Very dope piece from Vice/VBS.TV about the rap scene in Liberia… Here’s a hint, it’s Akon… A lot of Akon:

“The war is over now and the UN keep an uneasy peace. Gunshots and bombing and the blood-curdling screams from cannibalistic torture are gone but an awful sound still emanates from Monrovia. It is the sound of Akon’s voice. And it is played 24 hours a day through tinny radio speakers everywhere you go.

Occasionally it’ll be broken up by a Lil’ Wayne track or something like Christina Milian but usually it’s Akon, Akon, Akon, Akon everywhere you go, all day every day. After you’re there for a week you start to like it because it’s the only thing there is. As our Pathfinder trundled along through the crowded streets at 5 miles per hour, the driver occasionally stopping to wave away the orphans selling chocolate biscuit or plastic sacks of water, I would often catch myself singing along; particularly to “Locked Up” which is actually a pretty good jam.

From nearby Senegal, Akon is idolised in Liberia. He played a concert there in April 2008 and everybody was HYPED. So much so that there was a mass stage invasion which almost collapsed the stage and almost crushed Akon. He managed to escape without injury but not before promising the thousands of frenzied ex-combatants there that he would be opening up a branch of his Kon Live Distribution record label in Liberia and that he’d be up for signing the local talent.”

Read the rest of the in-depth piece here.