Feb 13/08
More Maurice: MonAster
Benn loxo reader, DR, came through huge with a collection of cassettes that he picked up in Mauritius a few years ago.
The first music we’ll hear from his collection is by another leading Mauritian rap group, MonAster.
Today’s second track, Bikini, is more your standard tropical hiphop outing, while the first, Pour Toi, has them rapping over a sega-esque beat. Nice stuff.
Also, in DR’s own words,
“here’s a slightly surreal YouTube video of them rapping about telecommunications over a ‘zoukous’ soundtrack, with footage of some ladies in very short skirts…”
Amazing. But personally I prefer their Japanese samarai work. Plenty more vidoes over here, too.
DR warned me that some of the tracks are a little heavy on tape hiss since they were dubbed without “Dolby”. Man, if there’s one reason to keep collecting African music it’s gotta be that I get to keep using terms like Dolby A, B and C. Ah, the mixtape memories…
MonAster – Pour Toi
MonAster – Bikini
Love the drumming on the first track. I’d listen to a lot more rap / hip hop if more of it used more organic beats like this.
Short skirts vs. Samurais? Now there’s a choice one hopes never to have to make. Watch both. Love that time-lapse samurai sword effect — that what I like to think I look like when swinging ladles around in the kitchen.
Thanks for the consistently good work, Matt (and thanks to DR!).
I get a “file not found” error when I try to listen to these!
[...] Benn loxo du taccu » Blog Archive » More Maurice: MonAster mauritian hip-hop, incl some raggafied, segafied stuff (”pour toi”) and some synthy reggae (here described as “standard tropical hiphop outing”); bearing witness again to how hip-hop and reggae travel together (tags: africa mauritius global hip-hop videos mp3s blogpost) [...]
[...] can see Blakkayo live with Monaster over at [...]