http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/inpictures/2011/08/201188114721700943.htmlIn Pictures: Liberian hip-co
In a small room painted bright blue in central Monrovia, a scratched CD of background beats is blasted over an old stereo. Against one wall is a small shelf lined with impeccably clean, multi-coloured sneakers. There is a mattress on the floor and crammed into the rest of the smoke filled space are two men, free-styling about women, corruption and war. Welcome to the heart of Liberia's hip-co scene.
Hip-co is Liberia's version of hip-hop, the "co" is short for colloquial or Liberian English. In a country slowly putting itself back together after over a decade of civil war that ended in 2003, music has been crucial to expressing collective pain and hopes for the future. In the run up to this October's presidential election, the hip-co artists have been singing about unemployment, education and government dismissal of the issues facing everyday people.
The two men in the room, spitting out rhymes at breakneck speed, are Takun-J and Rabbie Nassrallah, or Nasseman, as he goes by on stage. Takun-J, with his silver medallion and cornrows, looks like an imposing cross between Samuel L Jackson and Snoop Dogg. Rabbie is a wild, dreadlock-flinger, who filmed his latest music video in the bombed-out shell of a bank in the heart of Monrovia. Around 100 people now live in the building, carefully washing their clothes and feeding their babies among piles of rubble and mosquito infested puddles. These are the people the hip-co scene is not only trying to represent through music, but also to entertain.
From venting their frustration about government abuse or crooning shyly about their girlfriends, hip-co is fiercely Liberian and its artists are determined to show that more things can emerge from their country than civil war.
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you will want to see the pictures!
wishing them well
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