Much anticipated!!! Finally available online, 4X4‘s latest and greatest! Featuring 3 of the biggest hits of 2011: the title song Waist & Power, Yesi Yesii and more recently Womanizer. The album displays each member’s specific style: Captain Planet raps in four afferent Ghanaian languages, CoDed adds his ragga/dancehall flavor, and Fresh Prince sings his R&B hooks. Powered by beats by Ghana’s finest engineers, in particular Appietus on the 3 hits mentioned above, the album also features production by Kaywa, JQ, BBryte and Playboi.

Buy: Bandcamp | iTunes | Amazon | Beatport

I love the name of this tape! To all of you who know what it’s like to stare at a dry faucet and spin the tap pointlessly, here is some extra fluid pidgin rap to permeate your day – and contrary to the water company, dis one here b free! Pieced together by Ecxtreme the Lyrical Wanzam, a familiar voice in Ghana’s pidgin rap circles, hailing from Tamale via the Ghetto Reps crew. Wanzam literally means castrator, so MCs, you have been warned. As has been the case with more than one dope mixtape lately, the beats on Afropolytank are by none other than Klu Monsta. I discovered this project through Selorm Jay of Fullish Art, who’s name you will surely see popping up in these pages soon, as he is helping us on a few video projects. And last but not least, final touches on this mixtape were put in by a certain Wanlov the Kubolor…

Ecxtreme is fresh out of university as of… tomorrow. So from here on out you can expect further avalanches of beats and rhymes from this talented cat, we will do everything in our power to make it happen!

Coming soon to a digital label you may be familiar with

Double back at it, nice little video courtesy of our man King Luu! This song, as well as a handful of others, will soon be released riiiiight here. Don’t go anywhere.

Originally published in the Fader under Lungu Lungu. Most people don’t know a whole lot about Lusophone music, meaning music from Portuguese-speaking countries. If anything, Brazil usually comes to mind first—in my experience, whenever I play music from places like Angola, the response is usually something like, “Oh, this sounds Brazilian.” It doesn’t, really, but there are definitely musical elements common to many genres coming from Lusophone countries. I assume it’s because the Portuguese colonized early, and were not afraid to mix with local populations. The Portuguese and their cultural influence have been around longer, and have penetrated deeper, than other colonizing powers.

Now fast forward to post-colonial times, and imagine a musician with Angolan, Cape Verdian and Portuguese roots. Raised in Angola, with family in Brazil. I would dare any Lusophone specialist to pinpoint where such music comes from. I like the idea that a specialist or layman might both be puzzled by Aline Frazão‘s music. A real mishmash of influences—and not all of them stemming from Lusophone genres.

“I cannot remember not being in touch with music” says Aline, who grew up in Luanda. She attended a Portuguese school, where she sang fado, and started performing in public from the age of 9. When she was 15, she heard an Ella Fitzgerald collection, and with it, discovered vocal jazz: “I felt like I was discovering a new dimension, the voice as an instrument… Jazz opened up doors in my mind.”

After she completed high school, she moved to Europe to go to university. Lisbon first, then Barcelona, then Madrid. As Aline puts it, her experience in Europe is itself a kind of musical education: she is exposed to other genres, has the opportunity to meet other musicians with different backgrounds, different focuses, and, just as importantly, she can perform for a wide range of publics. She now lives in Santiago de Compostela, a more quiet place where she can enjoy a slower pace and truly focus on her music. Santiago also happens to be at the heart of Galícia, which linguistically and culturally straddles in between Castilian Spanish and Portuguese.

Yet in the back of Aline’s mind, Luanda keeps calling. “Things are always changing in Luanda, the creativity and the public, everything changes fast. You can hear a new kuduro every day, a new artist, a new dance… For any artist, Luanda is an intriguing place, full of contrast, stimulating.” For Aline, Luanda is also home, “unable to be ugly,” a city that fascinates her intellectually and creatively, a place she would like to live in, eventually.

To my surprise, when I asked Aline what music she finds the most exciting at the moment, she started with conscious hip-hop—in particular MC K or Ikonoklasta, who collaborated with her several times for instance when he invited her to perform two years ago at the Teatro Elinga in downtown Luanda. Hip-hop played a crucial role in the city last year, as anti-government demonstrations sprouted in Luanda. This movement has barely been documented outside of Luanda; there’s hardly any mention of it in the Western media. As long as oil flows out relatively peacefully, why bother, right? But Angolans ask more of their leaders. Journalists get beat up or imprisoned regularly, perhaps contributing to the fame of rappers such as MC K or Ikonoklasta, who talk about Angolans’ lives and problems, and are becoming immensely popular. Aline tells me conscious hip-hop shows are always packed in Luanda, “from Sambizanga to Miramar”—the former one of the roughest musseques (shantytowns), the latter of the nicest neighborhoods.

Like many Angolans, Aline also holds Paulo Flores in a special place. Paulo is perhaps the only mainstream artist in Angola to have preserved his independence, hardly ever signing deals with demanding sponsors (most major corporations in Angola are held with an iron grip by people in the governments’ close circles). In other words, if you are an Angolan artist and you speak a bit too freely, you probably won’t get an endorsement, or slated to perform shows, which are always sponsored by these same corporations. So no real career prospects. Paulo has somehow managed to never lose his edge while still occasionally working with sponsors, rising today to the helm of Angolan pop music, without ever sacrificing depth in his music.

Back in Santiago, Aline continues to write and perform, sprinkling in elements from her Angolan roots into a potent, yet very polished sound. Fans of bossa nova—there we go again with the Brazilian resemblance—will love Aline. The song I picked here is irresistible, have a look at the lyrics of the song (in Portuguese, but Google Translate seems to be getting most of it right). I am always utterly impressed by love songs that have not one ounce of cheesiness in them. It’s a thin line, one Aline rides with grace and power, as she does throughout the rest of her fantastic album, Clave Bantu.

DJ Juls is back on the mixtape tip (don’t sleep on the Burst of the FOKN Bois), this time focusing on M.anifest, one of our favorite Ghanaian rappers. Check out the video interview we did together for This Is Africa.

Shot on the fly in Ouagadougou! Grab this track for free – kinda – we just ask for your email, we won’t share it, promise, and you get free goodies before anybody else. Deal? Check here:

Love it when things happen FAST! Don’t let anybody tell you “this is Africa” to justify anything not working or simply not happening. I first discovered Waga 3000 only a few weeks ago, and today we are proud to release their self-titled debut. Meet Art Melody and Joey le Soldat, firm leaders of a new wave of MCs in Burkina Faso, who are not content sticking to bling imagery, but are instead giving a voice to the youth and workers, who are simply tired and pissed: no jobs, rampant corruption, a government which doesn’t embrace the urgency of the situation, day to day life in poverty for most of Burkina’s population.

Art and Joey teamed up with French beatmaker DJ Form of French outfit Tentacule Records, who gives the album a distinct touch: his production is cold and minimal, and despite the urgency in which the album was recorded – 10 tracks in 2 days – the beats are well crafted and compliment the rappers quite well. This collaboration gives Art and Joey an opportunity to have their voices heard beyond Burkina. Support Waga 3000, support Burkina!

Buy:  Bandcamp | iTunes | Amazon

]]> http://www.akwaabamusic.com/news/waga-3000-remain-strong-and-feisty/feed/ 2 http://www.akwaabamusic.com/countries/ghana/ruff-n-smooth-naija-baby-brand-new-video/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=ruff-n-smooth-naija-baby-brand-new-video http://www.akwaabamusic.com/countries/ghana/ruff-n-smooth-naija-baby-brand-new-video/#comments Tue, 03 Apr 2012 18:28:52 +0000 benjamin http://www.akwaabamusic.com/?p=4880

The Swagger boys are back… don’t sleep!!! Nice video by Canada’s Big OJ Films. Grab the track below:

DJ Los Carlos has been doing his share to bring kuduro to the masses not only at home in the Netherlands, but worldwide thanks to his banging productions, including our own Elegom Bounsa and Tatali remixes. He incorporates both into this booming short tape, which we recommend you listen to every morning for the rest of your existence. Big up to Bombdiggy for getting this mix up, check out the rest of their Bombcast series here.