With Africa on My Sleeve
Back with another one! Yet again, we’ve sat on this “Teintée Africaine” update for close to a month 😅. This is around the time when labels and their artists choose to release their summer anthems — yes, despite “summer” being a strange notion for the African continent 🤷🏿♂️. So, we had to make sure we...Continue reading
I shall believe that we’ve sufficiently documented my feelings about amapiano. The sub-genre — I prefer to call it a movement though 😉 — has enjoyed a steady dose of new talent and elements since it burgeoned out of Pretoria. I didn’t start out ‘MPN 2‘ to reflect how more sophisticated and diverse amapiano has...
There are so many things I could say to lead you into this playlist. Like how the last track was the first track when I started the process of putting it together…last year! Like how Jeff Obeng’s and CT Moody’s viral IG video (as the jovial Mufasa and the exhuberant Hypeman) gave the whole playlist a new...Continue reading
You might have caught your favorite rappers fondly recall his formative years, and linger over about battles and cyphers on corner blocks or high school lunch rooms. Heck, if you’re like me, you may have some of your own stories as well. There’s an unmistakable effervescence to these kind of gatherings. On rare occasions, that...Continue reading
So there’s an idea we had a few years ago. We thought about pooling songs about the black experience and sequence them into a story. As with most audacious ideas that require extensive research, it got back-burnered. Last year, with the heavy media attention on black matters, it felt like the proper moment to revisit...Continue reading
It’s no secret that I’ve been enamored about amapiano: I’ve been raving about it for almost two years now! The sub-genre grew out of Pretoria to progressively take over South Africa and then set its sights on the rest of the continent. Nowadays, it’s no longer uncommon to hear our usual hitmakers from Nigeria, Tanzania,...Continue reading
I had a lot of fun last time I took this playlist concept to weave a tale. So, I decided to give it another go. It’s still a love story that most of us can relate to. It finds someone at the end of a relationship, trying to pick up the pieces of his/her heart...Continue reading
The homie was talking earlier about the older cats embracing the new generation of talent. And there’s no bigger case here than the recent pairing of Eminem and gone-too-soon Juice WRLD on “Godzilla”. We often deride the current hip-hop flagbearers and point at their lack of rapping skills, which they make up for with other...Continue reading
One more for the ShenYeng clan! Since “Blessed” took off last year, Shenseea has been in high demand. And you won’t hear any complaints from me when the trickle we’ve been accustomed to turns into a steady stream of Shenseea bangers like “Trick’a Treat”. The gem is one of many from the Aircraft Riddim; she...Continue reading
Come to think of it, I might not be showing enough love to Camila Cabello in this segment; after all, she has an excellent track record as a pop star. I have been playing “My Oh My” — in fact, the whole of Romance — for a couple months now, and I was champing at...