|
|
 |
CD Review
|
| Click Here to go back. |
Time Out Chicago, CD Review >>
What's most surprising about Senegalese hip-hop group Daara is that, even though it originates half a globe away, it doesn't deviate much from American hip-hop. The cadences of the rhyming that Aladji, Faada Freddy and N'Dango Demploy in their native Wolof, Spanish or occasional English, as well as the 4/4 beats, all bear the mark of American hip-hop (most plainly the Roots and Talib Kweli). In a way, DaaraJ is the product of our country's backhanded foreign relations with the world: America wants to hear your voice -- as long as you're modeling it after ours.
Still, Daara J (which means "school of life") is not rhyming about the state of American hip-hop or how to respect the ladies. Instead, the group's latest album, Boomerang, finds the three members giving us hip-hop they see as "born in Africa, growing up in America, "on the title track, and about the recidivism of crime in Dakar on "Babylone." Because of the strong cultural ties between Dakar (Senegal's capital and Daara J's base) and its former colonizers in the international hothouse of Paris, we also get splashes of reggae and Cuban music thrown in to remind us just how far the African diaspora reaches.
Daara J is not the only musical export Senegal's produced lately: Baaba Maal, Orchestra Baobab, Cheikh Lo and even the Paris-raised MC Solaar have all been part of Africa's daring cross-fertilizations with Western music. Is hip-hop next? After tonight's date with Chicago underground heavyweights All Natural, DaaraJ will tour with Nigeria's Femi Kuli throughout the States. If American MCs start listening to more music from Africa, maybe this boomerang will have more than one round trip.
--Matthew Lurie 07/14/05
|
| Click Here to go back. |
|
 |
|
|
|
