Krukid starts off this Album with a strong intro presenting himself as a production of Africa he is a part of all of Africa. After saying hello to American he strongly starts his verse “I’m Ugandan, Kenyan, I’m Tanzanian, I’m Gambian, I’m zambian, I’m Ghanain, I’m algerian, Nigerian, Liberian, American African, African American.” This intro song is much like an anthem for Africa calling for everyone who is African to “stand up” The percussion in the background seems to consist of Shekere and Djembe drums. Both instruments are 100 percent hand made, Shekere are maraca like instruments that are filled with shells or pebbles to create a strong progressive percussion when paired with the Djembe Drums, which are very popular in Jamaican and Caribbean music.
Pigeon is once again a subtle problem in auditory listening when coming to Krukid’s music in Afr-I-Can which is only proof of how great his skill as an Emcee is to produce good music. In Comparison to Raisin in the Sun, his earlier album before Afr-I-Can, the vision and story of this album does not contain a variety of love songs or songs pertaining to deal or speak about riches, cars, money, and girls, or somewhat of the process of temptation.
The song that strongly stands out is track 4, Invisible ft. Somi, due to the content expressed about the turmoil in africa which can be correlated with the likes of Kony. Some consider him to be a hero, but some also see the truth in where he is not the first to utilize children to carry out missions and becoming part of this guerrilla warfare exploiting and ostracizing them from their family. “They took me from northern Uganda, to southern sudan, made me murder as a young now i got blood in my hands, they took me when they killed my father and they raped my mother and the first life they forced me to take was my brother’s”, this first verse pretty much summarizes the effect of Africa’s rebel armed forces who use similar tactics to obtain children to apply in their guerrilla army. This song portrays how the life of children are no longer their’s once they are taken by rebels because after they are captured they become invisible.
In Africa it is not abnormal or weird to call your cousin or second cousin your sister or brother because everyone is tied to a unification of Africa. In the song “family ft. Sanyankanta” Krukid expresses his ties to africa once again by having the chorus state that everyone from his home is part of his family and part of his struggle of that setting/surrounding where his maturation occurred.
In his song calling he recalls aspects of his life from trying to get a label, experiencing the loss of his first love, the typical unsupportive mother, bills to pay, being “realistic”, and procreation. This song expresses his ambition in which In this case it is very clear to see that having come from Africa and experiencing the life there as opposed to America, he is truly ambitious about his craft no matter what kind of criticism he may retain from the people that want his hand me downs, “fake people”. He also calls out to Africa in his song “My Music My Country, where is speaks about political policies in office, aspects of African government, and the African Life “the good bad and ugly, the reason why my pride is what you can’t take from me.”
He starts well and ends well. “thank you” expresses his love for his audience and the people in his life that are responsible for his success and where he is now. Here he decries the strength he gets from love and all the aspects of love; pain, happiness, hardships, all of which are aspects of his determination and ambition which keeps him moving because of the past that is behind him, Krukid always looks forward.