Stephen Armstrong
Click here to watch Dragon Tongue Squad

The rapper Kirby Lee is trying to define his flow, his style, what makes his music stand out from hip-hop’s global shout of ghetto ambition. “Lyrically, we ain’t no gangstas,” he explains. “We don’t talk about violence or guns. We don’t look down on women. We have no drugs in our songs, no political stuff.” Welcome to the curiously pleasant world of Chinese hip-hop. In America, hip-hop began as the voice of disenfranchised urban black youth. In China, the government has to clear all album lyrics, and you get – well, compare What up Gangsta by 50 Cent and Welcome to Beijing by Yin Tsang.

First up, 50 Cent: “They say I walk around like got an S on my chest/Naw, that’s a semi-auto, and a vest on my chest/I try not to say nothing, the DA might want to play in court/But I’ll hunt or duck a nigga down like it’s sport/Front on me, I’ll cut ya, gun-butt ya or bump ya.”

Now Beijing: “In Beijing, walk along Chang’an Avenue/In Beijing, there are many exotic beautiful women/In Beijing, you can burn incense at the Lama Temple/In Beijing, study history at the Forbidden City.” It’s enough to make Snoop Dogg weep. China has accomplished what millions of disapproving parents could not: tamed hip-hop music. Chinese rappers deliver lyrics that glorify national pride, celebrate tourist attractions and preach against the dangers of adolescent impulsiveness. One group is so proud of its songs, it has affixed a sticker to its debut album asking fans to share it with their parents.

Of course, hip-hop is very young in China. Most of today’s crews – Dragon Tongue Squad, Kung Foo, Hi-Bomb and MC Bo Webber, from Yin Tsang – have been in the game for only a couple of years. Before that, hip-hop was proscribed, with most kids struggling to get hold of American albums. “Almost all hip-hop records were banned because of the dirty words and sexual imagery,” says Jian Wei, who runs the break-dance crew Underground Gang of Hip Hop. Now the Chinese hip-hop scene is exploding, with more cross-cultural links than any previous Chinese music. This month, for instance, Dragon Tongue Squad – consisting of Crazy Chef, Kirby Lee and the national freestyle battle champion J-Fever (aka Lil Tiger) – play the UK for the first time.

Yet, almost accidentally, Chinese hip-hop is managing its own sneaky act of rebellion. The first attempt to rap in Mandarin was by the Chinese rock star Cui Jian, on a mid1980s album. His problem, and one that still dogs Chinese MCs, is that the language doesn’t lend itself to the hip-hop flow. Mandarin is built from four vowel tones that have to be pronounced correctly. It’s also hard to break up words into syllables, so the sharp, broken rhyming and rhythmical style of rap is difficult for Mandarin-speakers.

Dragon Tongue Squad, and others, are reaching back to once banned dialects to create sharper, crisper lyrics. “Some Shenzhen people can rattle their tongue at high speed, and we think that could give us the Chinese Busta Rhymes,” says Crazy Chef. “Cantoese, with its nine tones, is a lot easier, and there are regional storytelling styles that include rolling vocals. We’re trying out those languages because we think they would be better for hip-hop.”

“Chinese hip-hop is a prism through which you can see the way the country is changing,” says Robyn Read, producer of Hip Hop China Style, to be broadcast on Radio 4 next month. “Although this is a generation that has little interest in political reforms, they’re breaking down the stiff rules on official language and rediscovering aspects of their own culture that were all but banned. It’s going to be interesting to see if it will bring them up against the Communist party in any way.”

Indeed, Kirby Lee admits that his involvement in hip-hop has led to some distinctly rebellious behaviour. “I got my first hip-hop CD from a French journalist,” he recalls. “It was A Tribe Called Quest. I loved the beat, the rhyme rhythm. So I got some old drum machines and would stay up until four in the morning working on beats.” He pauses. “And maybe take some mushrooms and smoke a bit. So my classmates thought I was a druggie.” He burst out laughing. “I guess I was.” Now that sounds like a rapper talking.

Dragon Tongue Squad are at the Royal Opera House, WC2, on February 21-22; Hip Hop China Style is on Radio 4 on March 25

By Siddhartha Mitter
Globe Correspondent / January 30, 2008
NEW YORK - She’s as conversant in the arcana of classic, early-’90s hip-hop as she is in the folk music of her family’s native Punjab, India. Spinning on her turntables today, you might find Bollywood anthems, baile funk from Brazil, or neo-Balkan brass-band grooves from her adopted Brooklyn.

Rekha Malhotra, known to one and all as DJ Rekha, is as globalized, hybrid, diasporic - all those adjectives that attempt to encapsulate the cross-fertilizing spirit of our time - a cultural figure as you could ask to encounter.

Her monthly dance party, "Basement Bhangra," is an institution in the club scene here, having recently entered its 11th year at the downtown nightspot S.O.B.’s and still packing the house with its signature mix of South Asians and their multicultural friends. (She headlines the Middle East Upstairs in Cambridge tonight.)

Now she has a brand-new album, also called "Basement Bhangra," that, for the first time, documents the sound of the scene. It’s an exhilarating mix of club anthems battle-tested on the dance floor at her parties, alongside new tracks that she helped to conceive and produce with collaborators in the United States and the United Kingdom.

At her Brooklyn apartment on a recent evening, Rekha is amid her record crates, assembling materials for a quick weekend swing to Utah, where she’ll open for rapper Rahzel, and then Colorado, where she has a gig with the activist-MC Michael Franti. Earlier this month, she spun in St. Thomas at the opening of a reggae club.

"I love the challenge of these situations," she says, taking a break over a whiskey and soda. "I walk in there with a bag of tricks. I got it all, right? Because my musical tastes are diverse. But I bring them onto my side eventually. I won’t walk out of there, usually, without playing desi music."

Desi (pronounced day-see, it means "from the homeland") is the self-identifying term of young South Asians in the diaspora. As that community has gained visibility, Rekha has done as much as anyone to shape its soundtrack.

At the heart of her sound, of course, is bhangra - a traditional folk music from the agrarian Punjab region that emphasizes repetitive lyrical forms called bolis, to the beat of shoulder-slung drums called dhol.

The first stage in bhangra’s mutation took place in the immigrant communities of the English Midlands, amid the influence of house and other club styles and, perhaps most of all, Caribbean sounds. But with the spread of the diaspora and the rise of instant electronic collaboration, she says, the music is now made all over. One song, for instance, features Gunjan, a singer who flew up from North Carolina to record vocals in New York for a track assembled in Glasgow.

The taste for bhangra comes naturally to Rekha, who grew up in a Punjabi family, first in London and then, from age 5, in and around New York City - though she also points out that at home, Bollywood was more the fare.

"Being Punjabi definitely had some benefits, having some familiarity with the lyrics," she says. "And having ties to England helped a lot, having a cousin there, having that easy connection, in terms of access to music pre-Internet and all that."

Rekha feels bound neither by the "traditional" Punjabi folk sound nor by the strictures of the UK scene, which she finds insular and competitive. As perhaps bhangra’s foremost ambassador in this country, she offers a take on the sound that is more attuned to the American desi experience.

"There’s more hybridity here," she says. "We grew up listening to different kinds of music, whereas even the third-generation kids in the UK, the ones that listen to bhangra, only listen to bhangra."

That outlook helps explain the enduring success of Rekha’s party, says Dave Sharma, a producer who has collaborated with Rekha for several years.

"She’s found that formula that keeps Indian kids coming and they feel it’s an Indian party, and hipsters from downtown and Williamsburg feel welcome," Sharma says. "No other party even comes close to that."

As bhangra, hip-hop, reggae, Bollywood, and other forms of what she calls "international aggressive dance music" lap up against one another in the sets she spins, Rekha worries less about authenticity than about the way it comes together on the dance floor.

"That’s the fun about doing a live DJ set," she says. "You get to build that bridge. And to me the art of DJing is like that, when you are truly eclectic and really can just go anywhere. It’s a question of figuring out the balance and bringing them in."

"Fight the Power," "Don’t Believe the Hype," "It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back" - these were anthems of emancipation, empowerment and education, a lyrical call to arms charged with the poetry of Gil Scott-Heron and the fury of Malcolm X.

Today, however, political hip hop in the United States is as dead as disco. Flip through any of the music channels and a horde of diamond-encrusted children flog you with crass, self-indulgent materialism, vanity-label perfumes and a shopping list of expensive pretty things you will never own.

The articulate activism that once defined the genre has all but disappeared, leaving in its place a grotesque serving of the worst kind of capitalism - a vain, vacuous, self-serving materialism where you either get rich or die trying. Little wonder, then, that one of American hip hop’s most successful sons, Nas, entitled his last album "Hip Hop is Dead."

But, then again, don’t believe the hype. Hip hop as a political medium is far from dead. Throughout Africa and across the Arab world it is thriving. In particular, young musical renegades from Algeria to Gaza have embraced the genre as an exciting new sociopolitical platform. The subculture of Palestinian hip hop is adeptly captured in Jackie Salloum’s critically acclaimed documentary, "Slingshot Hip Hop," which made its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, earlier this month. Salloum’s film profiles a number of home-grown hip-hop groups, including DAM, Palestinian Rapperz (PR), Arapeyat, Abeer, Mahmoud Shalabi and more.

Another group at the forefront of this musical intifada is Beirut’s latest hip-hop sensation, Katibe 5. Refugees straight outta Burj al-Barajneh, these five talented twenty-something MCs are the heirs of Public Enemy and its ilk. As artists who combine Arabic music, political activism, social commentary and, of course, hip hop, they are creating a fresh, dynamic form of political resistance.

Each member of Katibe 5 goes by his chosen nom de guerre. Nadir, or Moscow, is the group’s stern-faced, serious and solemn pragmatist. The affable Amro, aka C-4, boasts a confident, extroverted charisma that is nowhere near as menacing as his plastic-explosives nickname would suggest. Katibe 5’s resident graphic artist is Tarek "The Butcher" Jazzar. Bobo is quick-tongued and articulate, originally from Sierra Leone. And Yousri, known as Molotov - "Or Molo," he quips, "What name do you want? I’ve got plenty" - is the joker of the pack.

These eclectic characters have been recording music together since they were 15-year-old mates in a Burj al-Barajneh school run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). "No, not a school exactly. It was a small prison," Bobo promptly clarifies.

The group recently signed a deal with Lebanon’s Incognito, an upstart record label and independent distributor associated with La CD-Theque, a record shop with branches near Sassine in Achrafieh and the American University of Beirut in Hamra.

"Like the name says, they’re not commercial," says Bobo. "They’re underground." Katibe 5’s first album, "Welcome, My Brother, to the Camps," is due to be released on Incognito in two weeks’ time.

The group’s music encompasses a variety of subjects, including the conditions of refugee life, corrupt humanitarian aid agencies and non-governmental organizations, Iraq, capitalism, Palestine, the 2007 conflict in Nahr al-Bared and relaxing on a Saturday night. Inspired by the older, more political generation of US hip-hop acts, Katibe 5 shares their same idealism.

"We’re the students of Public Enemy," says Bobo. "They succeeded in teaching people and we want to continue this. Our message is sociopolitical. You can’t separate the social from the political."

Chatting on the roof of the building in Burj al-Barajneh where Jazzar lives with his family, the members of Katibe 5 converse about politics, philosophy, literature and economics with the same passion and energy they put into their music.

"Have you read Nietzsche?" asks Moscow. "You like Frantz Fanon?" chimes Bobo. "What about Yukio Mishima?" adds Molo. "You don’t know Mishima? Kenzaburo Oe then? C’mon, man. You must read Mishima, Oe, all the Japanese writers, man. They’re good. They’re like this," Molo explains, holding his thumb and forefinger together to create an exact, precise point. "They give the wall its true image."

These well-read, fast-talking, wisecracking, chain-smoking refugees don’t present themselves as musicians but rather as Marxist revolutionaries - more PFLP than Notorious B.I.G.

"We are part of a revolution," says Moscow, "a musical revolution. It’s happening here and all over the world. We’re the adverb. We come before the verb. We’re preparing people for action," he says, a Che Guevara bracelet slipping out from under his sleeve to punctuate his revolutionary rhetoric.

Katibe 5 sees itself as being on a genuine musical mission to increase awareness, educate people and instigate global action and resistance.

"We want people to wake up and realize their rights and responsibilities. We want people to realize that companies are trying to control their behavior," says C-4.

The audience that Katibe 5 addresses doesn’t only reside in the refugee camps. The group expresses a Trotskyite solidarity for all of the world’s oppressed.

As Moscow explains Katibe 5’s aims, "We have a responsibility not just to reflect this life. We’re not just Palestinian refugees speaking about our problems, or our lives in the camps, because the problems we face are not only a Palestinian problem. All over the world there are people who are oppressed, people who are incarcerated, people who are suffering."

So what or who, in Katibe 5’s view, is the cause of this global suffering? "It’s the system, man," says Bobo

"The system" is a recurring bogeyman in Katibe 5’s music and ideology: a perceived, pervasive superstructure that keeps people ignorant, poor and backward.

"We’re fighting the system," Bobo expounds, "the system that makes people blind, and makes people ignore their rights and responsibilities.

"Look at hip hop," he adds. "The mainstream record companies want to say that hip hop is about cars, b****** and getting money. You should have this, you should have that. You should have a mobile phone because if you don’t have a mobile phone, you’re not a human. [But] hip hop’s not about that."

So what, exactly, is hip hop  about, then?

"Hip hop is a weapon for all oppressed people," says C-4.

"Hip hop is a movement," says Bobo. "It has always existed because hip hop is life. From the beginning there were always people living, people suffering. Hip hop is the art of talking, of expressing yourself. Lyrics are its base. You find it in poetry, essays and here in Arabic culture. It has existed from the beginning. As long as people are oppressed and incarcerated they will have something to say."

Illustrating their point, they start free-styling over the camp’s background beats: children playing, hammers hammering, the call to prayer coming from a nearby mosque and - this being last Sunday afternoon - the sounds of deadly riots in the Dahiyeh.

"Hip hop is based on the street and so it cannot be anything but political," says Bobo, satisfied with the clarification.

Perhaps it’s a reflection of their context, youth or political and musical influences but there is an ominous paranoia undercutting Katibe 5’s worldview, as well as an open acceptance of resistance by any means necessary.

"You know what, man?" C-4 warns. "They know what hip hop does to society and they want to kill it and stop its flow."

"You have to fight for your rights," adds Molo. "Peace means politics, politics means negotiations, negotiations are meant to sustain negotiations and not bring a solution. So I say, f*** negotiations, f*** politics and f*** peace."

Putting aside the philosophical musings and antagonistic worldview for a bit, what really counts is the music and, thankfully, Katibe 5’s debut album is good, good enough to give some merit to Katibe 5’s grand ideas and political pretensions.

The group’s sound - a mix of traditional Arabic melodies, rap, beat-boxing, poetry and sampled news footage - is in many ways unique. It’s a far cry from the majority of loved-up popular Arabic music and perhaps more importantly, it’s enjoyable to listen to. Think Public Enemy with an Arabic twist - loud, satirical, relevant and hard to ignore.

The contrasting voices and styles of the five members complement one another well, and they give the music variety and depth. To be sure, some songs are a little rough around the edges, but that is also part of the appeal. On track after track, Katibe 5’s sincerity, raw energy and youthful vigor carry their music. Furthermore, the group isn’t afraid to experiment. This gives them the potential to get bigger and better, and to receive the attention they deserve.

But ultimately, they couldn’t care less about what other people think. "All that matters is this," insists Molo. "Know your aim in life, do it and then die. There’s nothing else. Everything else is emptiness."

NEWS
21 January 2008
Posted to the web 22 January 2008

By Jude Katende
Kampala
MANY local music pundits have labeled hip-hop a dead genre in Uganda. However, the big turn up of youths at Lugogo indoor stadium last Friday challenged this notion.

In a bid to support the genre, MTN Uganda has started the anual hip-hop and R&B Battle.

Impressed with the turn-up and talent display from some teenagers as young as 12, MTN’s Gasper Mbowa promised to make it bigger next time. Several secondary schools had representatives of their R&B and hip-hop stars. Young and impressive Arthur Wasswa of Kololo Secondary School came top for hip-hop and Sarah Lakerry of Our Lady Gayaza emerged best in R&B. Wasswa rapped like an established artiste and convinced the four judges that he understood the "game" well.

At stake were a recording contract, ipods, airtime and phones. As is usually the case at local hip-hop events, fans and artistes seem to be in a fashion competition of sorts. This one brought out the best, worst, stylish and weirdest of hip-hop fashion. Bling bling, overalls, minis and tracksuits were favourites. Some youths had cornrows and Snoop Dogg-like hairstyles.

Other features included a fashion show and basketball skill displays. Klearkut’s Mith and Navio, Lyrical G, GNL and T’Bro, a Rukiiga language rapper, spiced up the show.

Frenzied fans seeking autographs besieged Navio and Bataka Squad’s Babaluku while DJ Shiru impressed with his music mixing skills.

Pato’s “Keep It Real” mixes the dance party feel of old Luke songs where you imagine booty-shaking at rapid speeds occurring somewhere near a pool in Miami and the rapid flow of Dizzee Rascal. Oddly enough, this dance music disguises a responsible political message for rappers to remember their duty to the people.

“Geble Night in Blue” by Nightmare is a surreal, dark blend of ODB’s warbling and Mobb Deep’s grimly painted ghetto landscapes (Geble means ‘ghetto’ in Wolof). Wonderfully creepy, it couldn’t have been performed by a more aptly named rapper. On Nightmare’s heels is Adama with the mellow, reggae-tinged “Aduna Bi.” The vibe takes you back to sweet R&B summer songs reminiscent of Shanice and the Fresh Prince. Senegal rap veteran Omzo enlists some Zap Mama-esque vocal talent to add an epic feel to the memories unleashed in “Li Guen Pt 2.” The heavenly chants on the track echo the pain of a man who lost three close family members in one year as the voices sneak into the eardrum and grab your attention when you least expect it.

The smooth R&B is more effective than the high energy, pure rap tracks. Perhaps it’s foreign language bias, but it’s harder to connect to the madness behind an M.O.P.-type group in French than it is to grasp the warmth and passion behind the slow groove music. Then, in the case of Fresh Time Pt 2 (Beyondo Outro) by the Zoo Squad, they give a dose of both worlds - raw opening verses blending into a jazzy instrumental. The hodgepodge of styles on that one track is emblematic of the entire album’s scattered sensibilities of Dakar’s impressive underground scene.
- Candace L.

By Tim Kamuzu Banda
Nairobi
The pool of hip-hop artistes in Kenya barely grows. In fact, for a long time, it has always been Abbas, Mwafrika, Kantai and a few other names that have consistently featured.

And this is despite the fact that the genre has one of the largest followings in the world, and boasts of icons and super-rich global stars such as 50 Cent, Jay Z and Snoop Dogg.

The development of the type of music has not been helped by the fact that most talent searches, for instance, Tusker Project Fame tend to concentrate on singers rather than rappers.

Indeed, many hopefuls were left disappointed when the Tusker Project Fame organisers insisted on singers only.

However, this week, pan-Africa entertainment network Channel O has announced an initiative that will turn the tide and give hip-hop hopefuls in Africa the opportunity to shine and advance their careers.

Together with soft-drink makers Sprite, the pay-TV channel, which is available in Kenya through DStv, are introducing the Channel O Sprite Emcee Africa contest to give thousands of hopefuls in the country the rare chance to battle for the life-changing opportunity of making it as the continet’s next stars.

Straightforward affair

According to the organisers, it will be a quick and straightforward affair, as opposed to the long and strenuous processes that characterise most talent searches.

The Channel O Sprite Emcee Africa contest will be held on Saturday January 26, 2008 at the bimonthly British Council-sponsored Wapi Festival.

The festival is already an established forum for budding rappers, poets and other artistes to exchange ideas, network and forge a front for developing their careers. The show will be hosted by Ugandan born South African radio personality and hip-Hop aficionado, Leslie "Lee" Kasumba.

Kasumba has managed to use her passion for hip-hop to help play a major role in the growth of the music type on the continent. But this is her first gig on the channel, and she says that she is more than ready to take up the challenge.

The participants will, however, be familiar with the judges who are some of the top names in the genre in the country.

The judges will include Nazizi who has been actively involved in hip-hop since 1996 and is best known for songs such as Chali wa Nairobi.

She will be assisted by none other than rapper Abbas Kubaff, who is also known as Doobeez and as the hardest working Kenyan hip-hop artiste, with his latest single, Chapaa being a hit. Abbas was part of the group K-South Flava who, alongside Kalamashaka, are considered pioneers of modern hip-hop in Kenya.

The third judge is Mwafrika, currently the programming manager at Ghetto radio. He is the first to host a totally hip-hop show in Kenya on YFM96.

The judges will be looking for originality, flow in lyrics and the message in the compositions, among other things, and language will be no barrier.

"The winner of next Saturday’s Kenyan contest will join other winners from Ghana, Nigeria, Tanzania and South Africa for the grand finale in Johannesburg, South Africa," says Patricia Mbatia, the Channel O public relations officer.

This, she says, will not only be an opportunity to get continental exposure, but besidess, the winner will go home with $10,000 (about Sh630,000) in cash and a recording and video deal.

Channel 0 has made a name for itself by producing pan-African music and lifestyle shows that resonate with the 18-24 age group in the urban areas.

In fact, no channel has taken hip-hop this far and provided a real opportunity to turn dormant talent into continental fame. Nameless is one of the many Kenyan artistes who have benefited from the Channel O video awards.

"The show will provide a continental platform for people with passion, originality and talent," says Yolisa Phahle, the Channel O general manager.

"As always, at the heart and centre of everything we do, our desire is to showcase artistes who are originally African and world-class, and there are many of them."