AF THE KING
Torture Taught Ya’ (Asha Records)
Reviewed by Jason Thornberry

---

AF THE KING Torture Taught Ya’ (Asha Records) Popping on this album, rather than taking notice of boasts about Af the King’s enormous, throbbing penis and insatiable love jones, police car sirens, gun-shots, or noisy-for-my-benefit pot smoking I catch: "You are about to hear the sounds of eclectic intelligence." Without being on some clown vibe, or attempting to one-up Q-Tip or De La Soul, Af the King (AKA Africa) brings an alternative to alternative hip-hop.

Honing his skills after hours at a college radio station, Af absorbed both rap and the rock and roll of U2, Shriekback, Simple Minds, and Depeche Mode. Appreciating the nuances of such distinctly different methods of music made him form a group called African Nemesis, which would eventually dissolve, but not before the concept of a full-scale hip-hop band was put in Af’s head by producers Roey Shamir and Angela Piva, who both wrote, produced, and arranged Torture Taught Ya’.

Moving ahead to right now, and Af brings out his hot-like-a-branding-iron debut album, with stand-out tracks like "L.I. to Brooklyn," "Still Get Down," "Madness," "Pay Attention," and "Lovely." The mixture of turntables and sampled beats with acoustic drums, keyboards, saxophone, organ, clavinet (!), synthesizers and bass make this a pronounced step towards possibly a whole new genre of modern music. Highly recommended!

© 2001 - Jason Thornberry