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Turning the tables
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San Francisco Chronicle, Turning the tables >>
You wouldn't know it from reading the hip-hop press, which seems to dwell on the latest beef between rappers like 50 Cent and his erstwhile protege Game, but a cultural movement born some three decades ago on the streets of the Bronx and Brooklyn is now a global force.
In the shantytowns of Haiti's Port-au-Prince, the townships of South Africa's Soweto and the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, hip-hop has taken root, providing the young, poor and dispossessed with a powerful medium to use to air their grievances, celebrate their lives and make their voices heard.
No country has felt the music's impact more deeply than the small but culturally vibrant West African nation of Senegal, and no crew has done more to represent the Dakar scene than Daara J, which consists of the rappers Aladji Man, Faada Freddy and N'Dongo D.
After the release of "Boomerang" on Wrasse Records, its first CD with North American distribution, the group is in the midst of a pioneering U.S. tour, including several dates opening for American rappers Wyclef Jean and Mos Def. Daara J, which means "school of life" in Senegal's primary language, Wolof, makes its Bay Area debut on Wednesday at the Fillmore, opening for Nigerian Afrobeat scion Femi Kuti, and then returns to San Francisco on Aug. 6 to headline at 12 Galaxies on a bill with Lateef the Truth Speaker and DJ Mike Relm.
For Daara J, the tour is both a golden opportunity to introduce U.S. audiences to its rich melodic sound, which draws on old school East Coast rap, reggae, soul, Cuban charanga and various African traditions, and to commune with American rappers who share a global Afrocentric perspective.
"Wyclef Jean is defending the spirit of the diaspora, and Mos Def is calling the people to remember who they are, to go and find their roots, exactly the kind of issues that we develop in our songs," says Faada Freddy, speaking by phone from Paris after the group's Live 8 performance. "Getting in touch with those kind of people will be a really good experience, and I just hope the results will be a connection between the African rappers and the American rappers, to repair the breach of the slavery era."
Mending the breach between wealthy countries and developing nations was the primary goal of Live 8, but for Daara J, forgiving the foreign debt of African states is just a start. Freddy calls upon the industrialized nations to give back to Africa, a continent that yielded untold riches to the former imperial powers.
But that doesn't mean he lets Africans off the hook. "Politically, the Africans should be trying to stop the corruption," he says, "so Africans can rule their own destiny."
Speaking truth to power is what turned Senegal's hip-hop movement into a real political force. Along with other Senegalese rappers, Daara J played an important role in the pivotal 2000 election that wrested control from the long- ruling Socialist Party, which had dominated the country since it gained independence from France four decades ago. In a West African version of Rap the Vote, hip-hop artists implored young citizens to go to the polls, and helped bring opposition leader Abdoulaye Wade to power with a far-flung coalition of parties.
Not that Daara J is in bed with the new regime. Freddy credits the government with investing in infrastructure but worries about its seeming inability to keep talented people in the government. "We're keeping an eye on everything they're doing," he says, "and reminding them that hip-hop music is here to give a slap in the face to any of our leaders who are trying to lead us astray."
Hip-hop started attracting adherents in West Africa in the early 1980s, shortly after it gained a national following in the United States. Freddy cites Grandmaster Flash as his first inspiration. "Everybody in Africa remembers those verses, 'Don't push me 'cause I'm close to the edge,' " he raps, mimicking Flash's smooth delivery. "In my head it was sounding like Wolof, because I didn't have any English at that time."
The group came together in Dakar in 1993, when Freddy and N'Dongo D, who had been performing under the name Lion Klan for several years, met Aladji Man. They adopted the name Daara J just as Dakar's rap scene was exploding with thousands of hip-hop acts. In 1994, Positive Black Soul became the first Senegalese group to gain attention outside the country with a foreign record deal. Two years later, Daara J made its Paris debut, and with producers Mad Professor and Bubbler on hand it rerecorded its first group effort, a 1994 cassette, for the French label Déclic.
Also recorded in France, 2003's "Boomerang" is a much more advanced effort that melds Daara J's expansive West African sensibility with Paris' polyglot scene. The lyrics switch among French, English, Spanish and Wolof, and the group is joined on various tracks by the brilliant Malian singer- songwriter Rokia Traore, Cuban bandleader Sergent Garcia of Paris and French MC Disiz la Peste. Freddy notes that while all three rappers were born in Dakar, their families all come from different parts of the country. In a nation that has endured a long, bloody separatist struggle in the southern coastal province of Casamance, the group's unified stance itself communicates an important message.
More than anything, "Boomerang" speaks to the abiding cultural ties that link the old world with the new. As Freddy sees it, hip-hop traveled from West Africa with the Atlantic slave trade, blossomed in America "and now it's back to us in a new form." 07/24/05
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