Angola
Algeria
Benin
Botswana
Cameroon
Cabo Verde
Congo
Gambia
Ghana
Guinee
Ivory Coast
Kenya
Liberia
Madagascar
Malawi
Mali
Mozambique
Namibia
Nigeria
Rwanda
Senegal
Somalia
South Africa
Swaziland
Tanzania
Togo
Uganda
Zambia
Zimbabwe
African Hip Hop around the continent
This section of Africanhiphop.com contains the web's continent-wide guide to what's happening on the motherland hip hop scenes. Click the links to the left to read all about hip hop crews, their histories, updates and releases.
Especially the Senegal, Tanzania and Ghana sections are exhaustive, but you will find that the other countries listed also have got it going on.
Down this page we gathered some general info on Pan-African happenings such as the yearly Pan African hiphop festival. Also see the crew section - archive page with a review of the 2nd African hiphop festival in Benin (1999), a discussion on African emcees abroad, and more.
Pan-African exchange
Dar es Salaam (Tanzania), March 2001
Clockwise (starting top left): Mr Devious, EJ von Lyrik, X Plastaz, Kalamashaka, Too Tall, Skate the Great.
Inspired by the handful of Pan-African hiphop projects that have taken place over the last years, a number of hip hop crews from South Africa, Tanzania, Holland and Kenya joined forces during a 10-day hiphop awareness event which happened early March 2001 in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
A follow-up to previous projects centered on the role of rap music as a medium (organized by Bush Radio, NIZA and Madunia), the Tanzania event brought together a number of hiphop artists to meet up, discuss and work together on tracks. Local organization was in the hands of the people of Rockers magazine.
South Africa was represented by EJ von Lyrik and Mr Devious, both from Cape Town and involved in the HivHop projects last year.
Emcees from Holland are Too Tall (former radio dj, now with Brainpower) and Skate the Great (ex Dutch Masters, now with mc Extince). Tanzanians representing were X Plastaz, O.C.G. and Hashim. Special guests from Kenya were the infamous trio Kalamashaka.
Participants met in workshops discussing their perceptions of hiphop and the use of their lyrics, and on sunday they performed at FM Club in Kinondoni area. On the 14th of March they met in a conference for hiphop professionals taking place at Kilimanjaro Hotel. There's also been recording sessions at P-Funk's and Urithi studio, output of which will be available soon exclusively at our site. The track will also be made available to radio stations in South Africa, Tanzania and Holland.
Read more about the project at Rockers Online. Soon we'll also have audio/video updates.
(top)
Review of The International Hip Hop Festival
Lille (France), 26-28 October, 2000
In October 2000, the Northern France town of Lille was host to an African cultural festival. To cater for a younger audience, a hiphop festival was organized. France has always been more in touch with the music scene in its former colonies than most other European countries, and unlike the rest of the world the French have been inviting groups over from West Africa since the mid 90's.
The strong line-up on this occasion did not escape our attention. Dj Rab (Ghana) reports from Lille, where he performed as a dj with Reggie Rocstone.
Daara J (photo: Novaplanet)
The line-up in Lille:
26 October 2000 Thursday- @ L'Aèronef, Lille:
SENERAP (Sénégal)
KILL POINT (Guinée)
REGGIE ROCKSTONE (Ghana)
LA FRONDE (France)
JAZZ PHASE (France)
+ graff artists & Breakdancers
27 October 2000 Friday- @ Grand Mix, Tourcoing
DAARA J (Sénégal)
28 October 2000 Saturday- @ L'Aèronef, Lille
POSITIVE BLACK SOUL-pbs (Sénégal)
NIGGA NATION (Côte D'Ivoire)
ZOTTO BOYS (Mali)
MANITOU (France)
DJ ASPHALTE & SEROM (France)
+ graff artists & Breakdancers
All groups were assembled in Lille by Thursday, October 26.
Nigga Nation from La Côte D’Ivoire did not make it to France. Due to the international airport in Abidjan being closed.
Côte D’Ivoire’s elections took place on Sunday, October 23rd. The military leader Robert Guei had eliminated most of his opponents to his presidential bid by court manipulations. Laurent Gbagbo was the only credible challenger. He won, but Guei refused to accept defeat, thus causing the closure of the airport and the borders.
It was nice that the organizers in Lille placed signs around the venue explaining the situation of Nigga Nation. African Politics! Will things ever change?
The other groups were not without problems. Sénérap was missing Kool Kocc 6. He had straightened out his French visa, plus his Air Portugal flight was cancelled. He joined us on October 26. Lesson 1: Get visas and work permits for travel worked out and book flight to arrive a few days before actual event!
Mensa (a new artist from Ghana), featured with Reggie Rockstone. He forgot to get his boarding pass for British Airways in Accra. They did not allow him to join the flight with the Rockstone entourage. He joined us on October 26, a few hours before the show. Lesson 2: Check in properly at the airport. Get the boarding pass or you will be bounced!
Rockstone also had problems with his show tape. Rockstone’s show consisted of a combination of dubs of his songs. (Edited with sound effects in between each); turntables handled by DJ Rab; plus the emcees; Rockstone, Mensa and Lord Lust.
The Sony Minidisc must have been damaged from transport. When someone edits anything on a disc, the TOC (table of contents) must be rewritten. The TOC tells the laser where to look for the info on the disc in an orderly fashion. If it cannot ‘read’ the TOC, then the machine will produce a ‘disc error’ message. The disc becomes useless! Your info, i.e. show tape is inaccessible. We had no backup! We panicked! Luckily for us, this is the twenty first century. I called my engineer and partner; Coalhouse in Accra. He had our specially edited version on the computer hard drive. He converted our forty-five minute show tape into several MP3 files. He sent it to http://www.e247.com - I have an account there. You can receive e-mail with 25 Mbs of info. I merely played the files through the MP3 player, connected an output into another minidisc and voila! I had our show tape. Lesson 3: Always make a backup show tape with Cassette, MD, CD of even better; DAT.
Back to the show
The L’Aeronef is no small venue. This Hip Hop festival was no small thing either. We stayed in fine hotels; we were catered for breakfast, lunch and we were paid per diem. It was all good!
We were allowed 45 minutes for a proper sound check. Kill Point, Reggie Rockstone, Senerap and local French rap group La Fronde performed their sound checks. We worked with the light operator to time the effects of lights with stage entrances and beat drops. I was even pleased to see three large graffiti canvases as backdrop to the stage environment. Later that day; the mostly white university crowd began to trickle in around 9 PM. La Fronde set off the show at 9:30 PM. Then Senerap, then Reggie Rockstone. I was part of the Rockstone entourage so I did not see La Fronde and Jazz Phase but I did catch the last bit of Senerap.
The Senerap collective
Senerap consisted of Xuman, Kool Kocc6 and G-Bass of Pee Froiss; upcoming solo male rap artist named Abass, female rap sensation Aisha from the Senegalese female rap trio called Alif and Senegalese R-n-B star, Kesha. Their show was tight! They were well rehearsed. Each group member was allowed to shine. Even G-Bass showed off his skills on the turntables. They flipped tracks in Wolof, French and English. Abass will the next big solo artist to drop out of Dakar. He has hooked up some studio time in Paris to record part of his solo debut.
Reggie Rockstone rocked the crowd with his danceable beats and Twi-tinged lyrics. He introduced Mensa. Mensa performed a solo track of his debut album called ‘Who you Gonna Call’. Lord Lust got the crowd hooked into listening as he dropped French lyrics on hi solo joints; ‘Histoire De Q’ and ‘Plans to Get Cash’. Rockstone had a string of hits from his 3 released albums. Songs that went well on the crowd were ‘Mensesa’, ‘The Mapouka Dance’; ‘Do The Do’; ‘Keep Your Eyes on the Road’ and ‘Eye Mo De Anaa’. The crowd reacted wildly when Rockstone and his crew ripped up rhymes on top of breakbeats switched back and forth by Rab ‘The International’.
Kill Point brought their Manding, Soso style of rap to Lille. Kill Point consists of emcees Prophet G, Issac ‘O’; two dancers and soundman Soulayeman. They got a nice sound when they incorporate West African instrumentation such as the Kora. They also flipped lyrics in French. As far as I know, they remain the strongest rap to come out of Conakry, Guinée.
At the end of the show around 1 AM; there was a ‘jam en prevision avec l’ensemble des formations’ (emcee freestyle of all groups present). Cats spit lyrics to instrumentals and breaks cut up by Rab.
Much props go out to L’AAFA for the tight organization.
Friday, October 27, 2000
There was no performance at the L’Aeronef but all the West African rap artists took a short tram ride to the next city called Tourcoing to support a very well-known rap group called Daara J. The venue was called the Grand Mix. It was more like a club and the area space was smaller than the L’Aeronef. The audience was a mixed crowd of European and African university students. Yes! Senegal was represented lovely by the youth who live and eat Hip Hop. If you are familiar with Nord Pas-De- Calais; then you know that 18-27 years are in the majority up there. Daara J has been on the Senegalese rap scene about ten years now. Although the 3 members are known for their ragga-tinged Wolof lyrics, they do possess mike skills. Breath control; articulate verses in Wolof and French and crowd involvement showed that these guys were no amateurs. They held the audience in sway for a straight hour. I believe they are based in Paris. More props to them and their new material coming out!
Saturday, October 28, 2000
The last instalment of the International Hip Hop Festival in Lille was blessed by the presence of Positive Black Soul (affectionately called PBS); The Zotto Boys of Bamako, Mali and Manitou of France. The night also featured breakdancing by 15 different dancers from France. The Zotto Boys are very popular in their native country of Mali. The five-man crew dropped their first album ‘Nafiguiya’ in 1997. They recorded it in Dakar. The main emcees are Zotto MC and his cousin Lamso who makes the beats also. The other three members double up on choruses, dance routines and instruments such as the jimbre drum. Their style contains a lot of Jamaican Patois and of course they rap in their language of Bamanan. They have a new album called ‘Kélé Dabla’ that was released this year. Their music sounded more like reggae and ragga than like rap. This seems to be the problem in Africa. Many cats out there are fronting the ragga/dj style, but posses no real skills in their own language or any European language.
Positive Black Soul doing it Xoyma Style
The highlight of the show was PBS. Doug-E-Tee and Awadi have put in work over the past 10 years. They wear the badge of ‘African rappers’ with pride. They are well travelled and professional in every aspect. It was an honour to be associated with them as friends and as professional partners in this game of Rap. They backed themselves with a female singer; a percussionist by the name of Mamany; a wicked kora player plus their Hip Hop/fused with Senegalese dance, hype man. Also, like real rap artists, they incorporated a live djay in their set from Senegal by the name of Saaf.
They laid down all of their previous hits. As one watched the show; it was evident that they mastered the style of rhyming. There is a big difference in production and mike skills from their first and their recent material. The use of the stringed-west African instrument called the kora, gives them a unique and fresh sound. The have been signed to a major label before. The ‘Salaam’ album was released on cassette, vinyl and CD by Mango Black music. This was a subsidiary of Island Music, which was affiliated with Polygram at the time. They are currently signed to East-West which is a baby of the multimedia giant; Warner Brothers. The highlight of the show had to be the live kora and jimbe playing complimenting their tracks. It was also exciting to hear their new joints performed such as ‘Xoyma’.
After they finished their forty-five minute set; djays Asphalte and Serom set it off with with a barrage of rap and r-n-b tracks for the 15 breakdancers to flex their 21st century moves. Who said breakdancing was dead? They need to come to France to witness its existence!
All in all it was good! The extra piece that came out of these concerts was the networking between anglophone and francophone rap artists. This has opened the door for rap artist from east and southern Africa to tour with their francophone counterparts. Communication between the groups was not a problem either. Reggie Rockstone’s entourage was the only Anglophone act. But his camp contained cats that could speak and rap in French. Many of the other groups could speak and rap in English as well such as Pee Froiss, PBS and Daara J.
(c) 2000 - Review by Rab 'the International' (Kassa Records, Ghana) for Africanhiphop.com
The latest Kill Point album resulted from the Pan African Hip Hop festival in Benin. It features rap groups from about 10 different African countries.
-------------------------
Advice from Qbert
Qbert, the acclaimed multiple world champion dj from the States mailed us to say this about the deejays in the Motherland:
"they should follow their dreams and bring out their wildest imaginations because everyone has something different to offer and i as well as everyone in the world wants to hear it!"
> The Skratch Piklz site