African hip-hop irrelevant to the majority of “mainstream” hip-hop heads. The unrelenting stream of new music surging from hotspots like New York, Atlanta, and Houston makes it near impossible to pay attention to hip-hop being produced in less fashionable stateside locations, let alone beyond American borders. And to the world music purist, the idea of “African rappers” is more like a pox, another symptom of the blight of American cultural imperialism contaminating the purity of indigenous musical cultures everywhere. Those whose tastes are a bit more globalist, however, are more likely to view it as a natural outgrowth of the ongoing cross-influence between Africa and her descendents in Europe and the Americas.

Aladji Man, Faada Freddy, and N’Dango D – the three emcees who make up Senegalese rap group Daara J – position themselves firmly in the third camp, attributing hip-hop’s phenomenal growth in Africa to Africans recognizing the art of rhyming over beats as a continuation of the ancient griot traditions of rhythmic storytelling and oral journalism.

“In this city we have over 5,000 rap groups,” says Freddy, emailing from the group’s home base of Dakar, the location of one of the most vibrant hip-hop scenes in Africa. “The reason why that number is so great could be that rap [lyrics seem] closer to people, reflecting their everyday lifestyle. ON the other hand, hip-hop sounds so familiar to our ears because of its similarity to our traditional music like tasso, kebetu, and bakku.”

Daara J’s third studio album, Boomerang (Wrasse Records), announces their stance on hip-hop’s cultural roots and evolution. Its very title suggests a return to a point of origin – “Rap was born in Africa and came of age in America,” explains Freddy. “It did a full circle and now it’s home.” Boomerang visits various stations along the journey of African-derived music (jazz, reggae, son, R&B) and features contributions from Paris-based “salsa-muffin” maven Sergent Garcia and Malian new-wave diva Rokia Traore.

As can be expected from a group whose name translates as “school of life”, Daara J place a premium on their lyrics, delivered rapidly while fluidly switching between their native Wolof, French, English, and occasionally Spanish. “Our role as artists is to entertain and educate,” says Freddy, sounding like a motherland disciple of KRS-One. “The Dream of every conscious artist is to play the role of communicator in the society. We talk about all the problems that the people are going through.”

Not that Daara J are mere observers to problems and struggles themselves. Upon the group’s formation in 1993 they had to hustle hard in the midst of scarce resources to produce their early cassette releases, spitting their rhymes over instrumental tracks swiped from American and French hip-hop albums. But Freddy views it all as paying character-building dues that some superstar rappers could stand to learn a lesson from: “Misery gives birth to endurance and wisdom,” he says. “African rappers deal with roots, cuture, and spirituality. The bling-bling realm needs to embrace the sweat of the bamboos and be reminded where they’re from.”

-Uchenna Ikonne