Landmark is level 2 of 4 in the Liberia Hall of Fame: a first that opened a door, or the pre-eminent figure of their generation in this country. See how the levels work.
Why they are here
A hipco artist who turned the genre into a vehicle for accountability — and was beaten by police for a song about police corruption, which made the song a national issue.
Jonathan Koffa, who records as Takun J, is the best-known practitioner of hipco — Liberian hip hop performed in colloquial Liberian English rather than American accents, which is the whole point of the form.
His song Policeman, which accused the Liberian police of shaking down ordinary people for money, got him arrested and beaten by officers in 2010. The assault became a national story, the officers were disciplined, and the song became far bigger than it would otherwise have been. He has kept writing in that register: on rape and impunity in They Lie to Us, on the Ebola epidemic, on corruption and elections.
He has also spent years pulling other artists up behind him, running studio time and mentoring younger musicians, and he is the figure most responsible for hipco being taken seriously as Liberia's own music rather than an imitation of somebody else's.
His song Policeman, which accused the Liberian police of shaking down ordinary people for money, got him arrested and beaten by officers in 2010. The assault became a national story, the officers were disciplined, and the song became far bigger than it would otherwise have been. He has kept writing in that register: on rape and impunity in They Lie to Us, on the Ebola epidemic, on corruption and elections.
He has also spent years pulling other artists up behind him, running studio time and mentoring younger musicians, and he is the figure most responsible for hipco being taken seriously as Liberia's own music rather than an imitation of somebody else's.
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