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Maryiame, Mina and Oumy make up the group Attaque Liberatoire de l’Infanteries Feministe - the Women’s Infantry Liberation Army - founded way back in 1997 - the first all-female rap-group to release a tape in Dakar, and said to be Senegal’s only female crew out of over three thousand hip hop groups.

Senegal has been at the forefront of West African hip hop for over a decade and has put the continent as a whole on the world hip hop map. But more than anything, ALIF is a group of women fighting. Being female in a male-dominated society and industry comes through in their lyrics again and again. “You’re a woman more than a musician,” says Myriam. “The fact that you’re a woman affects everything.”

The album’s title Dakamerap - meaning the camera on Dakar - alludes to the group’s need to tell the truth about all parts of the society they come from. Many of the tracks tell stories about ordinary people facing life in all its harshness. ‘Addu Kalpin’ narrates the story of a gang of young men robbing passengers in a minibus, ‘Rehiou’ tells the story of a woman who has earned a living as a prostitute but only now she is getting older and not attracting customers anymore that she regrets the choices she’s made in her life. And then there’s a track dedicated to the lives of 1000 people who died on the Joolaa ferry in 2002.

The lyrics never move far from the hard life of the people ALIF see around them: it’s hard listening when you read the sleeve notes, or unless you are fluent in Wolof. But the sound the group produce is sophisticated and exciting - angry rap that tells stories from the heart.

There’s some great scratching and mixing on a number of the tracks from DJ GeeBayss, “probably” the most skilled DJ in Senegal at the moment and who usually performs with another Dakar based hip hop group Pee Froiss.

A lot of cross-fertilisation has gone on, a little of Beyonce beats in the track ‘Taspe’, which attacks female rappers: “I’m not interested in these ladies jumping around on stage like models. Hip hop is my form of expression, the way I make my living.”

And some lilting acoustic guitar, keyboard playing and soaring vocals on ‘Bataxal’ from Lamine Kouyate underlines the intensity of the story of child abuse and incest.

Tragedy is never far away on each of Dakamerap’s tracks and hiphop’s highest ideal as a social comment is filtered through slick sounding production and lyrical mastery.

Dakamerap is released by Out here records www.outhere.de