Hip Hop Full Circle

Awadi : Patrimoine
taken from the album "Parole D'honneur" put out by Nescafe (2002)

Daara J : Demolisha In Di Yard (exclusive)
taken from the mix cd "Pull Up Inna Di Dance" put out by Crucial Selections (2004)

Holy snap, on Wednesday I saw the sickest hip hop show that I've seen in years. And the cats were AFRICAN. Straight outta Senegal comes Daara J: ragga/hip hop/soul in doses strong enough to make me forget how ill I am right now (I'm hoping it's not pneumonia). I gotta give some credit to the opening act too. Big Brooklyn Red got the whole crowd loose with some unassumingly gorgeous soul tunes. Then people started jumping, flags were waving, sweat was spewing, and Daara J took the stage by storm. These guys have been doing their thing since 1997, but their latest album makes MAJOR moves in a forward direction. They're bridging the modern sound of the diaspora with its West African griot roots- and now they're getting heard worldwide. It's honestly hard for me to buy a hip hop album these days, but don't miss out on Boomerang. It made my annual top ten list for the radio station. I opted not even to give you any of the songs from the new album on the slight chance that having one MP3 might excuse you from picking up the whole package, seriously.

Instead I'm leaving you with a couple tracks that you probably won't be able to get your hands on. Please excuse the less than ideal sound quality- "Patrimoine" is taken from one of the many cassette tapes that I picked up on my travels throughout West Africa, and they've been through a lot. DJ Awadi, for those that don't know, is one half of the legendary Positive Black Soul. Coming together in the late 80's, PBS was the first group to put African hip hop on the map. They even did collabos with KRS-One in the mid 90's. You probably heard a song or two from Salaam back in the day, and then forgot about them. I urge you to backtrack a bit. They also put out the much slept on New York/Paris/Dakar album. You probably can't tell from the .jpg image, but rather than being stamped with a record lable logo, the Parole D'honneur album has a fat Nescafe tag on it- somehow that made perfect sense when I was in Senegal.

In addition to the Awadi track from his solo album, I'm giving you all a taste of Daara J's reggae stylings. "Demolisha" (an exclusive which hasn't been officially released yet) uses the rootsy Night Nurse riddim made popular last year by Tanya Stephens. I like their take on it. The only place to find it right now is on this mix CD. God bless bootleg culture! Last night there was a nice Senegalese hip hop event at NuBlu (2 blocks from where I was DJ-ing) too. Some of the rappers came by Lava Gina after their set and gave me a copy of the new Nomadic Wax album; more and more goodness. This stuff is poppin up, so stay tuned and look sharp.