BLITZ the AMBASSADOR was born in Ghana, and moved to Brooklyn, New York as a teenager in 1999. As a student at Kent State University in Ohio, where he studied marketing, he went from being a fan of hip hop to a hip hop artist. Since beginning his rap career, Blitz has released two hard-hitting CDs, Soul Rebel (2004) and Double Consciousness (2005). Both CDs enjoyed critical success and placed him at the top end of a short list of rap artists in the U.S. who call Africa home.
Blitz stands out among his fellow artists because of his style and subject matter. With songs like “The Foundation”, “Black Market” and “Uhuru” from Soul Rebel and “Emmit Still”, “Where Ever You Are”, and “Free at Last” from Double Consciousness, he speaks on issues of struggle, racism, imperialism, and commercial exploitation.
Blitz, however, stands out from his Ghanaian counterparts in that his music is Pan African by nature. He incorporates sounds from all over the continent. His song “Uhuru” transforms the Swahili word for “freedom” into a rallying cry for Black liberation. He also speaks to issues of poverty and crime not only in Ghana, but in the rest of Africa and the Diaspora as well. Blitz is also unlike his African American colleagues – without knowing his background, one immediately recognizes his sound as being distinctly African. His subject matter speaks to the diversity of the continent, while his African roots lace the tracks and announce his intention to take hip hop into a new frontier.
Both of Blitz's CDs are worthy of heavy rotation and put him solidly among artists such as Common Dead Prez, and K'Naan. Blitz's upcoming CD Suicide Stereotype is due out on in September. I interviewed the artist in March and talked with him about everything from being an African hip hop artist in America to the state of hip hop in Ghana and Africa.
WHAT HAVE YOUR EXPERIENCE BEEN AS AN AFRIKAN ARTIST IN AMERICA?
BLITZ: It's given me a very unique opportunity to speak from a dual angle where I'm able to talk about struggles that we as people of color face across the world, be it on the continent or here in America.
DID YOU EVER GET ANY BACKLASH IN AMERICA FOR BEING AN AFRICAN EMCEE?
BLITZ: Well there is definitely the sense of a, almost a protectionist hustle as hip hop is. You know, it's like people wanna rep(resent) where they're from...When folks hear you and you don't sound like you're from Brooklyn, they're not trying to hear it, you know, ...so...it was definitely something that wasn't easy to overcome of course, being that I'm representing a foreign idea, not just musically, but intellectually.
ONE OF THE THINGS THAT STANDS OUT ON YOUR MUSIC IS THE POWERFUL LYRICS AND THOSE ORIGINAL BOOMBAP BEATS,SO WHEN YOU WRITE WHAT ARE ISSUES THAT YOU'RE MOST PASSIONATE ABOUT??
BLITZ: I'm definitely trying to rep those without a voice. I find ways to be passionate about some of this information, first of all, and once I have the information the question then becomes how well can I put it out there, so it's not a lecture. I talk about everything from third world strife to corporate greed to having fun to relationships. My body of work is very diverse. I am in no way against the conscious title because I think it's an honor. As much as some people have their own fears about being conscious because being conscious might mean being broke and nobody wants to be broke, but I think that anything is marketable. If they can market this garbage that they do, they can sell some consciousness.
HAVE YOU EVER DONE ANY COLLABOS WITH ANY OTHER AFRICAN ARTIST IN THE PAST OR PRASENT?
BLITZ: Yeah, one of the people we're working with on this project is a brother from the continent called ROCKY DAWUNI. I'm really trying to put a very solid African stamp on a couple of songs and there's some people I really admire and I'm hoping to work with in the future. Someone like MANU DIBANGO or HUGH MASEKELA or YOUSSOU N'DOUR. These are brothers that I admire and grew up listening to and I think that the kind of new Afro-hop that we're doing needs their participation. I'm very cordial with K'NAAN (Somalia) and we'll be planning to do some work later on. So there are numerous collaborations planned, it's just (a matter of) when.
THE OLDER AFRICAN GENERATION OFTEN CRITICIZE HIPHOP THAT ITS NOT AFRICAN MUSIC,WHILE THE AFRO YOUTH EMBRACE HIPHOP GETTING A BACKLASH FOR TRYING TO BE AFRICAN AMERICANS,WHATS YOUR VIEWS ON THAT?
BLITZ: Ultimately I will that say that a lot of people who speak about hip-hop are not Pan Africanists to begin with. They see African Americans and Africans as different people, I don't. They see Africans, Caribbeans, and Afro-Asians as different people, I don't. African Americans are Africans to me, so me doing hip hop is doing African music. We've been segmented enough. And if we have something like hip-hop to bring us all together.
BLITZ THE AMBASSADOR -"BLACK MARKET"
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