On the quilt of Kaley Bag’s 2020 single “D Sai Wae Ar Komot,” a gaggle of younger kids stand on the hull of a fishing boat. The vessel, carved of deep wooden that after shined like the kids’s faces, is now battered and falling aside, and the ocean it travels is a canal full of trash. The kids, wearing vibrant hues of purple, yellow, and blue, are practically camouflaged by the brightly coloured plastic bottles that cowl the bottom. For Kaley Bag, that is the world he desires to showcase when rapping about Sierra Leone.
Born in Bo Metropolis, Kaley Bag (Tamba Mbayo) is a 29-year-old hip-hop and afrobeat artist. From a younger age, Kaley Bag had a expertise for writing rhymes, however his songs had been usually thrown out by his mother and father who didn’t imagine that music was an appropriate profession. Regardless of obstacles, Kaley Bag continued to rap and compete in cyphers in his hometown. Rising in notoriety, he traveled to Freetown to compete within the African Younger Voices cypher. Kaley Bag went on to win the competitors and continued undefeated for 2 years, rapidly establishing himself as a mainstay within the Sierra Leone hip-hop scene.
“This na D place wae r develop / This na D place wae R born / The ghetto D place wae R know”
Kaley Bag “D Sai Wae Ar Komot” (traces 17-19)
In “D Sai Wae Ar Komot,” Kaley Bag raps about life within the ghettos of Sierra Leone, wrought with widespread poverty and few alternatives. The lyrics element households sleeping twenty to a room, describe the odor of neighborhoods with out sanitation sources, and spotlight the excessive charges of crime dedicated by people determined sufficient to kill for a series, watch, or cellphone. Fed up with these circumstances, Kaley Bag speaks for everybody within the ghetto when he raps, “We fed up, we taya, we’d like a messiah…cash we need, we sick and we taya,” (traces 78-83). Laced with the anger of his supply, listeners can hear the hopelessness of those lyrics which mirror the frustration and despair felt by communities who’ve lived within the margins of society, watching their authorities ignore the problems that plague them.
Within the music’s highly effective third verse, Kaley Bag tells listeners a narrative about his personal expertise of grieving a pal to light up the pervasive presence of loss of life within the ghetto. Kaley Bag raps,
Now he’s gone he was my very own little brother
Dem mami nor get snicker dem papay nor dae play
Early debt don boku dem younger boy nor dae tae
We mosque nor dae full up nor to all man dae pray (traces 36-39)
On this temporary vignette, Kaley Bag reveals how the loss of life of his pal reverberated via his complete neighborhood, plunging many right into a state of grief. On this verse, listeners are left with no sense that the younger man who misplaced his life ever bought justice. As a substitute, prayer on the mosque is the one factor that brings consolation to this neighborhood. In the end, “D Sai Wae Ar Komot” is a strong protest music that sees Kaley Bag utilizing his voice to make clear social points in Sierra Leone.
Take heed to “D Sai Wae Ar Komot” and extra by Kaley Bag on:
YouTube / Spotify / Apple Music / Audiomack
Sustain with Kaley Bag by way of:
