Unexpected Conversations (Taxi + Hip Hop)

Written by Joni Roberts

Traveler, storyteller, and public health advocate

One of the perks of travel is the random conversations you stumble into. Sometimes it’s small talk about the weather. Sometimes it’s directions to a good restaurant. And sometimes—well, sometimes you end up discussing global Black identity through the lens of hip hop with your Greek taxi driver.

While traveling in Greece I engaged in dialogue with my taxi driver who was very happy to hear of my Jamaican origins. Immediately we began talking about the Marleys (because what else would we talk about?). Then the conversation took a turn.

I asked what the largest immigrant group in the country was. He answered, and we naturally discussed the large population of Africans living in Greece from all over. He mentioned the several neighborhoods in Athens that were Black neighborhoods.

To which he added that he had Black friends but didn’t like Black Greeks—he preferred

Black Americans.

Excuse me, what?

Being the social scientist that I am, I inquired for elaboration. His explanation:

• Black Greeks, he claimed, are “boring” and “have no culture.”

• African Americans, however, have hip hop.

• And he loves hip hop.

  
  

Yes, folks, entire diasporas reduced to a Spotify playlist. Forget history, heritage, or lived experience—the man just wants beats and rhymes.

This is where travel fascinates me: the way people project their ideas of identity and culture. To him, African Americans weren’t simply a nationality—they were a brand. A cultural export stamped with beats, rhymes, and breakdance moves from the ’80s and ’90s.

Meanwhile, his neighbors—actual Black Greeks—were dismissed in favor of an imagined version of “cool” imported from the U.S. That’s globalization for you: Bob Marley and Tupac as international ambassadors of Blackness.

We ended up chatting about hip hop artists of the ’80s and ’90s, a surreal detour in what started as small talk about Jamaica. And while the sociologist in me filed this as a case study in cultural perception, the traveler in me just shook my head at the randomness of it all.

End of notes. Proof that even a taxi ride can turn into field research.