David Peterson del Mar explores a creation myth for a nation of black people still searching for personal and collective terra firma.

BY MARK REYNOLDS
8 August 2017

A-F-R-I-C-A
Angola
Soweto
Zimbabwe
Tanzania
Zambia
Mozambique
And Botswana
So let us speak about the motherland

—Stetsasonic, “A.F.R.I.C.A” (1986)

There was a time when black American hip-hop was very much into Africa. At the dawn of what became the Golden Era (roughly 1987-92), rappers began referencing the very existence of Africa in a way black pop hadn’t done in a generation. Stetsasonic’s “A.F.R.I.C.A” wasn’t a particularly compelling musical track, but their name-checking specific African countries was a departure from the lyrical norm. Not long afterward, Chuck D and KRS-ONE started calling attention to African leaders and African innovations. Queen Latifah draped herself in full-on Afrocentric finery on the cover of All Hail the Queen(1989). X-Clan signed off their songs with a salutation to “the red, the black and the green… sissies!”

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Source: You May Be Black or You May Be White But in Africa You’re an American First | PopMatters