Wednesday 15 August 2012

Music: The Last Kinection - Next of Kin (2011)

The Last Kinection
Australian Hip Hop, Indigenous


The Last Kinection are a brother and sister duo, Weno and Nay, plus long time friend DJ Jaytee Hazard signed to Elefant Traks. They are all no stranger to the spotlight with Nay having been signed as part of R&B duo Shakaya at the tender age of sixteen - I actually remember these gals, you can see one of their music vids here - and Weno and Jaytee were awarded MusicOz' Best Indigenous Artist in 2005 for their part in group Local Knowledge. All in all, these are some talented and dedicated people!

Now it all makes sense! I've heard Nay rap before and was blown away - there are just not enough female rappers around for my liking - but I did not expect to hear her singing! Of course, at the time I'd completely forgotten she was in Shakaya. She's amazing; she has this brilliant singing voice that you can't help groove along to and then she blasts that out of the water with her straight to the point raps. These guys are on my list of people to see live!

I was about halfway through the album before I  heard the first didgeridoo. I'd been expecting it but I always forget what an awesome instrument it is. There was one song - Prove Them Wrong - that used the didgeridoo in a way I've never heard before; a womp womp bass line! Brilliant! Not only have they used an Aboriginal instrument but there are entire songs in their language; Ywar-Gu. I wish I could translate it, hell, I wish I could speak it! I do not understand why we learn French and Italian in schools and not any of the hundreds of languages indigenous to Australia. How does that work? These languages are dying, it's so sad!

Besides some funtastic features such as Briggs, Rival MC, Lotek, Simone Stacey (Shakaya), Ozi Batla (The Herd) and Omar Musa (Moneykat), there is some great use of instruments. The didgeridoo features heavily, as I've already mentioned, but there are some killer guitar riffs and at the very beginning an awesome harmony from a piano.

This album and group is huge for Indigenous music in Australia. Expect big things!

4 out of 5 didgeridoos....

[Lyics: Millions of People]
So many days have come and gone,
so many things I been doing wrong,
but now I see millions of people are feeling just like me.
So many things I could of said,
so many things I shoulda did
but I didn't, I didn't and now they keep telling me;
that anything you want in your life you can have it,
but they never said how hard it'd be to grab it,
chasing my dreams like an addict all I have left are a few bad habits.

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