By Tawanda Chari
Kikky Baddass, the multi award-winning Zimbabwean
rapper, singer-songwriter, has recently released the much anticipated album
Bloodline. Prior to the release of the album on the 31st of October, she had
already dropped Party Queen, the first track off the album with tantalizing
visuals.
The tracklist alone is pretty much mesmerizing. Especially if
we look at the production - she picked all the top producers in the game.
Evidently, Kikky made all the right decisions with the production side and beat
selection. That probably did half the work because that is enough to just bump to
it without actually listening to what she's saying. Well, the beats and her
cadence of course making it feel sonically solid from the first listen. Also,
there are a few unfamiliar voices she featured. A nice surprise from the usual
suspects everyone wants to work with.
Kikky rose to the limelight in 2017, although she
had been around for some time before that (after she dropped the raunchy video
to Body Conversations, a song which is featured on her debut album
titled Queen of The South). She did have a several songs in-between her
projects, an EP (Mambokadzi) and a couple of hits too. Bloodline is easily her
best body of work so far and rightly so because she did snap on this one.
It is important to note that there isn't an overall
theme to the album. There is no single abstract theme she was sticking to.
However, from the context of the title track, 'Bloodline' refers to those few people that you can open up to with out
feeling any regrets or maybe actually the one person. Your backbone, the ones who are going to be there for you through thick and thin. Your Ride(s) &
die(s). The cover says 'Bloodline' demonstrates royalty, forgiveness,
patience and power.
Now onto lyrics and lyricism. She did say she is not
a rapper and that she is a Femcee (female emcee) so maybe we cannot look at that aspect
with the standards of a "rap" album. In most of her verses, she employs a monorhyme scheme. That is to say she is rhyming every other line with other
lines in a section. This is hard to pull off and not sound monotonous but she
made it work. There is not a lot to say on lyricism because sometimes she was
telling a story, delivering a message showing her technical ability like on Shamwari Dzezita and then on other songs she is just playing around
with the aesthetics of the song like on Iripo Here.
Some of the standout tracks are Iripo Here, Never Again, Hodha Bhero, Bata Chiwepu and Dreams (Zviroto) featuring man of the moment Holy Ten.
Holy Ten on the album was a nice surprise too. They painted a
mural of an ideal Zimbabwe, highlighting all our struggles and hoping for a
better country. Dreams do come true right?
Iripo Here has a beauty aesthetic to it and Lioness
made no mistakes with her delivery. The whole thing just worked. On Never Again, Kikky went into story mode. A deep
introspective track that she let herself be a little vulnerable.
The hook to Hodha Bhero stands out. R Peels has been
on roll, sublime verses all year and he
did not disappoint either, probably the only one that used that classic
interlocking Shakespearean sonnet rhyme scheme. gTBeats can actually rap. That
was also another nice surprise to many. Bata Chiwepu is naughty though but it
stands out. And big props to Jonn The Producer. He has been on an excellent streak this year.
2020 has had a lot of top-notch full length projects and Kikky stood her own. What she lacked in lyricism she covered with flow. When we say flow we mean delivery, voice, emceeing, and other aspects of a rapper's verse that have to do more with audio aesthetics, rather than the actual words.
Listen to Bloodline by Kikky Badass via this Audiomack link
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