Lil Dogg delivers on ‘The New Testament’

After a hiatus from the music scene, Angolan-born hip-hop artist Lil Dogg, real name Carlos Camilo, returned with his third offering ‘The New Testament’ late last year. The project consists of 13 tracks to make up for lost time.

On ‘The New Testament’, the rapper maintains his sound, yet still manages to stay up to date with the current hip-hop soundscape.

There is substantial growth in his lyrics compared to when he first burst onto the scene with his breakthrough hit ‘Hit Em Up’, which featured his then label mate Dice.

Deeply rooted in his heritage, some of his raps are in Portuguese and on this album, he addresses issues ranging from the importance of education to love, the pain of losing loved ones, poverty and the joys of life.

The album opens with an intro paying homage to the late politician Abraham Iyambo for his contribution to the education sector in Namibia and overall elevation of Namibian people.

Sunny Boy features on the album alongside Chilla, Cox, Dice, Uncle, Balu, Bobby and Dik Bones complementing the songs to create a unifying project.

Even though the album tells a lot of painful stories, some tracks are up tempo and happy and add a sense of comic relief, which in turn makes a more listener-friendly project.

RUK, Cox as well as usual suspects Willy G, Kanibal and DJ KBoz were recruited for the production of various songs. Although this might seem typical of Lil Dogg, there is nothing typical about the overall production and treatment of the project.

The first notable difference is that there are a couple of house-influenced instrumentals, a perfect example being track three, ‘Love’, which features Cox. It is a house song with a catchy hook accompanied by the rapper’s well-polished raps.

He details his life and upbringing on track four, ‘How Many Times’, a very revealing song about his personal life. ‘How Many Times’ is an admirably honest account of the challenges that have haunted the rapper, touching on issues ranging from family, friends and business.

After listening to the songs multiple times, I have a few suggestions but they are not major. The downfall of this project is that certain songs sound similar. Perhaps this was done to reinforce Lil Dogg’s style.

One thing worth noting is that some hooks would have sounded much better if female vocalists did them. However, Lil Dogg delivered a solid 13-track offering, placing him on the frontline of the Dark Doggs group.

“This is my official debut album. The two projects I dropped before were EPs,” said Lil Dogg, adding that he is not under Dark Doggs Entertainment any more as he is pushing his own movement, but he is however still part of the rap group Dark Doggs.

All in all, ‘The New Testament’ has songs for everyone and should be part of your Namibian hip-hop collection.