erasing clouds
 

Fugees United, The Message

reviewed by anna battista

Unfortunately, the music press has quickly pigeonholed unknown music acts who recently sprung to fame from very diverse backgrounds, such as hip-hop bands from the Parisian banlieues, as original acts and exceptional projects with noble aims, but also as bands destined to fade away very soon. There is a Glasgow-based band, though, that might be able to change the perceptions the music press has on such acts.

This sort of “supergroup” is called Fugees United and is the result of a collaboration between three bands, the Black Panthez, Straight Up Soldiers and Damage Squad and a solo artist, Mohsen ‘Mickey’ Saad. The musicians involved in the band are not only young refugees who come from all over the world, but also talented Scottish artists and the result is a multicultural big band who is trying to convey a positive and optimistic message through their music. The album - partly funded by the Scottish Refugee Council, Glasgow Anti-Racist Alliance and Glasgow City Council - opens with the gospel-like intro ‘My Soul Says Yes’, but features a variety of tantalising melodies and rhythms, it is indeed a mixture of hip-hop (‘My Mind’), R&B (‘Sunshine’), soul (‘Be Good To U’) and funky (‘Aint Nobody’). Throughout the album there’s no trace of the macho aesthetics that often characterises hip-hop, as the Fugees United seem to flee the shackles of the genre to favour a form of music free from any constraints and without any limits.

Musically and melodically speaking, the tracks ‘In The Street’ and ‘Remain The Same’ deserve a honourable mention: both are courtesy of Straight Up Soldiers and feature a terrific rap in French and a urban flava that many huge hip-hop acts would kill for. Lyric-wise, the last track on the album, ‘Don’t Give A Damn’ is definitely the best (and the sort of track governments all over the world will blush at…) thanks to its opening lines, “They call me asylum seeker/they call me the giro seeker/Just because they don’t know me/…They fingerprint me, they detain me…”.

For an album recorded in just 12 weeks with very little money, by young musicians and artists who met roughly a year ago, putting together their talents, this is a remarkable result. Glasgow’s musical firmament might have to make space for a new star.

{www.fugeesunited.com}


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