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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