Kalash
Meet Kalash! Sometimes they sneak up on me. Listening day in and day out to so much different music, from so many different artists and from so many different parts of the world, you kind of have to try REALLY REALLY hard to remember a name. I can’t even really begin to tell you how many songs have basically faded away for me from nameless and faceless artists and I’ll probably never remember or even hear them ever again,. It’s a damn shame, it really is. But sometimes I get lucky and I either pay just enough attention, or the artist in question will go on to do something REALLY special and I’ll get an opportunity to make the connection. Such was the case here as, frankly, in retrospect, I don’t even know how many tunes I’ve heard from Kalash and credited someone else as the maker (despite the fact that I kind of knew who he was) in the past. Well, those days are over as the young fire breathing DJ from out of Madinina now makes his debut, front stage and center with his self-titled debut album for the French Caribbean based Chabine Productions.
Perhaps it was by no coincidence that around the time when the album reaches (officially on March 29th I believe), was around the same time Kalash[nikov] began to separate himself from the typical craziness which comes with Dancehall music from Martinique. Doing so would most certainly help his chances of scoring a truly big deal with his album and it would also put him to the forefront because . . . Oh, all of the wonderful things you’d think about him before you actually knew who the hell he was. The first, of course, being the fact that the young “booming” voiced DJ sounds quite a bit like his Jamaican counterpart, Aidonia. An article of information which apparently hasn’t been too lost on the production/remix community in Martinique either:
However, the biggest revelation for me, personally, that this guy was ‘Kalash’, was the fact that a song that I had stuck on to last year, ‘Bust It Up’ actually featured Kalash alongside the angriest man in the world, Crocadile from out of St. Lucia. The song was FUCKING RIDICULOUS! In every way imaginable, the thing was gorgeous and as of writing this, I honestly just figured out that it was him, maybe a week ago (this despite the fact that he clearly says so several times on the tune, I really need to pay better attention). Have a listen to this madness yourself and . . . You’re welcome:
While I’ll hold off on telling you what I think about the album (until next week), what you can expect from young Kalash is a very fiery delivery when at his best (and not trying to sing) (I digress), to say the least. The popular comparison, obviously, is Aidonia, but when you really think about it, the speed isn’t there (it really isn’t there for anyone, however, if you took Kalash’s tone and combined it with Saïk’s deejaying, you’d get an excellent Creole version of ’Donia) and I’d honestly more so liken him to Bounty Killer upon further reflection. Still, whoever you’d like to draw the comparisons to, it’s VERY clear that Kalash is a talent to look out for and it hasn’t been more evident to date than on the first single for his new album (I THINK), ‘Pran Pié’, which features the ever present Lieutenant and has an excellent video shot at Louis Achille Stadium, in ’Nina. The youth hasn’t been around for a very long time (at least I don’t think he has), and it certainly speaks volumes that he’s already reached the platform for an album - Not only for Kalash himself, but for Reggae from out of Martinique in general.
So, keep an eye and an ear out for Kalash and definitely check out my review for his debut album, Kalash, coming next Friday.
{note: There's also a French Hip-Hop artist named Kalash L'Afro, be sure not to confuse the two}
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