Well, you better! Especially dedicated to the ones living in France, this post goes to remind the fairly distracted minds that happen to fancy the flare of top quality hiphop that the top of the pops lives there. That's right, Saïan Supa are a musical phenomenon. It's hiphop, that's true, but with an own, exclusive flavour. Great rhymes are accompanied by reggae style, choruses, soul, beatbox, african, arab, world music. It's like a bag of M&M's.
The initially six-piece act is made out of different styles of MC's, who ride the all-perfectly produced beats and rythms that serve as background for this fully loaded melting pot masterpiece. We got Feniksi, full voice smart-pace MC; Vicelow, bass voice and consciousness; Sly, the human beat-box after Rahzel; Sir Samuel, the reggae ambassador to the band, brilliant; Leroy Kesiah, light-speed rhymin'; and Specta, bad-ass gangsta Saint Denis-sur-Seine mafia kind of guy, Wu-Tang style. The last two guys are no longer part of Saïan Supa Crew in 2007.
These six guys make up this whole thing. I can say for myself, I'm not the biggest hiphop fan, but I made a trip to Madrid just to watch their show last year. Saïan is something that stretches out into a different universe of hiphop pace and skill. Starting out in 1999 with the debut album KLR - with hits Angela, La preuve par trois, Raz de Mareé -, and then evolving to a second album (2001) called X-Raisons, equally good - main catchies were X-Raisons, Soldat and A Demi-Nue. 2005 was the year they released their latest album, called Hold Up. Not as good as the old days, in my opinion, but with two very funny singled-out songs Blow and La Patte (featuring some guy from the Black-Eyed Peas).
The first guy to leave the group was Specta, but things did become a little different without the lyrical storm Leroy Kesiah, which was like a landmark for the band's originality. They will be coming to Portugal, finally! After 6 years of having offered the first myself-to-myself gift ever in my life (their first two albums), they will be coming here. Festival Sudoeste is the venue, so I advise you all to show up if you're nearby, believe me, it's worth it.
I'll take this chance to further introduce you to the Saïan Supa Crew world, since they all took up their own personal projects outside the main band. Here's what they've done: ´
1) Leroy: three albums, two good hiphop ones - 1erCoup de Massue and 2éme Coup de Massue-, and a crazy beats compilation called Bollywood Trip. All 2006 releases. Check www.leroy.fr .
2)Explicit Samouraï: Gangsta hiphop with expertise. Leroy teams up with former Saïan Specta to create a really dark-side-of-the-force kind of music. Recommended for experienced french hiphop listeners only. All 2005 prints: La danse du sabre and Jump up Millennium maxis, and the album RAP.
3)OFX: African rooted Vicelow and Feniksi came up with this perfect album called Roots (2004). It's got the soul of an Alabama tobacco-plantation worker and of tribal ceremony from Zambia. Great flow, spirit and positive vaibréachone. Great music.
4)Sir Samuel: Wanna listen to a great reaggae album with a flavour of hiphop here and there? Check this out: Vizé Pli O (meaning "vois plus haut" in Martinican French). This is one of my top french reggae albums of all time, and believe me, I know. I may not know a lot about hiphop, but I ken mi lotta reggae style inna di frenchland and this is one of the very best prints you can ever get. Check www.sirsamuel.net.
5) Sly the Mic Buddah: Has a beat-box skillz album, 100% fait de bouche. The guy is a freakshow, since he beatboxes everything. I don't know his 2005 album Something You've Never Heard Before, but check it out at http://www.myspace.com/themicbuddah .
Go to http://www.wmaker.net/saiansupacrew for more information. But really, if you don't know this legend, go listen to it. One of my very favourites and one of the most admirable projects I know of. On top of it, they throw a killer show.
Really, you listen to these guys and you understand why MTV is all about money - I just came back from a 3-week vacation in New York, home of hiphop, you think I heard anything that even gets close to this? Believe me, I haven't, and all those kids selling their promos on Broadway are all in all 50Cent Puff Daddy wannabes, and most stuff isn't worth shit. Teach'em Paris!
No, I'm not making mony out of this post; but for those who love the music and get carried out talking about it, I just might fit the profile.
Le SaïanSupa agrippe le mic sans jamais se noyer
Rapide comme le vent, emportant les âmes enflammées,
Telle une flamme le cyclone décime la masse d ‘affamés,
Désormais sur la plage, c ‘est le raz d ‘ marée
