e the Internet would have us believe that rapper Bahamadia released her underrated 1996 debut album Kollage (Chrysalis/EMI Records) on March 23, the Philly-based beat-box poet insists that the disc actually dropped on April 2. No matter when it came out, 20 years later, the gritty poet’s first long-playing joint remains one of the best rap albums of that era. Coming in the pivotal year of ’96 during the boom-bap and bling bling era of Bad Boy, Death Row and Wu-Tang (as well as Foxy Brown and Lil Kim), hip-hop culture was once again changing.
While some rappers’ sole purpose of engaging in hip-hop was simply to outdo their profiteering peers as they rhymed about designers and diamonds, others were more concerned with preserving the genuineness of pure rap skills that give the art form heft and resonance. Kollage still serves as solid evidence that not everyone was swayed by the glitter of platinum dreams and streetwise drug schemes.
Kollage’s fierce combination of stiletto-sharp samples and grimy grammar that carried over from the wonderful first track “Wordplay” to the dreamy “Biggest Part of Me,” its closing song, a testimony to the love she has for her children. Bahamadia’s words, like my other favorite MCs who all recorded with with Rza, resonated with weed heads, boho b-boys & girls, and old school folks who respected a young sista who knew how to spit textual jewels.
Bahamadia, whose book knowledge meets streetwise style won scores of fans that follow her on Facebook and Twitter, came up at a time when “social media” meant leaving your house and actually doing something. Having started out as teenage DJ who spun boogie down singles at neighborhood jams with her West Philly Sound Crew, she also wrote also poetry in her journals. “My mom was my first creative teacher,” Bahamadia says. “She always encouraged me and my sister to express ourselves. There are also a lot of visual artists in the family.”
By the time Bahamadia was discovered by rapper Guru from Gang Starr in 1993, she was a fully formed artist who could bring it to both the stage and the studio. After displaying her skills on the track “Respect the Architect” from Guru’s own Jazzmatazz Vol. II and the Big Kap posse cut “Da Ladies in the House” alongside Jersey-girl rapper Lauryn Hill, Bahamadia began planning concepts for her own album.
“The title Kollage was a reflection of my state of mind,” she recalls. “I first got interested in music from playing my parents’ and grandparents’ records, as well what I heard on the radio. I wanted Kollage to reflect that diversity both lyrically and sonically.”
With a verbal style that was laid back while still bursting with energy, Bahamadia’s flow was as inspired by the soul women Aretha Franklin and Nancy Wilson, as well as Tribe Called Quest, Schoolly D, Lady B and Will Smith. “I remember hearing Lady B.’s “To the Beat Ya’ll and loving it; Sha Rock was another MC I liked. One of the early lessons I got from observing (fellow Philly artists) was, just be yourself.” Bahamadia’s first recording was “Funky Vibe,” made for the local Philly label Riqs Records (“Philly is definitely blunted for the 9D’s”) in 1993.
Funky Vibe
Before signing with Chrysalis/EMI Records, Bahamadia was also being courted by West Coast beat master Dr. Dre, who’d heard her skills via Dogg Pound member Kurupt (a Philly native) and Bad Boy Records, but Bahamadia teamed up with Guru for obviously aural reasons relating to the vintage futuristic pound of the gritty New York sound. Guru first heard Bahamadia’s pure poetics while he was partying in her native Philly, when it was time to record the album, she relocated to New York City and worked with a variety of like-minded producers at the legendary D&D Studios during its prime years when rebel rousing MCs were rhyming in every room.
Bahamadia – Uknowhowwedu
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[90s‘ til Infinity] Bahamadia Talks the 20th Anniversary of Kollage
