Serengeti Music

The word Serengeti originates from Maasai and is used to describe the endless plains of the African national park and region “the place where the sky and earth meet”. In 2008 two singer/songwriters, Mastercat and True adopted the word Serengeti to signify the joining of their musical forces. What started as collaboration on one song quickly turned into a mutual goal fueled by their love for reggae, roots and dancehall music. Serengeti are now on a mission to give music lovers a taste of their dynamic and creative blend.

Mastercat and True were bitten early by the reggae/ragga/dancehall bug but spent their youth engaged in a broad variety of musical genres such as hiphop, rock, punk, soul and r&b. The love for music would eventually lead the two artists onto the path where they would meet on a summer tour in 2006 while working on separate projects. The lack of reggae/dancehall oriented music from Sweden along with the continual minority representation of female artists motivated a continued collaboration which in the spring of 2008 gave birth to Serengeti. They received recognition for their work early when they just months after starting were invited to perform on the main stage at Europe’s largest reggae festival, Rototom Sunplash Festival in Italy.

To say Serengeti have accumulated work since their start in 2008 is no understatement. They featured two songs on the Swedish compilation CD “Högre Standard Vol. 1 & 2” (2008) one of which was released as a single and played frequently on Swedish radio. The same year they were nominated for best newcomer by Reggae Galore and performed on the Swedish TV show “Garage”. Since then Serengeti has toured all over Sweden and in Denmark where they´ve been putting dance floors, clubs and festivals on fire. Uppsala Reggae Festival, Peace & Love, Malmoe Festival and Öland Roots are just some of the places they´ve visited this past year and they also featured on Rototom Sunplash official compilations CD “Reggae Girls” released at the 2009 festival.

While working on their debut album, Serengeti are giving reggae lovers a sample of what’s to come with live shows, collaborating with sound systems such as Italy’s Villa Ada Sound, Sweden’s Rough Lynx Sound, Germanys Sentinel Sound as well as touring with Sweden’s wickedest soundgyal and club promoter Lady Louise. Serengeti are now making the finishing touches on their debut album due to be released spring 2010 and have been working closely with multitalented producers – Partillo & Kap10 as well as collaborating with artists like Etzia, Joey Fever and Fresharda.
The autumn of 2009 Serengeti released their first official single (with accompanying video) called “Walk With An Empress” on the German label SoundQuake. The riddim, Empress riddim, is produced by Swedish reaggae sensation and producer Kap10 (Kapten Röd). Artists such as Cornadoor, Joggo and Zed-I were included in the riddim release. Serengeti is receiving a lot of attention for the single with Djs and Sounds such as Sentinel Sound (Germany), David Rodigan (UK) and Tek-9 Sound (NY) spinning the tune frequently on their radio shows. “Walk With An Empress” was also on the German Reggae Charts for 7 weeks and ranked as high as 2nd place. The video has been showed on jamaican internet tv “Reggaetelevision.com”. So far Serengeti has made appro. thirty dubplates (special versions) of this song for sound systems from New York all the way to Moscow and their 2010 tour will kick off soon.