Photo by Erez Avissar
Strolling the streets of Mafateng, Lesotho, in Southern Africa, where I live and work, I heard a thumping hip-house beat, blaring from a nearby storefront. The droning hook was dripping with effrontery—one that my passing Sesotho could grasp: ha ke na nako, ha ke na nako, ha ke na nako ("I don't have time, I don't have time, I don't have time"), referring apparently to all the people vying for the rappers' attention. What struck me was its uncanny likeness to Migos on a Zaytoven beat. The song was mostly rapped in Sesotho (one of Lesotho's two official languages, the other being English, which British colonizers brought with them over a century ago), a language that is largely open-syllabic (in words, single consonants are almost always followed by single vowels). The emcee masterfully deployed his native tongue, facilitating a choppiness that sheathed his monosyllabic, pulsating verse. Wielding Sesotho, it's quite easy to achieve what Western rap audiences refer to as the 'Migos flow'. The beat stuttered, looping a deep bassline underneath a soaring, mellifluous melody. If I closed my eyes, I could've effortlessly pictured myself back in college, very much on one, at a kickback in a smoky West End, Atlanta apartment.
This is not to strip the artists behind this track of originality, or cast Lesotho rap as some little brother of its American sibling. Au contraire. To be sure, Lesotho rap, in all of its indisputably original variants and offshoots (e.g. T'sepe, Mongse, and Mokorotlo) is astonishing in its own right, its roots in Southern African soundscapes that precede the modern nation-state (let alone the institution of trans-Atlantic slavery, which rap didn't cause, and the 'founding' of the Americas some several thousand years later that precipitated "rap" as a genre). The same could be said of African music generally, from which all other world music spawns. The African rap of today is marked by witty lyrics, inventive flows and language, moderno-ancestral melodies, spectral pitch, and unbridled energy.
I asked the young man running the street-side BBQ stand (a food truck, it was not) I had stopped at who the MC on the track was. He didn't know, and wasn't all that interested in investigating. This was understandable: the lack of infrastructure that rankles the country extends from its roads, electrical, water and the web. A general lack of expendable income means that most people don't have computers, or advanced touch-screen smart phones; there is no burgeoning demand for Internet fora, 'salons,' and the like; there is no Reddit culture. Even still, many Basotho (the name of the people of Lesotho), the youth especially, connect via mobile apps like WhatsApp, Facebook, and Twitter, platforms that don't necessitate laptops, Galaxies or iPhones. Cellular towers are located, and radio frequencies are lassoed, in even the remotest areas of the country. Thus, these social media, word-of-mouth, and CDs are the most available means of getting your name out there as an artist. Just like in America, if you miss the name of an artist on the radio, and the people around you don't know, you lob the question to social media to get answers (my network here is nascent, so I was out of luck).
Zooming out, music in the global black diaspora has always been a transcontinental dialogue. Africa's traditional music is the fertile ground in which Black American sonic expression is rooted. In today's hyperconnected world, black musicians the world over hear from one another, and from artists outside the diaspora, who shape their respective sounds.
In the world of rap, Migos' flow arrests attention. With all manner of rapper borrowing a triplet flow Migos gave new life, it's impossible to avoid Migos's musical presence. The similarities between Migos and some of the Lesotho artists I hear on the airwaves here is almost eerie. Interestingly, in an interview with MTV News last year, Quavo said that, according to what he had seen on his Instagram, "researchers" were looking for the origin of the Migos flow "in the bottom of Africa" (where Lesotho is situated geographically). As scholars point to the area nominated now as Lesotho (where dinosaur footprints are still visible) and South Africa, as the birthplace of humanity, this comes as little surprise. All this not to mention Migos' frequent, albeit farcical, references to Medusa and "African" diamonds in tracks like "Versace", "Bando", and "Camera Flash".
Migos' music is not only reminiscent of Africa sonically, but also in its communal tenor as well. Their energy is an invitation; their tracks make listeners feel just as lit as Migos themselves, and the beats they rap on. Their call-and-response vocal play, which can be heard on virtually every track they've released, not only channels African and black American wading and survival music, but serves as the base for their magnetic energy: Offset, Quavo, and Takeoff are each other's, and your, hype men. Their music is participatory: when you rap their lyrics, you feel thorough even if you aren't, and you forget that the songs aren't actually about you in a way that other rappers' occupying egos disallow. Similarly, cuts fading the fairweathers like "Where Were You" and "No Fuckin Wit", personal narratives like "Can't Believe It", and the compassionate "Struggle", resonate with anyone who has come up defying naysayers and societal obstacles along the way.
For all that's said about the flow, it isn't just the the technical polish of Migos' delivery that sets them apart—the doggerels, dactyls, adlibs, playfulness, and even social commentary—even though they have such elements in spades. One of my favorite examples of their technical ability is on their track "R.I.P." when Takeoff spits a bar in a cascading cadence: "I'm thinkin' bout movin' to Canada but I know they gon' still be watchin' me." Here, Takeoff pithily comments on the precarious fugitivity of slinging dope, and the transnational portability of racialized surveillance—all in six metrical feet of flawlessly executed rapid-fire blank verse. Indeed, the allure of Migos goes beyond the mechanical. Rather, it is the composite of these characteristics, plus their unflagging enthusiasm, that captivates listeners. Embodying the '100' emoji, these spitters' youthful zeal is utterly contagious, with the power to put you in That Zone no matter your hitherto state of mind (I would hazard a guess that Migos is a pregame favorite for Marshawn Lynch).
Migos, throughout their oeuvre, toes the lines between self-referential, self-aggrandizing, and self-parodying, comically citing their distaste for school, their enviable relationship with critics and bloggers, and their shoddy, to put it lightly, Spanish. For all their efforts to borrow from Migos, other rappers fail to piece together a simulacrum of Migos' seamless blend of biography and artful deployment of pop-cultural, historical and geographical references. On their most recent tape Rich Nigga Timeline, the track "Cross the Country" showcases these elements to intoxicating effect: in it, Migos reiterates their admiration for Lara Croft, and remind us of the unsuspecting nature of their multiethnic and multinational coterie of plugs. Even elite tastemaker Drake, whose legendary kaleidoscopic-hypebeast rap lends to his seeming ubiquity, cribbed Migos' cadence, and respects Migos lingo.
For all its triumphs, Migos' flaws, which they share with other mainstream male rappers, ring resoundingly. Despite their stylistic innovations, their music is too easily pigeonholed as trap, thematically (though they can be forgiven for rapping about their lived experiences). Moreover, although their bars are mottled with loving references to their mothers, and despite well-intentioned hood odes like "Dennis Rodman", they fail to transcend the untamed misogynoir that pervades the genre. And some commentators, myself excluded, can't help but conclude that Migos' run is ephemeral, and their flame will fizzle out.
As aware Migos are of the blogs, I suspect that they do consider how their doubters weigh in. Nevertheless, they've made it clear: they'd rather be rich than famous. If they can continue to shake off the one-trick pony label by varying up their production, cadences, and content while retaining their whimsical yet unmistakably black African identity on their upcoming debut LP, YRN Tha Album, they'll have accomplished just that. At this point, only time will tell. But one thing is certain: whether we're listening from Maseru or Atlanta, we'll be tracking their trajectory as excitedly as a kid at Christmas (or, if you're about that life, an adult with a stack to blow at KOD).