Bataka Underground: Taking Ugandan rap to the next level

By Philip MatogoThe Bataka underground is the oldest and most accomplished rap group Uganda has ever known.MoMo Mc, Krazie Native, shillingz and Babaluku constitute the group – lyrical feudalists whose line of country extends to banishing the lyrically challenged into hip hop Serfdom. “We started back in the early 1990s with the likes of Zulu Squad, Prim N Proper, Da Mac Pac, D n D slam and Mc Afrik,” MoMo Mc reveals.The group has a jaw-dropping resume starting with their visionary single Atooba. In 1998. The group launched what they call ‘Afro-Funk’, a mish mash of local African dialects with English. They wrecked microphones on a tour of Mwanza and Dar-es-Salaam the following year. Their efforts during this tour pushed so much weight that UK’s Channel 4 featured the Bataka on a documentary promoting ‘Afro-tronics’. they were filmed for three days. They also rapped on the Channel O program On the streets. Their album Foundation was released in Canada last month. A song off that album, Let’s Ride was re-mixed by Mos DE who played the airhead, bungling sidekick wannabe to Bill Cosby in The Cosby Mysteries on TV Africa. The album also packs a slew of Luganda hits like Enoye’nsi and Sesetula which are aired on CBS, Star FM and Green Channel.“We are still in the promotional stage of the album and we will launch it officially when BabaLuku (group member in Canada) comes back. In fact, he’ll be coming down here with Quest Love of The Roots,” says Shillingz.The Bataka underground consider themselves an outlawed quantity because of their apocalyptic and downright gangster lyricism. All that is changing, now the group want to concern themselves less with aggression and sink their fangs into mainstream rap. This zero-to-hero switch was captured when they featured on www. african hip hop. com as well as when MoMo Mc & Krazie Native won Mr Club Silk awards for best rappers. Although going soft they still have a claim to the throne of hip hop in Uganda.