in the road for a few seconds as cars nearly ran over them. The traffic police officer rushed into the road, to stop the onrush and helped the visibly terrified amblers to cross the road, towards the National ID Offices. Clearly, they had no clue how and when to cross the road;moreover, they were walking off the red-zebra strips! During traffic jam moments, it is common-sense for motorists NOT to stop over the zebra-crossings, to allow pedestrians to cross;unfortunately, I see this rule violated every day. But now that the zebra is red, is it safer, to cross the street? Clearly, the answer is no. As the case with hip-hop, we need to build and promote a strong road-culture that respects all road-users. Pedestrians need to be educated on how to cross the street. Taxi-motorists and drivers from different backgrounds need continuous grooming. Till then, it won’t matter whether the zebra is red or white or 3D, crossing will remain dangerous. Email: kenagutamba@gmail.com The views expressed in this article are of the author.
