Balendra Shah’s path from hip hop to high office marks a new opportunity for Nepal
Pretty much every headline that has heralded Nepal’s new prime minister, Balendra Shah, has referred to him as a “rapper”. This is not inaccurate – he owed his early prominence to his prowess on the mic – but it is a little misleading. More pertinently, if less picturesquely, Shah is also an impressively qualified structural engineer, and has served a stint as mayor of Kathmandu.
The emphasis on Shah’s career in hip hop – Nephop, as the local variant is known – is mostly an attention-seeking device employed by headline writers for global news outlets wearily aware that Nepalese election results do not usually rivet the passing scroller. But there is an implication of frivolous novelty, a suggestion that we should be amused and/or horrified that a mere “rapper” has been chosen to lead a nation.
The transition from rapper to prime minister is not necessarily as incongruous as it might seem. If nothing else, “successful rapper” is a more convincing résumé for a candidate for high office than “serially bankrupt real estate huckster and failed casino proprietor turned game show host”. There is an overlapping skill set between the rapper and the politician. Both need some command of rhetoric. Both need to be able to hold a crowd. Both require expertise in distilling complexity into punchy, memorable phrases.
And Shah is not the first. His most obvious kindred spirit is the Ugandan rapper Bobi Wine, who was elected to parliament in 2017 and ran for president in 2021 and 2026, losing both to interminably serving incumbent Yoweri Museveni, amid plausible claims of dodgy dealing, including repeated arrests of Wine – who has been in hiding since casting his vote in January. Elsewhere in Africa, Tanzanian rapper Professor Jay, prominent practitioner of the local genre known as bongo flava, served a term as MP for Mikumi. Julius Malema, combustible figurehead of South Africa’s Economic Freedom Fighters, is not a recording artist as such, but his rallies regularly feature call-and-response chants: much to the discomfort of his opponents, these are very much not of the wave-your-hands-in-the-air-like-you-just-don’t-care variety.
At least two rappers have sought their homeland’s very highest office. The artist formerly known as Kanye West ran for the presidency of the US in 2020, and received 66,641 votes across the 12 states where he got on the ballot. Wyclef Jean attempted to run for president of Haiti in 2010 but was disqualified for failing to meet residency requirements. That election was won by another musician – Michel Martelly, who, under the name Sweet Micky, had been a huge star of the Haitian dance music known as kompa. In power he proved, regrettably, both a thug and a crook, a gangster politically if not musically.
Rappers who enter politics might reasonably observe that far more politicians have attempted to rap. This usually occurs in mercifully brief bursts when the office holder or office seeker in question is attempting to demonstrate their down-ness with the kids – but at least one has taken it more seriously. Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, former president of Turkmenistan (now Chairman of the People’s Council of that eccentric central Asian nation after handing the job off to his son), has occasionally released videos of his self-composed hip hop stylings, which have been of a quality you can really only get away with in a country where laughing at the head of state is punishable by a stretch on the salt piles. Justin Trudeau, former prime minister of Canada, has appeared in a rap video, though he has the excuse of parental obligation, the artist in question being his son Xavier, who trades as Xav.
It is no more or less absurd for a rapper to be prime minister or president than it is for any other type of performer. As long as people insist that their politics be entertaining, entertainers will prosper in politics. It doesn’t even have to be a bad thing: the greatest national leader of our age also voiced Paddington Bear and won the Ukrainian version of Dancing With The Stars. The test is always how well any given troubadour, jester or harlequin adjusts from the dramatic, simplistic sloganeering of the rebel outsider to the minutiae, nuance and drudgery of government. NWA did not urge “Reform The Police”; Public Enemy did not implore fans to “Legally Seek and Then Judiciously Exercise The Power”.
Andrew Mueller is a contributing editor at Monocle. For more opinion, analysis and insight, subscribe to Monocle today.
