Sydney based MC Sampa the Great has released her new single, Final Form, and along with she’s also produced a new accompanying video to go with the track.
Produced by longtime collaborator Silentjay (Rhythm Section) – and mixed by rising Stones Throw rhymer Jonwayne, Final Form is this hard hitting, and funk filled, sounding like something Adrian Younge would conjure up. These choral chords underpin the verses as Sampa lays down her rhymes, full of insightful character and an enviable flow. It breaks down to a more soulful place, little vocal samples littering the accompaniment.
“It’s easy to get caught up in the constant chatter around you about how ‘you are not there yet’, how you ‘might not make it’” Sampa says. “Final Form is about expanding yourself and calling out any negativity towards that growth process. As an artist I now recognise my in-between stage; sometimes it drops and sometimes it rises, but I love that I get to level up each second. I might even final form tomorrow.”
In the video, Sampa travels back to her native Zambia to explore the traditions and communities of her roots. Bridging the gap between the traditional worlds of Nyau dancers and modern Zambian youth culture, it was filmed in the run up to her first ever shows on African soil, including her recent homecoming show in Zambia.
“The video was inspired by the belief of having a spiritual exodus back to yourself.” she says. “We often as black people in the diaspora talk about the physical return to our roots but not so often about the spiritual. ‘Final form’ is meant to start that conversation. It was important for me to do this video in Zambia, the place of my birth and where I’m from, because if I am truly to become the greatest version of myself, I am going to start at the most me I’ve ever been, which is where I started from, where I grew up. I was born and raised between Zambia and Botswana, by a Bemba mother and Tumbuka father and to erase that by calling me anything but Zambian/African, is to erase my history, culture and essence. Everything I was born from.”
Check it out, here
