/ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT/MUSIC-ANGOLA: Life-Saving Beats

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Katy Salmon

JOHANNESBURG, Oct 2 2001 (IPS) - Big Nelo looks like your typical thugged-out rapper, dressed in designer baggies with several heavy silver chains draped round his neck.

But the founding member of Angola’s first and most successful hip hop band, SSP, has a social conscience rarely found among his American contemporaries.

SSP have teamed up with O2, Angola’s most popular Zouk band, to produce a joint album, Pure Style, to teach young people about AIDS.

“It’s a problem that’s affecting our country and the whole world. Being young, we know young people love to go partying and everything. So, we must do it. But being conscious that it can be dangerous,” says Big Nelo.

“We’re trying to help society get the message and think about the problems we are living with right now. This album might not change two billion minds but maybe some 500,000 minds can be changed towards the message and we start helping,” adds Bigu Ferreira of O2.

Angola’s Ministry of Health is providing financial backing for the project, recognising the young artists’ unrivalled power to reach the youth. “People having them as idols, being their fans, they want to do what they do. They’ll say ‘If they fight AIDS, let us fight AIDS,” says Pure Style’s executive producer Nelson Mangueira.

Music is an extremely effective way to spread the message. “Even having government campaigns to fight AIDS, music is a wider language. People might not have television or newspapers to find out about AIDS. But they can listen to our music even in small towns far away,” says Big Nelo.

Surprisingly, the lyrics of Pure Style do not preach about the horror of dying of AIDS. This is a deliberate strategy to ensure the album’s popularity outlives its novelty as a vehicle for the all-important AIDS message.

“If you talk about dying and AIDS very directly, it scares people. So we talk about love, everything else. But everything about the project is trying to appeal to people to fight AIDS,” says Fereira.

It is encouraging to meet African artists – especially coming from one of the continent’s most war-devastated countries – with such positive ideas and attitudes. They could, like so many other African musicians, choose to base themselves in Europe. But they have decided to stay on in Angola.

“Because it must be us making our country grows, help our country get going. If we abandon our country, they have to start all over again. It’s us that must make the difference,” says Big Nelo.

Big Nelo first got into hip hop while living in Berlin, Germany in the early 1990s. His father was a diplomat based there. SSP – or South Side Posse – was the name of a gang that he and other young Africans formed to protect themselves against racist skinheads. They also dabbled in music.

When he moved back to Angola, he was determined to continue with SSP, and set about finding three new members.

It wasn’t easy getting started. “When I arrived, rap wasn’t much heard in Angola. I brought that culture – Public Enemy, KRS1 — to the country. No one trusted the style. They thought hip hop was for drug people. So no one wanted to sponsor our album,” he recalls.

Their lucky break came in 1992. After a resurgence of fighting in Angola’s decades old civil war, a Portuguese TV station, SSIC, came to Luanda to shoot some stories. They produced a piece on SSP and ran it on one of Portugal’s main news bulletins.

A local record company saw the story, liked SSP and offered to produce an album with them. ‘99% de Amor’ became Angola’s first rap record, and an instant hit.

SSP have gone on to produce two more albums – Odyssey in 1998 and Alfa in May 2000.

Odyssey, including the track ‘Danca Comigo Essa Keta’ was a phenomenal success in Angola, South Africa and other Lusaphone countries, such as Cape Verde, Mozambique and Portugal. Sales of the CD in Mozambique earned them a silver disc.

The third album, Alfa, includes collaborations with well-known Portuguese and African musicians, such as To Cruz, Boss AC, Guto and the ‘African Voices’. Lena D’Agua lent the CD her voice and her great hit ‘Sempre que o Amor me Quiser’. The album is dedicated to the record producer, Ramiro, Lena’s husband, who died during recording.

Not only that, they are also making a conscious effort to help the local music industry develop. Most Angolan artists record under international companies, usually in Portugal.

Despite offers from several of these companies, SSP and O2 decided to produce Pure Love with a new Angolan record company, Ruben Productions.

“This company has just started now. They only have two albums out. Pure Love will be their third,” says Ferreira. “We decided to give the opportunity to an Angolan record company because they can do something for our music and we can help them grow as well. All our previous albums were done under foreign companies so we are trying to bring something back to our country and Africa.”

“Even if marketing, sales, are not that good, we must make an effort to make it grow. We are just trying to make the industry grow in terms of record companies, shows, promoters. We want to give it more strength and weight,” adds Mangueira.

In December, they are planning to have two main shows in Luanda, the capital. Many Angolans living overseas, like students, go home at Christmas.

It’s not the first time SSP and O2 have collaborated. “From the beginning, both bands knew each other. They’ve done about five shows together,” says Mangueira. “When they get on stage together, it’s the bomb, it’s just the bomb. Maybe, it’s an O2 show and they invite SSP to feature on one of the songs. When SSP come on stage, the crowd goes wild.”

They also believe the joint project will encourage other people to work together. “It’s also to show other artists that it’s not all about competition, being different bands. Union also makes us bigger and might help us. If we try to compete every time, we might not get anywhere,” says Big Nelo.

A message that Angola’s politicians would do well to heed.