CHICAGO, IL. (myspace.com/serengetiking) - Earning a living on beer trucks in working class neighborhoods in
Chicago might be considered a tough life for some, but if you're anything like
David Cohn, you'll use the experience to your artistic advantage. Known in the hip-hop community as Serengeti, the
Chicago bred rapper's background can clearly be heard in his music.
Actor Brian Dennehy, the namesake of Serengeti's latest album, is only one of five characters that make up this five star album. The other key players are the creation of the rapper's vivid imagination. Derek represents a greedy ultra-capitalist American, Kenny is a heavily accented Chicago native who upon first glance might be lame, but actually has quite the grip on reality, Jueles is Kenny's wife, and last but not least there is the uncertain anonymous emo hipster struggling to be accepted.
Serengeti reveals that years after he pulled the emergency brake on that beer truck and started making hip-hop, he was driving to a show when he had the revelation that his beloved Chi-town character Kenny's favorite actor must be, of course, no other than Brian Dennehy, who is the album's namesake. Dennehy is the sixth of ten albums completed by the hip-hop artist in the last six years - one of the completed, but yet-to-be-released works is a live band album, going under the title The Serengeti.
For those with an appetite for a little visual stimulation to go hand in hand with the aural, Chris Ustroka's video debut for Dennehy's fourth track "I Don't Know" is in its final stages. We don't want to reveal too much, but Serengeti says there is a boat and a Hummer involved! If that isn't enough, the rapper has also written a script titled Bears, Hawks, Chops, with friend Brian Wilkerson, which also features the Dennehy characters Derek, Jueles, and Kenny. Serengeti hopes the script will be adapted into a screenplay sometime in the near future.
Dennehy is Serengeti's answer to common complaints about commercial rap, and his goal for the record was to put the fun back in hip-hop. He voiced his own frustrations in a recent Chicago Sun-Times interview.
"All of this rap [stuff] drives me crazy," Serengeti exclaims, his voice popping with frustration. "It's so strange to me that there are all of these problems going on, like murder and drug addiction, and that it's celebrated in rap music. It's not trying to solve the problem; it's the prison theme and they keep it going. It makes me crazy because I love rap so much. I thought it was about fixing problems, and instead it's about gas and oil companies and going to prison."
Serengeti plans to take Dennehy's multiple personalities and his positive take on hip-hop's future with him on tour this winter. Local Chicago fans can catch Serengeti live at the Empty Bottle on November 26.
