Many rap artists write lyrics that retell their past, a past so mangled that it seems nearly impossible to pull any hope from the wreckage. The African Underground All-Stars, on the other hand, draw their lyrics from a time that allows for more room for change and improvement: the future.
On Friday, Feb. 8 at 9:00 p.m., Beckham Hall was buzzing. A lone DJ stood onstage amid green lighting, and the sound of mingling students and professors dwindled in the rafters. Around 9:15 p.m., the intensity rose sharply. The rappers and instrumentalists of the All-Stars, hailing from Ghana, Mali and Senegal, stormed the stage. Attendees faced an evening not of mindless head-bopping, but of participation in song.
The performers stirred their audience with prompts.
“Is this what we want?” demanded one rapper.
“Yeah!” responded attendees resoundingly.
The four All-Stars—Baye Moussa, Blitz the Ambassador, Chosan and Self Suffice—shared the stage in individual performances, in sort of round-robin show. One of them even referred to his fellow musicians as relatives.
“This is a family and we just share the mic,” he said.
The switches between performances were refreshing, like a buffet of music. Each rapper expressed his message in his own style, creating a sampling of various music styles in merely hour-and-a-half.
Lyrics and the peace signs that the audience toted transformed Beckham Hall into a sort of rally for a peaceful future.
Halfway through the show, one of the rappers led the audience in chanting “Get Free,” calling for change in a song that depicted the horrors of the ghettos in Africa. The subject of a sincere wish for a better life contrasted pleasantly with the trite tendencies of most rap lyrics.
“It was refreshing to go to a rap concert where curse words did not pervade each line,” said Daniel Mendelsohn ’11.
Reggae influences were particularly prominent in the music.
“At first I thought I was at a Bob Marley concert, but then I remembered that he was dead,” said Stephanie Hucker ’11. “But his vision of peace and unity is definitely reiterated in the words and music of these performers.”
Although the peaceful lyrics of the All-Stars are original, they carry on a strong tradition of activism through rap music, with Wesleyan acting as an ideal venue along the way.
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