Every other week this fall, Radio AF dives into the world of egos and feminism of hip-hop. “Once upon a Rhyme” is a new show about American hip-hop, with one eye on the unwritten norms and rules of this genre.
Fatima Osman and Edgar Mannheimer, two of the radio hosts and the ones prompting this project, have known each other since fifth grade. The show is, by and large, a product of what they argue about on a Friday evening.
The fact that there are other hip-hop shows on the Radio AF program listings initially may make it difficult to perceive as a relevant show. However, Fatima Osman doesn’t believe that will be an issue.
“Välkommen hem” (Welcome Home) only deals with Swedish hip-hop, so it will be easy to distinguish ourselves from that show. Notion Classics mostly deals with American hip-hop, which we also do – but our show has themes. A show of ours just might be about homophobia as hip-hop, while their shows aren’t as politically orientated.
Aren’t you nervous about how people might react when you shed light on the more controversial aspects of hip-hop? Such as homophobia and feminism?
Fatima doesn’t believe that there is any major risk of that happening:
“If somebody criticizes us by saying that feminism within the hip-hop community is not relevant, or something similar, well in… ,” “…that case we are armed with a considerable amount of arguments supporting its relevance,” Edgar Mannheimer finishes the sentence. “And also, being controversial is all part of the ‘spirit of hip-hop.'” It might be a delicate area, but a damn important one.
”Once upon a Rhyme” also wants to shed light on the women in hip-ho, both by playing the female artists’ music and by shedding light on the women who helped enable the male hip-hop. At the same time, both of them say that they are not intending to perform any allocation of quotas.
“If it’s good, we’ll play it. We don’t have to prove that we’re politically correct,” says Edgar Mannheimer.
You have chosen to do this show in English. Why is that?
“We have no doubt that most of our Swedish listeners will understand. Since we have a multitude of international students, it would have been pleasant if they started gravitating towards their radios. And for the sake of dreaming big, we just might be exported to another country some day,” Fatima Osman laughs.
Text: Philip Stålhandske
Illustration: Julia Hallström
Translation: Maximilian Aleman-Tennell
