The age of the fusion Rapstafarians Engarigna music

By Alemayehu Seife Selassie

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia - Starting rapping on 1996 in Jamaica where he spent most of his childhood there, Israel moved to England in 2001 and met K and D from the Seriously Hectic group. And his father Nkruma has produced the first video for the group in 2004. The album was a success and the song was played at Channel U (the Channel O of Europe). The second album “History in the Making” which has the collaboration of nine artists from Seriously Hectic was also featured at Mtv base and was a more outstanding performance.

Now in Ethiopia, artist Israel states that Ethiopia is fresh and is very receptive and he wants to do a fused Amharic hip hop. Coming across the Ethiopian rap group the Jungle Crew whom the Jamaican artist is getting to know right now he has stayed in Ethiopia for the past three months. Working with Ethiopian hip hop artists, the artist hopes to make his album more popular by having concerts in the future. “Currently I am also working with a rap group I am forming in Shashemene called Rap-stafarians. “We are Rastafarians doing rap music that is why we called the group Rapstafarians”, Israel explains.

“We believe that Ethiopians are Rastas at heart. We hope they will go to the Selassie’s direction and Ethiopia will be the Rasta capital in the future”, he added
The Jungle Crew, Haile Roots, K-Alyn, David, Blackies, Jeti- the Shashamene army and Bling, are some of the artists Israel is currently working with in Ethiopia.

One of the two songs that this artist has done with the Rapstafarians that is out now is “Run Away from the Land of the Sinking Sand” is played at 98.1 FM. And he explains what he intends to promote by his songs saying, “We don’t believe that rap music is being justified by the type of music that is being played. We don’t want Ethiopians to think that rap is all about those filthy plays from Babylon”, the artist explains referring to the abusive message beefed songs Babylonian type of songs.

“Songs which say shoot them niggers and bi#!*s… Hopefully by the millennium we are going to give Ethiopia hip hop like how it is supposed to be. Because such music is undermining black music and it is our responsibility to introduce the new rap music.”

As Jamaica is known for its reggae music, for this rap artist, having to blend it with the roots was a very important task. And his type of rap is Nyabingi rap “We are planning on having everything. America has the rap, Jamaica has the Nyabingi and Ethiopia has the Amharic. So what we are using English and fuse it with Amharic and make it a slang. “Engaharic”. The artist said. Using the fuse Israel and The Jungle Crew are forming words such as “Goher” fusing the English word “God” in English and its equivalent “Egziabher”. “Like America has its ‘Wat’s up da?’ Ethiopia will have its own slang by the time we are done with it. We have a bit of this and a bit of that and we will have a cocktail rap”, he said.

Israel is having a demo of his album available at stores and he has set promotional CDs for free at New York New York and Bambis. This artist’s songs have been played by DJ Sami and DJ Mike of the 98.1 FM and Johnny raga through Zion Entertainment. And DJ Sami said “I have listened to Israel’s songs and the way they are fused with our song is really great. We have had many requests and his songs and another US DJ, Co-Co Banton’s songs which has also got most encouraging remarks and requests.”
The official release date of Israel’s album is going to be between the beginning and end of September.
Currently the artist said that he is performing at Dembel Restaurant on Fridays. He has also performed at Rico and Loti.

Melaku Zewdie of The Jungle Crew has been working with Israel for two weeks. And he on his part said, the Jungle Crew has been working with the musical diplomacy and has been linking hip hop and Amharic language. “If you see our neighboring countries like Kenya, hip hop has become a beat that everyone listens to. And in this millennium we may need to start accepting other country’s beats with our instruments.”

According to Melkamu working with international artists’ bridge up the link to the international stage and that is not ruining one’s culture. “That is how the Latin music got popular and we should learn to embrace other country’s music if we want our music to get popular on international stages”, said Melkamu recently finishing his multicultural fusion music album. •

July 6, 2007