Chess Set to Drop New Album

The Daily Observer (Banjul)

Sheriff Janko

24 June 2011

The Gambia’s rising and dramatic singer -Kansaikou Darboe alias MC Chess, has disclosed plans to drop his new album in the market soon.

The star who, is widely renowned for singing in the local parlance, in recent years has been working relentlessly in pushing his music to the world. His ever-growing fans base with his eloquent and rthymatic style of music, has continued to attract music enthusiasts especially in The Gambia. Based in the United States of America, MC Chess is gifted with multi lingual skills and is a great performer, as he does extremely well on the stage thus giving his audience ecstasy concerts each time he mounts the stage.

During a recent communiqué on Facebook, Chess used the opportunity to call on his fans in The Gambia to be patient as he is working for them 24/7 to meet the demands of his ever growing fans both The Gambia and US. He added that his fans are more like a family to him and that he will continue to give them the real good vibes.

Commenting on his record label based in the States called ‘ASIKOI RECORDS’ he said that the label is one of a kind. “We are different from every music you ever heard. No one is going to be like Chess and you can take Chess from Africa, but you can’t take Africa out of Chess. I have a new album call ‘RESTLESS’ coming soon in The Gambia. I love all my fans so dearly,” he added.

Musical career

Born to a non-griot family of professors, lawyers, doctors and other intellectuals, Mc Chess is the only child who took a 360-degree turn and decided to take music as a career. He is however, optimistic that he would pursue his dream “his way” no matter what objection or criticism he receives. At age 13, he was crowned by the West African Arts Society as the International year of the Child with a scholarship to travel to Malaysia but his family refused. The Gambian star, who moved to the USA since1990 and has been moving from state to state for the past four years, later settled down in Seattle City in Washington State.

In 1999, he decided to fully take music as his career and invested greatly into it. He is currently a household name in the African communities across the world. Wanting to assimilate, Chess started doing street rap with a group until he was able to construct a proper rhyme, then he went solo and started to sing African languages on hip hop beats. He currently runs his own record label called ‘Asi Koi Record’ with DJ Rndupa. “I take hip hop beats and rhyme my wollof, Mandinka, Fula, Sarahuleh or Jola on to it. That makes me unique and brings out the beauty in my music.” Chess released his first 9-track album in 2003, which sold 1000 copies, and he iscurrently working on series of projects.

AllAfrica – All the Time