Hip hop Tuga

Portuguese hip hop (Hip hop português), more commonly called hip Hop tuga ("tuga" here being a slang for "Portuguese"), is the Portuguese variety of hip hop music.

Hip hop Tuga is different from mainstream hip hop because it has strong influences from African music, from Lusophone Africa, reggae, zouk and fado.

Artists such as Valete and Sam the Kid are among the most popular. Old school Portuguese hip hop artists include General D., Chullage, Fuse, Regula, Da Weasel, Allen Halloween, Dealema, Mind Da Gap, J.Cap, Sir Scratch, Boss AC, Don Nuno, and Guetto 6 Damaia. Bimma (BMP) is one of Angola's best new school rappers.

The founder of hip hop Tuga was rapper General D. Born in Maputo, Mozambique, General D moved to Lisbon at young age and, even though he hold a Portuguese passport and was heavily influenced by American rap, he always merged his music with his own Mozambican roots. He was the first rap-oriented artist of any kind to have a legitimate recording contract in Portugal. In 1994. he signed with the Portuguese division of EMI Records, with whom he recorded two albums: "Pé Na Tchôn, Karapinha Na Céu"(1995) and "Kanimabo" (1997). Intelligent and charismatic, the general public and media liked General D., even though his lyrics were often very anti-establishment.

Californian hip hop artist and poet, Ithaka (also known as: Ithaka Darin Pappas) is often included in the Hip hop Tuga community, due to the fact that he lived and recorded in Lisbon during 1992-1998 and was among the first wave of artists working with hip hop in Portugal. There he completed his first two (of eight) albums; Flowers And The Color Of Paint (1995) and Stellafly (1997). His 1995 song "Escape From The City Of Angels" (featuring Lisbon's Marta Dias) was included in the soundtrack of Antoine Fuqua's U.S. feature film directorial debut The Replacement Killers (Columbia Pictures) starring Chow Yun Fat, Mira Sorvino, Clifton Collins Jr. and Michael Rooker. The song also appeared on the show Good Girl's Don't on Oprah Winfrey's Oxygen Channel

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