Giving Compass' Take:

• Cassper Nyovest is a thoroughly South African artist with undeniable global influences and is using his music to push the civil rights movement in South Africa. Music has the power to convey messages, to drive people to action, help understand each other a little more — music can communicate every emotion possible.

• Can Cassper's movement help influence others to use their celebrity platform for change?

• Read about another celebrity using their influence for the greater good. 

Although black people make up 80% of South Africa’s population, they own just 4% of the country’s private land.

It’s a disparity rooted in apartheid, and the government has long vowed to address it, according to Reuters. But progress has been slow over the past few decades and redistribution targets have been routinely missed.

The election of President Cyril Ramaphosa earlier this year charged the issue with a new urgency, and now it’s been elevated to international prominence, generating both excitement and panic.

Everyone in the country and beyond seems to be weighing in on the matter and, in recent months, the controversy has attracted the input of the biggest hip-hop artist in South Africa: Cassper Nyovest.

In a music video for the song “Ksazobalit,” which means “It’s about to be lit,” Nyovest imagines land being reclaimed by the country’s black population. The video has an irreverent air, with Nyovest capering around in an Afrikaner outfit.

But it has a serious message — access to land is a fundamental civil rights issue.

Read the full article about civil rights Joe McCarthy at Global Citizen.