DANCING WITH PLAYDOE

D. Boone, the late lead singer of the Minutemen, a 1980s punk band fron Southern California, once said, “punk is whatever we made it to be.” That music can be more about attitude than sound may also be said of Playdoe, a South African hip-hop group.

Playdoe is difficult to describe in standard hip hop terms. The group lacks the gangsta bravado of NWA, and has none of the political urgency of Public Enemy. There’s no Wu-Tang Clan brashness and little of the slick, polished production of Jay-Z or Kanye West. Don't expect smooth lyrical flow like Common, or DJ mastery at the level of Mix Master Mike or DJ Premier.

Two young men make up Playdoe: Spoek and Sibot, a black rapper and a white scratch champion, both from Johannesburg. At a recent concert at the Social, a tiny underground bar just outside London's Soho, Sibot, wearing a T-shirt and a sideways-tilted baseball cap, manned the turntables while Spoek, in high-tops, faded purple jeans and an African kofia-styled hat, worked the microphone, occasionally touching various keys and knobs next to him onstage.

Their music is best described as techno-rap with a little Crunk and Miami Bass thrown in for good measure. It’s fresh, celebratory and fun, not unlike the dance-ready rap sounds of the mid-80s, but re-tooled for the global, internet generation. They describe themselves as “Neolectro Afrobotic Ethnotechno Mamas Boys”.

The crowd at this London show was a typical mix of mostly white guys in skinny jeans, hoodies, white tennis shoes, and perfectly messy hair. Young women sported tight jersey tunics, short skirts and day-glo tights. Two young women in oversized blazers danced like Molly Ringwald with textbook precision. The entire crowd bounced, roboted and jerked straight through Playdoe’s full set, while Spoek egged us on: “Do the bumper cars! Do the bumper cars!”

Everyone did, gleefully.

~ GARY MOSKOWITZ