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Hip Hop in Guinée
Despite Guinee being the cradle of many well or lesser well known percussion rhythms and dances, few people from outside the country list it as a music hot spot on the African map. The relative obscurity in music stretches to hip hop. The only name that has been heard for years all over West Africa is Kill Point. This crew has toured the whole of West Africa and performed on the anniversary parties of the likes of PBS. Recently they represented on Benin's Pan African Hip Hop festival (July 99). Their albums apparently have been distributed all over West Africa. We recently got a couple of tapes from Kill Point and other Guinee groups which show plenty of skills. Local musical elements are incorporated almost naturally.
Bill de Sam
Albums: Chemins d'Exil (1999), Souvenirs (2000)
Solo rapper Bill's album Chemins d'Exil (recorded in Saint Denis, France) has some of the nicest African music sampling that we heard so far. This goes for the track Bembeya Jazz on his 1st album 'Chemins d'Exil' in which the classic group of that same name is sampled. This freestyle doesn't leave Bill on his own as he is joined by Aicha Souaré, Tonyo (N'bana ba CFA) and Mano & Manfila Kanté. A name more familiar is the blind keyboard player Jean-Phylippe Rykiel, a white guy from the group that tours with Youssou n'Dour (Senegal). He's present on 3 tracks.Bill seems most at ease in the tracks that sound not too sweet. There are a few songs that don't fit these requirements, and these are the least interesting on a cassette that's otherwise worth several turns in the deck.
> Bill de Sam at Francemp3.com
Kill Point
Albums: Kill Point (1998), Featuring (1999)
Kill Point was among the first groups in West Africa to be heard across the borders of their country of origin. They have been touring the region and met with several crews including the Senegalese rappers Yat-Fu (listen to the interview) and Sunu Flavor who had a studio that the group could use to record their album 'Kill point' which supposedly was a double album, meaning that you could buy two cassettes. In 1999 they were present at the Pan African Hip Hop festival in Benin, and on this occasion they recorded with people like Reggie Rockstone (Ghana), Sakpata Boys (Benin), Pupa Dus (Sierra Leone), Black Syndicat (Togo), Doumba Culture (Burkina Faso) and others.
The resulting album called 'Kill Point Featuring' thus became the first truly Pan-African record. Too bad its sound quality is poor at times and we hardly noticed that it was Rockstone rapping in one track. Still, to get that many rappers from different countries on one album is a major achievement that we should remember them for.
Gandal Folly
Members: Kaba, Dondon, Dieng Albums: Gandal (1999)
The Gandal Folly are of the ragga-rap-r&b specimen that is so common in Francophone West Africa. They have their own style and lyrics, and uncommon instruments in hip hop such as kora (the famous African string instrument) and percussion or 'tam-tam' as the album cover calls it. Interestingly the group has a representative in the Czech republic in Eastern Europe! Wonder if the Czechs are so much into Guinean rap?
Listen for yourself as Gandal Folly was featured in our 1999 African hip hop favorites in Realaudio.
Kill Point.