Afrikanboy

A guest appearance on "Hussel" from M.I.A.'s forthcoming Kala will no doubt boost the profile for this Nigerian MC/producer who now lives in London. However, his MySpace page reveals he's hard at work pushing his own music that centres around the city's garage and grime sound with some added inspiration from back home. (It also points out that he's currently writing exams and owes his passion for music to the GCSE course he took at school. Even more admiration goes out to his rejection of street gangs.) He's admittedly influenced by So Soild Crew, Dizzee Rascal, Kano, Lethal Bizzle - y'know, everyone you'd expect - and it definitely shows. The production is fairly rudimentary (humble beginnings, no doubt) but not without showing potential. As a lyricist Afrikanboy's honest simplicity makes for some great storytelling: he talks about sneaking into England without a passport and, out of desperation, stealing from supermarket chains like Lidl and ASDA (aka, the British Wal-Mart) only to get caught and banned from the chains. (A touching tribute to a late friend on MySpace called "So Blue 3Style" shows he's not some prankster and can yank with might on the heartstrings.) It's not the best way to get your product into these heavyweight music retailers, so let's hope Tesco, Sainsbury and Woolworths are too square to notice this track when this burgeoning young talent releases what is sure to be a debut worth talking about.