by RUPERT BOTTENBERG

Hip hop is the first truly global music, with distinct voices from Japan to Mexico to Finland to Palestine. It's exploding in Africa, and nowhere on that continent as much as in Senegal - the capital Dakar alone boasts thousands of rap groups. Few will even break out locally, but a handful have gone global. There's Positive Black Soul, Pee Frois and the trio of Faada Freddy, Ndongo D and Aladji Man, better known as Daara J.

"Senegalese are big travellers," says Aladji Man, "so we'd come back from the States with rap that we'd gone through the trouble of discovering. So it's a rap movement that's more than 20 years old."

Hip hop is only the starting point for Daara J, who incorporate Latin, Jamaican and R&B sounds alongside traditional African motifs. They also rap in English, French, a bit of Spanish and of course Wolof, the primary Senegalese language, which lends itself particularly well to rap.

"The reason is very simply that we have ancestors similar to rap. When rap arrived in Africa, for us, it wasn't something very new. We've got tasso, which is the specialty of the women. We also have kebetu, which is much more based on the rapidity of words, what we call the fast style. And there's bakou, which is closer to the rhythms of reggae and dancehall."

Just as black American funk "came home" to ignite the exciting Afro-beat sound, hip hop's homecoming of sorts may well raise the bar for rappers elsewhere. Not so much technically - Africa's studios are still behind the curve - but in that in Senegal at least, hip hop's base is middle class, not as easily distracted by broads and bling.

Like the griots, the oral historians common to so many African cultures, rappers can record and relay the facts of life around them. Senegalese rap is already a tremendous political force locally, and its gradual global reach can only amplify that. "Rap has permitted the youth of different countries to communicate and exchange the realities of their cultures," observes Aladji Man. "It just like a link-up between computers, where you put in a program and with it you can communicate with other programs."

On the Monde Hip Hop Solo stage (Jeanne-Mance and Ste-Catherine) tonight, Thursday, Aug. 4, 9 p.m., free, and with Loco Locass at Metropolis on Friday, Aug. 5, 9 p.m., $17.50

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