Vusumzi Nkomo
All scribblers and art critics, in the Cape at least, should all be ashamed of how we’ve all kept quiet, for an entire year, and said nothing about Free Tape, Nkosi X's debut full-length project. As Abel, in Papa Ramp’s Bird Monk Seding laments, it is quite criminal!
By a long shot, the LP, released independently on the 27th of April 2018, far surpasses most Hip Hop projects birthed last year. On the 26th, on a rainy late afternoon, the artist hosted a public/free listening session of the music hours before it dropped; the beats on the LP and those that never made it to the final project, beautiful vocals and raps, a series of images both candid and conceptual, raw-unedited videos- breaking bread over beer and banter. (Think here of the Last Supper; mere mortals dining with divinity only to fail/betray the benevolent Host! It's blasphemy this thing!)
The album, composed of 16 songs, is a negation of any rigid formulae and archaic approach to music-making; but it lands itself as the main target of purists’ hate for the New Age. The clarity of its creative vision is astonishing; from ‘Triangles’ (an ode to a loved one, vocals and brutally honest raps filled with a young Black man’s vulnerability and promises punctuated by 'VNs' of a seemingly speechless + unidentifiable young womxn who’s laughter warms the song), to ‘Stay’ (a song that marinades you with a melancholic Sax by Albany Lore and vocals that once in a house party in Belha a young woman thought were Frank Ocean’s), ‘Explain’ (vocals laced with acoustic strings quite playfully with no care of whether they are out of tune or not), Nkosi establishes himself as a musician with soul and bare honesty.
Notable songs include the radio-worthy club banger ‘Angel Dust’ with TravIS BlaKk, the roof-blowing and politically charged ‘Osiris’ (Produced by Tumi), ‘Bright’ (an ode to Erykah Badu), as well as a weeping introspective hymn, a ‘sandwiching’ of Nkosi’s and Rachel Mallett’s vocals that can send any grown person into unstoppable waterfall of tears.
Nkosi X will be performing at the Raptor Room in Cape Town on the 11th of May, for his first solo show in the City.
Listen to the Free Tape here: https://open.spotify.com/album/3MLQZVtpiRkBeRQ0T5TQKG
Other social media links:
FB: @X Masett
Twitter: @XVNTURA
IG: @xvntura
Youtube: Nkosi X
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