The educated Chocolatez

Ever since its emergence Hip Hop music has been associated with slamming the powers that be and degrading women. But the recently formed Ethiopian Hip Hop band “The Chocolatez” is destined to change all of that. With all its members coming out of a higher learning institutes, some even having their second degrees The Chocolatez are striving to bring positive messages through Hip Hop.
The founding members of the group are four young men and their names are Tizi, Millipede, Link and Mic. Three of the members have had their share of performance ever since six years ago.

“Back in the college days when we were in Alemaya University we were performing together. But when we graduated and started working on different areas we were dispersed in our own ways of life.” Millipede said. The three members who came from the same university are Tizi, Millipede and Link. On the reformation of the group however it was necessary to include Mic, a final year student at the Admass University College.
“Over the past year, we were getting to know each other, writing songs and developing them,” Mic said, who performs and plays piano.

I Tried, Street Cage and Identity are the three songs the group has finished working on so far. And the first one has been played over the FM Addis.
Tiz has done his masters degree in Micro Biology whereas Millipede is studying for his graduate degree in Social Anthropology. “We want the music to be our career but we put school first. And we are sure that we would have music as our career someday. We can do both side by side. But currently we are working on our schooling”, Tiz and Mic said.
Meeting the Jungle Crew and Jo Hip Hop artists The Chocolatez are destined to release their first album by mid next year. And the group has set plans to work with the Mississippi artist Carlos. “Milipede is a social anthropology student and he is doing his research on the southern Ethiopian people music as well. So we are going to blend that up in our song as well”, Tiz said explaining how their songs are going to be rich in variety. “As opposed to the former days Hip Hop is getting its teenage listeners. And we are hopeful that our song will have more acceptances,” he said.

According to these artists the background of most hip hop artists which is the streets is something which would distinguish them from the rest. “We are from a decent family and we are doing this because we love the style of singing. And we want to show that hip hop could also pass on good messages,” Tiz said.
Millipede also shares Tiz’s idea and he highlights that there are few artists that they take as their role models. “We can take a look at some decent artists like Will Smith who do not use swear words in their songs. And that is the kind of song we will promote,” he said.
“In our first song we were trying to find ourselves. But now we are working with more professional singers and performers,” Millipede added.

I tried is a song that states even though life is sometimes hard, one should not give up. And in most of the songs the artists have included Amharic lyrics which highlight the message of the song to audiences that do not understand English. The Chocolatez will finish up their fifth song this month.
“We named our band the Chocolatez because we have chocolate colors and we also want our music to taste like chocolate,” Mik said. “In the future we want to work with African artists and we want to show what Africa is all about to the rest of the world”, they said.
(By Alemayehu Seife Selassie)