By Brandon Mwanza & Takudzwa Hillary Chiwanza
Top-notch rapper/emcee and
spoken-word artist Synik – Gerald Mugwenhi – had gone for a lengthy run without
blessing his super-loyal listeners with a full-length album/Long Play; only
focusing on EPs, singles, and the production side. But 2022 has seemed to be
the right year for rewarding patience.
In March of this year, the Syn City rapper released his second studio album, A Travel Guide for the Broken, sharing his life experiences after he relocated to Lisbon (Portugal).
The 12-track offering
comes years after his first album, the critically-acclaimed Syn City
(released in 2012 under the visionary and enterprising guidance of Begotten
Sun), which some consider to be one of the best albums to come out of this
teapot-shaped country.
A Travel Guide For The
Broken comes more as a soulful,
riveting, empathetic, empowering, and solidaristic experience told by a veteran
rapper who connects two cities – one in the Global South (Harare) and another
in the Global North (Lisbon) – by telling the story of a black African man from
Zimbabwe who, compelled by circumstances, finds himself in a society that is
deeply unsettled by people who have more melanin.
A society caught in racist
storms of right-wing populism sweeping across Europe. A society whose political
economy is unkind to the human soul – worse still if you’re a migrant from the
reviled Global South.
Synik tells the stories of
financial hardships and upsets that he became familiar with upon moving to
Portugal.
The journey from Syn City
to A Travel Guide For The Broken saw us being blessed with a couple of lovely EPs
and singles that showed a Synik whose pen got mightier, and whose ear for
impeccable production got refined. A
Travel Guide for the Broken is the culmination of this inevitable artistic
maturity and bold resolve.
But I wonder if the ancestors hear us when we call, cause we strayed from the lands where they died to be recalled far from the shrines where the elders would speak to God, far from the lines that they left us when we were robbed, and the drums where we danced and our spirits were warmed, And the soils where they planted our umbilical cords.
Above is an apt quote from
Rukuvhute, a song featuring Vusa Mkhaya, as Synik speaks about the
journey to distant lands unknown and lands far away from his ancestors – lands
alien to his soul; lands completely detached from his ancestors.
Although these lands are
remote from each other, they share a common historical thread that is still
attributable to all the concerns and struggles that Synik passionately airs out
in A Travel Guide For The Broken – imperial and colonial conquests. Unequal
power relations in the dynamics of global relations. And this is the source of
mass alienation, despondency, and angst; this is why people are broken –
personal pain is public pain.
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| Tracklist for Synik's new album 'A Travel Guide For The Broken' released on 10 March, 2022. |
The new album by Synik comes with an alluring
potpourri of refreshing global features: Debbie with a T, Vusa Mkhaya, Biko Emcee, Vivalda
Ndula and Mukamuri.
The guide is packed
with priceless lessons from his diaspora experience – an experience that comes
with its fair share of existential crises for the individual’s pysche and
mental balance. Synik shares the journey to the Global North and his arrival there.
He chronicles the heavy
crown the family and friends back home put on one’s head once that individual
moves out of the country; and the expectations that come with that
responsibility.
Arriving in the city, that's when he discovered the cost required to cross was thrice what was stuffed in his socks and now he had to find work under hellish conditions. Hardly ate, he put away every cent he was given found encouragement from a brother who was also from his village promised to find each other, when they both their journeys were finished
The project is laced with a
cleverly innovative infusion of traditional instrumental beats (Syn City is replete
with inclinations towards indigenous sounds),
with production from different producers across the spectrum of authentic sonic
bursts that are easy on the ear and blend perfectly with Synik’s inimitable
pen. The best bit is that Synik immerses himself in the production processes.
Conflated with his contextual diction, the album is on a whole an authoritative
feel.
Synik conveys to the
listener that he is not rushing anywhere – and he takes his precious time in a
beautifully magnificent yet evocative manner to spread his [social] message.
While Syn City cemented Synik's position within Zim Hip Hop circles as an intelligent, street-conscious, and recalcitrant rapper, A Travel For The Broken rides on a tad contemplative tone throughout – almost as a call to action, “at least open your eyes to these circumstances that break people”, he seems to say.
Syn City put Harare’s postcolonial urban landscape – exclusionary, crime-ridden, straining familial bonds, power cuts, and political/economic repression, disease, manipulation – as one of institutional and moral decay; and its placement in the global context of African exploitation by foreign and local elites. It’s a localized cosmopolitan cry for help.
A Travel Guide For The Broken on the other hand puts the global citizen –
because of neoliberal globalization – into focus; and Synik takes this chance
to highlight his status as the purveyor of the underground where socially-conscious
messages are a mainstay.
To him, the only vehicle to rap what's
truthful and pertinent (thus healing the broken) is loyalty to the underground.
It's a theme that comes out without much sonic and subject-theme contortions.
A Travel Guide For The Broken
is certainly thee travel guide for the broken it was intended to be.
You can listen to A Travel Guide For The Broken by Synik via the Distrokid & Bandcamp links below
https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/synik1/a-travel-guide-for-the-broken
https://synikzim.bandcamp.com/album/a-travel-guide-for-the-broken
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