>>PREVIEW
KIA KADIRI
Afrikadey!
August 13 and 14
Prince’s Island Park
One of the fresh voices in the Canadian hip hop scene, Kia Kadiri has news for you. Hip hop music hasn’t sold out. It isn’t merely the rantings of men with small packages and big bank accounts. And it is not the voice of the corporations rather than the people. Hip hop is busy doing what all relevant and powerful people’s music does – changing and evolving to meet the need for expression of people all over the world. And that includes the needs of a girl from Oak Bay, Victoria.
Kadiri is far from the stereotypical picture of an MC. The child of a Nigerian father and Irish mother, she was born in the U.K. and grew up in privileged Oak Bay. She only made her first black friends when she was 18, and until that time (despite her brother’s best efforts) thought she hated rap music.
"Hip hop didn’t have a cultural hook for me at first," Kadiri admits. "My musical background was singing in church choirs, performing in high school.
"I actually was out supporting the band of some friends when I met Noah Becker and Rebecca Shoichet – they became my first black friends and they introduced me to hip hop."
Kadiri studied jazz music after high school and has spent the past several years being enthralled both by hip hop and jazz and the inevitable connections between the two styles of music. In her explorations, she’s been careful about appropriating a hip hop style that’s not her own, though.
"I’m really good at imitating accents. When I sing music that’s got a Jamaican dance hall feel, it would be easy for me to fake a Jamaican accent, but I’m careful not to do it. People can see right through you if you’re not real and all you end up doing is pushing your audience away. The reason artists like Moka Only and Buck 65 are so respected south of the border is because they’re not pretending to be something they’re not.
"Real hip hop is about representing where you’re from. I can’t rap about gang violence and street life. Someone who’s experienced real violence would see through me in a heartbeat. I made myself a promise early on not to rap about things I don’t know about."
What this means is that Kadiri raps in an intoxicatingly erudite fashion, refusing easy and profane lyrics, and speaking of the abstract and educated when it moves her to do so. She mixes eloquent paeans on the creativity of hip hop with political commentary and banging, straight-up jams on her debut album, Feel This. The album ranges skilfully and seamlessly across the territory of dance hall, straight-up rap, jazz, spoken word and ambient without settling into any particular style, and yet maintains an undeniable integrity throughout.
Despite Kadiri’s love of all styles of musical and artistic expression, she’s clear about her perspective.
"I define myself as a hip hop artist. When I tell people what I do, I don’t say I’m a singer or a poet or a dancer, even though those things are there on the album and in the shows. I identify most with hip hop – the music, the culture. I love the clothes. I love the dancing. I love graffiti art, the premises and technique of tagging." |
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