If one definition of globalization is when 'social and cultural influences gradually become similar in all parts of the world', then one of its pitfalls is when this "similar" end result looks or sounds very much like a carbon copy of the most dominant culture. In other words, when the dominant culture becomes the template to which all other cultures must fit in order to merit attention.
When hip-hop first took root in Africa it looked this was in danger of happening; African hip-hop artists tried to sound like American hip-hop artists. But it just didn't sound right. It was novel and interesting for local music fans to hear local artists "doing" hip-hop, but templates are the enemy of art, and it wasn't until the artists started dropping the "act" and allowing themselves to be influenced as much by their surroundings, real experiences, culture and language as by what was coming out of America that anyone could confidently say hip-hop had found a home in Africa, too.
After all, if everyone in the world tries to fit a template, then there's no point in bothering with the copies. It goes for music, fashion, cuisine, film, anything cultural you can think of. It's the way things are adapted and transformed, sometimes beyond recognition, that keeps things interesting, and artists relevant.
It's for this reason, too, that you know the result of an album-length collaboration between Berlin bands and Nairobi hip-hop artists will sound quite different from one between the same Berlin bands and American hip-hop artists. And it's not simply a matter of different artists having different sounds anyway. You will, and should, hear something distinct to the cultures.
Between 2009 and 2011, some of Nairobi's most distinctive hip-hop and electro-pop artists shared a townhouse with three acclaimed outfits from Berlin's electronic music scene - breakbeat duo Modeselektor, electronic producers Gebrüder Teichmann and dubstep-grime-electronica trio Jahcoozi - and worked in what sounds like a spirit not just of collaboration but also of experimentation and equality.
We wrote about the 18-track album BLNRB - Welcome to the Madhouse when it first came out a couple of months ago, and now we're starting to see the first videos.
The very first is for Msoto Millions, an electro-dub track whose gloominess reflects the subject matter: global poverty and hardship. It features the vocals of Ukoo Flani's Alai K over a reverberating beat from Jahcoozi, and was shot (by Kenyan production house DYMK Films) in Ukoo Flani's hood in Mombassa.
One of the many notable aspects of these tracks — and you notice it throughout the album — is that the sound and style of the Kenyan artists and bands is just as strong and recognisable as that of their German colleagues. Listen to something by Just A Band, Jahcoozi, or produced by Gebrüder Teichmann (the Teichmann brothers), for instance, and then listen to/watch the atmospheric Away (video, incidentally, was directed by the multi-talented Just A Band).
This is our idea of globalisation, certainly when it comes to the arts; give equal weight to things rooted in different places when you bring them together and let the chips fall where they may. In this case, where they fell is an album that would go down as well with fans of the Kenyan artists involved as with fans of European electronic/dubstep and trip hop (Massive Attack, Tricky, etc.). And if you dig the more experimental rappers like Roots Manuva and South Africa's Ben Sharpa, you will most definitely find a lot to like in this album.
More video from BLNRB should surface in the coming weeks.
BLNRB Welcome to the Madhouse is out on Out | Here Records
