Page 62 - Urban Kapital DECEMBER DIGITAL ISSUE

CONTIINUED... “..young Africans in the diaspora found some obvious influence of African culture
AFROBEATS & THE DIASPORA

Beyoncé more attractive than M’Bilia within the urban music scene and couldn’t
Bel.”
find any. After I moved to Nottingham, my
ideas to blend what I grew up listening to
(Congolese Rumba) with Hip Hop RNB, fell
When a place is depicted as a “dark” con-
tinent rife with tribal wars, petty crime in deaf ears. I was misunderstood. No one
and abject poverty, you wouldn’t claim to wanted to do what I felt was the next step in
hail from there or want to be associated British Urban music: Afro Hip Hop.
with negativity, would you? Fair enough.
So what did a Malian or Senegalese parent I became a DJ to scratch an itch that wouldn’t
teach their kids that a Ghanaian or Nigerian go away: sharing popular music from the
parent didn’t? As far as West Africa is con- motherland with like-minded individuals. I
cerned, there seemed to be a contrasting was lucky enough to have found a platform
mentality between French and British col- through a new local radio station and was
onies. While one promoted integration, the able to champion the sounds of Africa, from
other one encouraged autonomy. Cairo to Johannesburg. It’s around that
time that I heard Skepta’s Sweet Mother
This could explain why African music (2007) and thought to myself, this is only
thrived in Paris in the 80s and 90s while the beginning.
London presented the genre as something
exotic, an acquired taste for a certain class As the cost of travelling to Africa became
of the society. Those records were hard to affordable for most families and advance-
find and seemed to only be played amongst ment in telecommunications reduced the
students or post-hippies. Never among the distance between relatives, young Africans
Caribbean community who had a problem discovered a land that was beautiful and
understanding the language and missed out had much to offer. They saw nothing that
on feeling the beautiful melodies and intri- was shown on TV and their minds were
cate guitar plays. opened. They embraced the culture of their
parents with open arms. They started to
As American Hip Hop became more and learn the language and the culture. They
more popular in the late 90s and exploded brought it back with them. Freshly settled
in the noughties, young Africans in the di- immigrants shared stories that injected a
aspora found Beyoncé more attractive than new dynamism in their heritage.
M’Bilia Bel. African music was always music
their dads and uncles played at parties but For me, current African music conquered
they couldn’t identify with it unless it was the West when 2Face song’s My African
mainstream (Mory Kante’s Yeke Yeke, for queen appeared in a movie soundtrack in
example). To also be hip as a black man, one 2006. His success inspired more Nigerian
would rather be heard playing Reggae than artists to travel back home, build a fan base
Makossa. and come back to conquer Europe.

Lucky Dube could pass from a dude from When D Banj’s Oliver Twist was played
Kingston and he was definitely cooler than during the 2011 New Year’s Eve fireworks
Kanda Bongo Man! display on BBC1, I knew that the genre has
become mainstream. It will take a Ghana-
When I moved to the UK in winter 2000s, ian boy from Mitcham to take it global with
I struggled to relate musically to the fast Antenna and announcing that This Is New
paced sound of Garage or Drum-N-Bass. As Africa. The summer of 2012 saw the true
a Hip Hop fan, the polished sound of Roots explosion of the musical genre powers that
Manuva (especially Run come save me al- be shamelessly and lazily dubbed AFRO
MAGAZINE // 62 electronical to my taste. I started to look for MAGAZINE // 63
bum) was somehow westernized and too BEATS.

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