No city has a music scene like Luanda, where rappers risk jail to rhyme against the regime. Up all night in the most expensive city on earth. This essay appeared in Even no. June Busy roads, busy crowds, busy city. Heat, sweat, dust. Tonight, my friend Janguinda has offered to take me and an American girl I just met to an underground hip-hop concert, and I have no idea what to expect. Whatever it is, it sounds much more exciting than going to Ilha, the spit of land that encloses Luanda Bay, with its overpriced clubs catering to expats with large expense accounts.
The capital of oil-slicked Angola is a wildly unequal place, and outside the swankier neighborhoods is a different sort of nightlife. As we push through the capital, I discover a new, nocturnal face of Luanda.
The city of 6. I wonder about this underground concert. Are we going to end up in a basement in an unfinished colonial building, the sort you see in war photography?
Are we going to cross paths with drug lords trading guns and illegal diamonds, like those African villains of Hollywood films? We pull into an informal parking spot, and I eventually let the Dark Continent stereotypes pass and look up. Tall buildings rise around us. The light shining down from the flats composes a neon mosaic that compensates for the lack of streetlights. Inside are a few plastic tables and chairs and crude fluorescent lighting. Ice-cold beers are served in a corner.
The American girl and I are the only white people in the crowd, and two of just a handful of women. One, two. Tss, tss. Tonight is an open-mic session, and a young MC who introduces the artists encourages the public to cheer louder. The rappers are men in their early 20s; their clothes and body language pay tribute to American rap, but they perform in Portuguese, with only a chorus or a punchline in English every now and then.
