Sauti Sol EP : A Review (Sort Of)

“Everybody loves my new car/ all of a sudden I am a sexy man…” _ Sauti Sol

Last year, there was a slight surprise (at least from my end) when Sauti Sol released Mara Hio Hio, a track inspired by Fela Kuti’s Lady featuring Nigeria’s Supa Hype and our very own Muthoni the Drummer Queen. Following their hugely successful debut album Mwanzo and the follow up Sol Filosofia, the band had established a signature sound/style of the down-tempo, soulful variety as evidenced by their most popular song to date – Lazizi – a tune that is never absent from each and every talent show audition in Kenya. There were traces of deviation from the norm in the second album (tracks like Soma Kijana and Private Spice) but Mara Hio Hio gave much stronger signals of the band’s willingness to subtly reach out beyond their signature sound and dive into less “comfortable” genres. However, the best indicator of how far Sauti Sol can stretch is the band’s brand new self-titled EP that is nothing less than a bagful of pleasant surprises.

For this project, they enlisted the production skills of South African producer/artiste Spoek Mathambo and his crew Nombolo One. Spoek Mathambo’s musical style mainly consists of fearless genre blending while maintaining his African roots as the canvas for his work, earning him the tag of the latest afrofuturist sensation. His recently released second full length album Father Creeper is a testament to this and he enjoyed a good run at the 2012 SXSW mega concert as well. So, from the get go it was already guaranteed that this EP would be very different from all other previous Sauti Sol projects.

Despite the impending clash between Sauti Sol and Mathambo’s artistic personalities, the EP’s strongest points are in its opener and following track (attack is the best form of defence anyway). Love or Leave is a perfect balance between these two styles, keeping in touch with benga/lingala elements that define both groups’ African roots. Sauti Sol is also at its most liberated vocal state here, going head to head with the musical arrangement. Later on, the band gets more and more vocally controlled, hardly getting room to breathe above Mathambo’s great weaving dance of the genres from the Jamiroquai style pop in Disco Lover to electro-house in Dxynamix produced Mr. Money. This may prove to be quite some shock therapy for the die-hard traditional Sauti Sol fan.

Everything is total genius in Range Rover - the cleverly used riff off Muddy Waters’ Mannish Boy building up to an energetic frenzy that is bound to please on any dance floor in the world, as well as its distinctly smug lyrics oozing innuendos of afrocentric success (“Everybody loves my new car/ all of a sudden I am a sexy man…/Range-y Rover, Range-y Rover”). It is a statement of a fresh and new, grown up, game changing approach to the way Sauti Sol intend to do things - like a brand new Range Rover tearing down the Thika Superhighway. If I was in charge of CMC Kenya, I'd be itching to do something with this music-video ready track.

Summer Love teeters all over light afro beat, jazz and a seasoning of blaxploitation soul with no intention of committing to one or the other, in line with Nombolo One’s enigmatic determination not to be boxed-in. Meanwhile, Slow featuring Spoek Mathambo and Dela cannot avoid being compared with Mathambo’s excellently done Melodi featuring The Frown off his covers project Nombolo One. Whether this is a disadvantage remains to be seen.

In a nutshell, this EP will go a long way in widening the appreciation of Sauti Sol’s brand worldwide in as much as it may catch on slowly on the local front. Muthoni DQ and Bamzigi already caught some far-flung attention with their afro-jungle/afro-bass offerings. Now it’s time for Sauti Sol to try their hand at something radically different but at the same time taking care not to lose themselves in the musical woods.

Scoot over to the Sauti Sol EP Bandcamp page to cop Love or Leave for FREE and to listen to/buy the rest of the EP.

MOTDF

It's all about hi-tempo this time around, a bit of this and that perfect for a one hour warm up dance - house, dance, some ghettotech, some tropical and coupe decale - sometimes mashed up, Other times remixed but all of em served raw.

Special Highlights: Habida's new single Girls Night Out whose video just came out // A special Najindian remix of D'Banj's Oliver Twist // Yuna's hit Live Your Life gets a pretty neat remix // A bit of kwaito house from Soul-T and DJ Cleo now that they'll be in Kenya for Blankets & Wine on the 23rd // The strangely popular Azonto song (I still don't get it) // one of my fave coupe decale tracks On S'Eclate from Bebi Philip // Dee-M remix from Beyonce's End Of Time Remix Competition - couldn't find the Kenyan submissions by Wawesh and the rest on time // etc etc.

S/O to Cathy "C-Bone" Mimano for contributing to the album art :)

Download HERE

HD

A brief, straightforward set dominated by smooth-as-LEGOs transitions whose selections get moodier by the minute. Highlights include: Labrinth's lead single off the Electronic Earth album // Stuff from Nneka's new album, Soul Is Heavy // Camp Mulla's new single Hold It Down peppered with a bit of Kanye West on both ends of it // The usual bangers from Minaj, Wayne, B.o.B, Rick Ross, Drake, Chipmunk etc. // The most controversial single of last year Yonkers by Tyler The Creator // Moody stuff from KiD CuDi and Frank Ocean // and summing up with the showcase end featuring Ethiopia's Saba Kahsay with her magnificent voice...

As usual, DOWNLOAD HERE.

The Big Brother Africa Fights: Another Feminist Facade

“…it’s our curse/Don’t cry about it, don’t cry about it/This is what makes us girls…” – Lana Del Rey

Now here’s the thing – I do not really watch that thing called Big Brother Africa. The type of voyeurism it offers is not enough to keep me up late into the night, am sorry. However, I have come to know all the usual highlights of an average season of that show – shenanigans you would expect from a bunch of young folk stuck in a single space for 90 days with the promise of millions in cash – X will be out trying to get into Y’s pants, X and Y deciding whether to hate A or B, X actually getting into Y’s pants, altercations and provocations to get somebody else evicted etc etc. The one that really takes the cake though is when a female housemate gets into a confrontation with a male housemate leading to the exchanging of blows and/or slaps. This is usually followed by a deluge of feminist ranting about violence towards women and discussions about what a “real” man is or what a “real” man does. It has been no different on this season’s BBA. Right after Sierra Leone’s Zainab and Ghana’s DKB landed their palms on each other’s faces yesterday, the feminist chatter on the internets has not yet let up. Amidst all the noise, I found the peace of mind to ask myself whether this incident and similar incidents of its kind merit the status of an example of violence towards women.

All incidents of this kind tend to end up in the entire wrath being directed towards the male participant in the fight. I was in the club recently and I happened to witness a woman walking up to a man and starting a verbal and physical altercation with him. When it was apparent nothing sensible would come out of the situation, the man simply tried to push her out of the way, and leave. The woman, who had all this time been cussing out, landing blows and provoking the man to dare hit her, fell to the ground with the kind of drama that would make the likes of Didier Drogba proud, you’d think she’d been hit by an eighteen-wheeler. The bouncers immediately swung into action and threw the guy out without as much as finding out what had gone down. What was more appalling was the fact that some of the folks who had witnessed the entire incident from the start had the audacity to loudly conclude that the guy had it coming, that a real man never hits a woman… I mean, WTF!!!

From what I have gathered it was similar with BBA’s DKB and Zainab. The chick invaded the dude’s privacy, provoked an altercation, and got a slap for her crude efforts to get her housemate evicted. To try and link this to violence against women is, in my opinion, utter bollocks and a travesty to the good intentions of what feminism should stand for. After her eviction, Zainab also descended upon twitter with her take on the entire incident:

“A REAL MAN NEVER HITS A WOMAN” is one of the most contextually misplaced and incomplete statements of all time. Nothing is one way. Everyone deserves just desserts for the type of person they try to be, especially in the context of DKB vs. Zainab. A woman who carries herself in a lady-like manner will no doubt attract reasonable and composed reactions even when they are involved in serious disagreements with men and even fellow women. However, acting like a crass bitch and expecting to be treated like a lady just because you possess the opposite of a penis is trying to stretch things a bit too far. Unfortunately, most womenfolk believe it is their right to be treated well irrespective how they behave. That this can be used as a feminist talking point - that many women can run around chanting this phrase referring to events such as the BBA fight, oblivious to its connotation that women are incapable of having a rational argument or without acting in an erratic manner, without realizing that this is an admission of women being inferior to men - is embarrassing to say the least. Alternatively, I would not have a problem with this statement when used to refer to repeated, unjustifiable acts of violence towards women – wife battery, assault of girlfriends, sexual slavery, human trafficking and such serious issues. But to support a BBA contestant goading her opponent for the sake of monetary gain, or just through being an unpleasant, unreasonable and confrontational human being who just happens to be a woman by design, really?

Yes, the constant double standards plaguing modern day feminism is its main undoing. That feminism today cannot take a stand on equality and gender roles makes everything even more confusing. Zainab above also comments how certain men “do not know how to deal with women” begging the question whether women are only good for being “dealt with” by men much like the way we deal with dogs who merely rely on the powers of instincts and notions of reward and punishment. I want to believe that women are capable of dealing with themselves, defining themselves and determining how their interactions with men should be, and taking responsibility for these interactions as individuals instead of fleeing back into the cocoon of womanhood when things go terribly wrong.

The principal failure of modern day feminism mirrors the failure of radical fundamentalist religion which is that they demand special treatment as opposed to equal treatment. No progress will be made when people demand to be treated like The Iron Lady and at the same time like The Princess and the Pea. The premise of feminism when defining womanhood has to move from “the opposite of manhood” to “similar to humanity”. Until feminists are ready to meet the rest of the world halfway, they shall continue to lead women deeper into the hole of disillusionment much like the predicament of the African-American still wondering which dilemma to resolve first between deciding whether to allow white people to say the word “Nigga” out loud or deciding whether to respond to the Pound Cake Speech.

Let’s face it. Zainab being slapped by DKB is NOT a feminist talking point or an example of violence towards women and/or the helpless. It’s just bad television…

UPDATE: Here is Aisha's response to this post.