“Drill Galsen” comes as the second song from Akatsuki SN, a new rap collective from Dakar, Senegal. So far, there is not much to be found about Akatsuki SN as a group, aside from the releases of two songs and the Instagram social media profiles of each member of the group. However, their songs and videos speak for themselves in presenting Akatsuki SN as a formidable quad (or more?) of lyricists.
The video for “Drill Galsen” features Xhalil, LMN Xél Niar, Sory, and Taalla, in that order, spitting bars in Wolof in a smoky, colorful studio set. As each rapper steps up to the mic touting their flow, money, sex, and status, they each bring their own unique flows and rhyme schemes along with an interesting concoction of references to Senegalese culture, clever insults, and of course, boasts about fornication with your mother.
Run by NeeguRap Music Studio, a recording and music production studio in Dakar, their first song, “Weredi” is doing quite well with almost 900,000 YouTube views and over 70,000 streams on spotify. “Drill Galsen”, released only days ago, is climbing steadily as well. Each member of the group appears relatively unknown outside of Akatsuki SN, but will undoubtedly be making a name for themselves with the popularity of Akatsuki SN’s first two singles. Interestingly enough, while their first song, “Weredi” featured Mist Cash as a member of the group, evident in his donning of the Akatsuki robes on the album cover, he was notably absent from “Drill Galsen”, much to the chagrin of fans. It is unclear whether he will be making further appearances as a member of Akatsuki SN with the limited information about the group at this point.
Either way, Akatsuki SN has clearly hit the ground running as a new group to watch out for in Senegal. Their name, Akatsuki, is a reference to a group of shinobi from the hit anime series Naruto, who wear the icon robes seen on each member of Akatsuki SN’s album arts. Whether they are longtime fans of the show, or identify themselves with various characters and their traits, would be an interesting question to ask of them.
I have to say that a commenter on the “Drill Galsen” YouTube video summed up the strengths of each member of Akatsuki SN quite well in saying:
Khalil que du sal avec les jeux de mots🔥 (Khalil’s so dirty with the word play)
Lmn avec un lyrics grave et ses punch🔥 (LMN with some serious lyrics and his punch)
Sorry trop facile avec le beat🔥 (Sory too easy with the beat)
Talla avec l’écriture clean🔥 (Taalla with that clean writing)
Bonne continuation 🙌🏾 (Good luck)
So, Akatsuki SN – to quote Emperor Palpatine from Star Wars: We will watch your career with great interest.