- This is America, This is Nigeria: A Bhabhaian response to interactions of black culture(s)
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- This essay offers an innovative engagement with Homi Bhabha’s postcolonial critique, using it to examine cultural dynamics within the Black International. As case studies, it turns to rap, closely comparing the music videos of “This is America” by American rapper Childish Gambino and the remixed “This is Nigeria” by Nigerian rapper Falz. The essay first outlines Bhabha’s theories, mimicry and hybridity, which show how, through imitation, subordinate groups assert agency in situations of cultural power imbalance. It argues that the theories' utility should extend beyond the coloniser-colonised dynamic to cultural dynamics within previously homogenised groups of the subaltern. The second section sets up the Black International as one such group falsely presented as homogenous, explaining that structural power imbalances have allowed black US culture to be privileged as reflective of a universal black experience. Having explained both the continued relevance of mimicry and hybridity, as well as the cultural power hierarchies operating in the Black International, the third section explores the moment of imitation established by the two music videos through the lenses of mimicry and hybridity. The theories underline Falz’s agency. They present “This is Nigeria” as a new and different iteration of culture challenging US dominance and asserting the specific Nigerian experience. In this new context, outside the coloniser-colonised binary, the analysis brings forth new emphases compared to Bhabha's original critique, deemphasising the ambivalence of the powerful group and emphasising of the constant interaction between black US and Nigerian cultures, neither of which are pure or distinct. As the essay concludes, these findings are specific to the moment explored and do not offer a model into which other subaltern interactions should be placed. Ultimately, this essay aims to reanimate postcolonial critique in a way that others might be encouraged to further study unexplored interactions within subaltern communities.
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