Track Reviews // Sampa The Great - Final Form


Single – Ninja Tune, June 5th 2019

Sampa the Great bursts into 2019 casually late but primed and moving at speed. Having dropped killer records already its vividly apparent that the Zambian rapper intends to live up to the epithet and conquer; as her expression of hip hop, its derivatives and its antecedents, deserves.

Throughout soulquarian chanteuse-ing, trunk-knocking Southern jams, ambitious jazz discursions and studied thoughtful narratives on golden age sampling – never before has Sampa Tembo seemed so present and laser-focused. LA Beat Scene samplemaster Jonwayne in the mix delivers characteristically choppy sweetness with layered vibes that are bright as a Theo Parrish cut and as chilling as RZA mixing Wendy Rene or Thelonious Monk.

The bars preach of stripping away walls and insecurities, resisting the crush of fitting in, black power; the self-produced visuals are all about home, Zambia and the concept of returning and realigning that’s all over scenes from UKG's Skepta and Little Simz  to US hip hop, most recently Denzel Curry’s ode to Carol City, Florida.

Charging down a brass fanfare corridor the double speed bars are syllable and consonant heavy but hard enough to “fuck the whole key [and] hinge the whole door off” and immaculately delivered. The vowels do their work in the pitter patter of the fast flow – that nasal, unbreathing tone that relentlessly stretches and contracts them varying the rhythm and breaking the lyrics into vignettes of heritage and the immediate present. 

Her shared stages with Kendrick Lamar and Little Simz have only sharpened this trait – “your favourite rapper peep my goat potential” - brace yourself for what's next.

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