ZAMBIA STAND UP!
To be honest unless Ive missed have the hundreds of songs posted on GetMziki I honestly cant think of us posting a ZAMBIAN track. But it feels naturally okay today considering JK is all over the news, press, tv, cable, internet(s) and so forth after his ONE 8 selection. Its amazing that over the last few weeks as I was getting more acquainted with Zambian sounds and music I realized that there is a whole movement of music in Zambia that I personally have slept on for months.
It kinda pisses me off though when I think of what the One 8 has become or is doing. I know some folks who read GetMziki wont agree and I wont bore you with my gory details. However I find it sad that they took some of Africa’s greatest talents including people like JK who normally sing in their native Bemba, took them to the US, branded some initiative 8 wonderful artists under one continent and then made all these cats sing in ENGLISH!!!!.
To me personally as a music enthusiast and as an advocate of local music and local talent I felt like Rockstar and Sony kinda just slapped us in the face. I was excited with the initial project coz I thought they would make all these cats create some phenomenal African sounds that could cross borders. But the whole “we are the world feel” added with a grain of R.Kelly frankly irked me or bored me. I don’t even like the DAMN song…
You cant compare that with this banger am about to upload KAPIRIPIRI. No disrespect to anyone at Rockstar and Sony Records but real talk – African music is unique because its not flavored by any western influence as such. Even if we do hiphop – we tend to flourish on local flavored hiphop – the Genge, the Bemba, the Zouks, the Bongo Flava, the Kwaito…. The Coupe de Cale… Soukous.. lets make our own sound. I know there is a way to create what we used to have back in the 80’s with akina Franco and TP OK Jazz Band and so forth. We just need to dig deeper and understand what Africa has to offer. We cant reinvent what is in the US in Africa, we need to create our own business models, our own music our own sound…. For me thats what makes us different and unique. Man They put Ali Kiba on a track and had him singing English… dudes never sang a word in English his entire music career. I mean really!!!
Anyway let me stop ranting. Am killing this post – the objective here was to showcase what DJ Dulo TOLD Me is FIYAAAH. Big shout to DJ Dulo for holding it down and also for putting me up on game. Much love – here is JK doing what he does best.
Haters fall back! Zambians have for a long time held the view that the wonder boy from Ndola (JK) should stick to singing in his native Bemba to avoid embarrassing the Zed people by using the Queens language in his musical exploits. But guess what, he recently as part of One8 teamed up with r Kelly (yes the R Kelly) for the smash hit hands across the world which the legendary R Kelly calls ‘one of the greatest things he has ever done!’ Zambians look out for the pied piper of R n’B at a Zed location near you in December 2010.
listen to Kapiri piri here:
[audio:http://files.getmziki.com/JK_Feat_Salma-Kapiripiri.mp3]download the track here :
[Right click and hit save target as]
watch the video here:
