Let's talk little, let's talk rap: French and feminine, this time. Two years after her last EP, the Swiss KT Gorique and her alter ego Kunta Kita are back, this time with a new project entitled Akwaba, " Welcome" in Baoulé and other Ivorian dialects. KT Gorique is a frail silhouette, locks, makeup also inspired by the paintings of the Baoulés and the "Kendrick", as she says. Above all, the incandescent power of an erupting volcano. You may have discovered it in Enter The Circle a short time ago. The story of KT Gorique, however, goes back (a little) further. Born in 1991 in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, the rapper from Valais first entered hip-hop through the door of dance at the age of 12. Smurf, Krump, New Style, Popping… Everything's going on. Very quickly, the need to put words into action is felt, and KT Gorique forges herself as an incisive rapper. In 2012, it is the consecration. KT Gorique won the End Of The Weak title in New York, and became the first freestyle rap world champion at only 21 years old. Just that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jl48fN7D5Ew
Touch-to-all
In 2014, she even did it on the big screen, on the occasion of the film Brooklyn, directed by the very good Pascal Tessaud. She takes on a tailor-made role, that of Coralie. The feature film follows the itinerary of a young Swiss rapper who arrives in Saint-Denis. By getting involved through associations in the life of her neighborhood, she is spotted during an openmic. The film will be presented at the Cannes Film Festival the year of its release, in the selection ACID, The Independent Cinema Association for its distribution. The following year, KT Gorique even won an acting award at the Hip Hop Film Festival. One more distinction… From then on, the rapper devoted herself to her music, a mixed-race rap in full fusion. Fascinating, in his image, he oscillates between reggae influences and African music. A style she herself calls Future Roots. First there will be Tentative de Survie in 2016, then the mixtape ORA in 2017, and finally his latest project, Kunta Kita, released two years ago. Very quickly, the concerts follow one another. With the striking power of a meteorite cross grenade, the rapper turns out to be a stage beast. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwYZQB2bBzo
Between entertainment and resourcefulness
As proof, his extraordinary performance in March of last year at the Hallenstadion in Zurich, in the first part of the American superstar Nicki Minaj. A few months later, still on her way, she won a Swiss Music Prize. Moreover, if the confinement and the health crisis that Europe and the world are currently going through will have got the better of his concert dates, KT Gorique has not given up entertainment. The performer was indeed keen to maintain the release of her album Akwaba… And good do us. On May 15, the rapper reveals a jewel of coherence, both aesthetic and artistic, which the two tracks already clipped "Airforce" and "Çi-ça" already suggested. Completed, the album has its share of featurings : Reverie, Volodia, Soom T, Melan and even the great Tairo. Present at the casting, comedian Shirley Souagnon lends her voice to the interludes and thus narrates with humor the transitions of the album as a common thread. KT Gorique sniffed out the right idea: it's fresh, and the duo is iconic. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0a0U0QmiGXs Each of the instrumentals is pigmented but nuanced. All are especially in line with the bubbling and colorful universe of KT Gorique. Technical and incisive, the phases she delivers are ablaze with colorful influences, burning current subjects and suspended witticisms. Capable of everything with little, the rapper did not stop there. With two mattresses vertically against the walls, the resourceful cobbled together a studio corner. Through his "Remedies", a large-scale participatory project that takes the form of a series of special freestyles available on his soundcloud, KT Gorique feeds his community of soon 15,000 followers on Instagram. They vote and direct the artistic direction of the composition, and KT Gorique does the rest.
The little knife of female rap
Finally, not content to hit with these crazy freestyles, the rapper has again confirmed her status as an empowerment figure with an exclusively female Cypher Allstar, posted on her Facebook account on May 11. KT Gorique no longer counts her international connections and she knew better than ever to use them to federate twenty rappers around her in her "Biggest Female Allstar Cypher N°1". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksHABJ_ma64 In the order of appearance and on an instrument of the beatmaker Fana, with whom KT Gorique collaborates a lot, we find: KT Gorique of course, then Illustre (France), Flash Marley (Togo), Starrlight (Netherlands), Hemkah (France), Miss C-Line (Switzerland), Lau Rinha (France), Lillian Blanche (United States), Nash (Ivory Coast), Ebène (Mauritania), Ekloz (France), Amalia (France), Sima Noon (Israel), La Furia (Spain), Evita Koné (Switzerland), Bouki (France), Linsey (France), Tyriss (Switzerland), and finally Pumpkin (France). Never short of ideas, she is called the Swiss army knife as she knows how to do everything. With a categorical blade, the rapper cuts the instrumentals in freestyles and elsewhere. Above all, she has sharpened her texts and sharpened her phases for two years. The result is sharp and sharp, and is called Akwaba. Welcome, Welcome, KT Gorique sets the scene. Settle in, this is just the beginning.
