On any day dozens of groups, new and old, can be heard rapping about social justice on radio. These hiplife youth, rap about everything from, drugs to Ghana's legendary car-eating potholes.

Rap has become a protest tool for youth angry with life in urban areas. Hiplife culture can best be described as the intersection where social alienation, prophetic imagination, marginalisation and brutally truncated opportunity meets.

It is not all about glamorising negative things as many people say, but the songs address a range of topics which are socially pressing issues. For example, no less a person than the Executioner "Obrafour" has joined the fray to campaign against indiscipline.

Fame has brought rappers some powerful enemies elsewhere such as in the United States. But our hiplife scene has been healthy in spite of occasional sparks among young rappers who engage in a little 'dissing' in their music.

Piracy and other explicit lyrics which our culture frowns upon are some of the challenges facing hiplife but one should not use that to play down on the hiplife revolution. These youth hiplife rappers were gagged so they are exploding to vent their anger. The 'big men' must wake up to the task.

As much as Ghana's hiplife artistes want to highlight political and social corruption, rape, child abuse, streetism and injustice, they make it clear that Ghana's biggest problem is poverty which ought to unite government officials, police, traditional authorities, students, non-governmental organisations and millions of ordinary people alike.

Pro-democracy groups and civil society organisations must sponsor programmes with the Musicians Union of Ghana by using hiplife to create the awareness and campaign against undesirable societal trends such as HIV/AIDS.