Sampa The Great Continues Her Musical Journey of Self-Discovery
Photo by Travys Owen
From the September release of her second full-length studio album As Above, So Below to her “Never Forget” single (featuring Zambian rapper Chef 187, Mwanjè and Tio Nason) being featured in the moving trailer for Marvel’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Sampa The Great’s 2022 has been a stellar one.
The Zambian-born, Botswana-raised artist is a fearless and fierce one, spitting sociopolitical and intercultural themes atop contemporary rap melodies. Sampa first shook the scene with 2015’s The Great mixtape. She followed up with 2017’s Birds and the BEE9 mixtape and 2019’s debut LP The Return, which scored four ARIA Awards. Along the way, Sampa The Great has opened for the likes of Hiatus Kaiyote, Little Simz and Kendrick Lamar. Now, the artist is the main headliner.
“I was talking about this with my sister today and just how wild this is. We started performing in our sitting rooms for our parents and now, we get to perform with each other globally,” she tells EDITION during a rehearsal break over Zoom. “Not only that this dream of being artists has actually come to fruition, but every time you come back home and actually see it happen, It's more so real. We're super happy about it. I get to perform on stage with producer Mag 44 who I got to work with on this album.”
She continues: “In high school, I watched Mag 44. My cousin introduced me to a label called Lota House that released music that sounded like music I'd never heard before. It was our traditional music, but it had other inspiration from around the world that made it new, edgy and cool. I remember seeing that as a teenager and being like, ‘Wow they made our culture feel and look so amazing. I wish and I hope I can do the same.’ Then, to be able to come back home and seemingly be able to make our tradition and our culture look cool has been a huge 360 moment.”
Ahead of her headline Dec. 9 show at Naarm’s Hamer Hall in Australia (which will mark the first opportunity for fans to see the artist alongside her full band from Zambia), Sampa The Great speaks to EDITION about the journey of returning to herself and the importance of legacy.
I know your debut album was called The Return, but I was reading an interview that you did a few months ago where you were saying that this new album kind of feels more like a return home. As a person who is not too familiar with Zambian culture, I get to see your perspective and how you celebrate your culture in this album.
Oh man, that's 100% true. The Return, for me, was the beginning of the journey of returning home. It encapsulated a lot of the struggle of being in Australia as a Zambian artist who's also trying to make it there and being part of a Black community in Australia who are also African Australia. Trying to identify myself as a Zambian within all of that was really hard to navigate, and so I found myself defending my culture a lot of times in the project. With As Above, So Below, I'm now home. I have relocated, I'm surrounded by Zambians, I'm working with Zambians and it's less of a defense and more of a celebration. We're celebrating the fact that we’re home and we can do this.
We're expanding what Zambian music means; we're not trying to recreate it like I was doing with The Return. I hope you feel the joy that comes from not having to defend yourself and always having to defend your culture. That's what As Above, So Below does differently than The Return. The Return is about the defense, the exodus back home, showing that there's a different culture that can be shown in the mainstream, and in that context, it was for Australia, With As Above, So Below, I'm home and I don't have to try and defend that anymore and defend all the layers of being Black but also being African but also not being raised in Australia and just actually be. I really got to shed a lot of the armor that came from defending myself and tap into the joy and into the softness of being Zambian and being African and what comes with it. The love, the joy of our communities and focus more on the soft life.
Soft life always!
The soft life of being Zambian and I think that's what shines through and makes it more of a return than The Return.
What I get from this album is that you're returning home to yourself as well. As you said, you were removing your armor and this album goes into nurturing your own self. There's a personal message here that I think should be highlighted too.
100%, just returning back to the place where young Sampa dreamt of being an artist and why she dreamt of being an artist and just going back into the innocence of this child who wanted to express herself through music. I’m creating a more personal return on top of the return to the actual community and actual countries, all going back to the Sampa who could just express herself without feeling that I had to express myself a certain way 'cause I felt like an ambassador. Feeling like ‘Don't say this because this represents a whole community of people.’ I just created this perfection that doesn't exist and didn't allow me to be the full human that I am. And now that's just not the case. It's just going back to the courageous young Sampa who was able to just express herself regardless. It felt more freeing than the projects before.
Yes, it's almost healing or speaking to your inner child in a way. You've had all these dreams and these wide-eyed visions, and you know as we get older adulthood really smacks us in the face. I think the joy and the happiness that you're seeking on the record connects to what you love and what you enjoyed as a child. Maybe when you first discovered music.
Exactly, that's 100% correct.
One of my favorite songs on the album is “Can I Live?” You do hear some of that defense mechanism a little bit. There's a lyric that stands out to me: “But I'm just no hero. I've been thinking on my path, and I'm stuck on zero”. I'm in my early 30s and when I cross that bridge, it's like, “Okay, I'm not a kid anymore”. But I have all this pressure on me and I feel stuck.
I mean again, feeling pressure to be an adult, an investor, an ambassador of a country that you know you were not raised in. I just feel like again, I didn't allow myself to just be some bum. It often felt like I had to put on sort of this character or this mask to make sure I'm the best ambassador that I could be. That was just not me being my real self. “Can I Live?” is just coming to that point of frustration where you're like, “none of my other artists' counterparts were people of color and Black and they didn’t have to think of themselves in their music in these layers where they can't actually now just make music.”
As Black artists, it's not just about the music we release or how we look in the video or how we represent our culture. It's dissected twice as much as our counterparts, and we always have to constantly make sure that we're doing and sharing our music in a precise way. As an artist who is also Black, there are moments when you want to just express your music. I felt like, “Can I Live?” is me coming to that point where I'm like “I wanna make music right now and not have to think of being an ambassador.” Obviously, I know my music represents more than myself and I'm going to carry it as that but when it starts to turn into not being yourself or trying to fulfill some perfect avatar that doesn't exist, then it becomes a problem. It's mostly me having this conversation with myself. You can’t move forward If you're always trying to be this person. You have to let go of all of this and just be yourself.
Being a Black person in this entertainment business, it's like we're presented with this “role model” title that we never asked for. Just because of the color of our skin, we have to fight 10 times as hard just to meet the minimum. I'm loving what I'm seeing in Black music across all genres just being more carefree and not really worrying about walking on eggshells or meeting requirements. There’s more of a freeing nature with music right now.
The standards are 10 times higher for less of an opportunity. It's definitely a handle-with-care situation; we want to see more of our Black artists on big platforms and we want to be able to nurture them and help them when they’re steered the wrong way, but we also want that love to come with a bit of respect. There are certain lyrics in “Can I Live?”—”Is this love? Is this love? This what I'm feeling?”—like is this love that you're really giving to me as you dissect myself, my hair, my skin, my body as a fellow countryman? Is that really love that you're giving me or you are adding to the double standard that we as Black artists get? There are a lot of messages in that song and it's a really important song for young Black artists going through this industry.
You've been given respect within our Black community. Of course, I must speak about the Black Panther: Wakanda Forever trailer. I know you had to be excited when you heard your song.
I was screaming and yelling. I don't know what my neighbors thought, but that was a beautiful moment for me. Just in terms of a movie that helps to show Black people in a different light and helps to show us through sci-fi as well, helps us in our storytelling. We're not only one thing. I've also always been a huge fan, and you can tell from my videos, of storytelling and showing Black people in a different light, African people in a different light. You can see us as superheroes, and you can see us as as we are just average, normal African people.
Especially with all the negative connotations that come with being African. To be able to see us in a beautiful light is amazing. To be able to see, “Never Forget” added to that and knowing what that song means to me, to the people who worked on it, and the fact that it's an ode to Zamrock legends, the musicians who came before me, they couldn't have been a better song to be picked to continue that. We’re showing homage to Chadwick Boseman as well and continuing the legacy. Everything was just fitting perfectly, and I'm still shook. I still shed a little tear just being part of something that is so amazing. It's huge. Especially for an upcoming artist like me, and I think I wrote it in a tweet 'cause I was so shocked. I was like, “I may not have Billboard charts…”
No awards, no viral video, you're just independent. I think that's the exciting part about it.
Yeah, exactly. The music shone through and connected with the people who are telling the story of Black Panther and that's all you can ever ask for as an independent artist is for your music to reach people and affect them in the same way it affects you.
The song, “Never Forget” is such a perfect match for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever because it’s really paying tribute to the Zamrock artists that you grew up with and celebrating that sound. Then, in turn, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is celebrating Black Panther and Chadwick Boseman and really helping to carry on a legacy.
Just speaking for Zambian and African communities, our stories are usually oral. A lot of that is lost through things shutting down, no access to libraries, no access to our elders. Our history gets lost within that as well, and so music has become this sort of second language for us to be able to carry out history. Being able to be able to connect with each other. I have people listening to afro beats and they don't understand what's being said, but the feel and the vibe, they connect with it spiritually. That's what music is; it's a spiritual language. To be able to bring forth our languages like Bemba and Nyanja into a song that connects to the Black Diaspora and have those little seeds and gems of DNA within that and has other people connect to that. Even people who've never been on a continent are the work that I want to do. It’s what I want to bridge between the diaspora and I'm happy that music allows me to do that. It's so important that this song was in a movie like that and I’m really glad that it was able to connect with people.
I've been learning about Zamrock through your music, especially with this album. What more should people know about it?
Zamrock was birthed from the fusion of traditional folk Zambian music and psychedelic rock. In the time that it was created, it was really like out there because Zambia was very conservative in the 70s. It was a really conservative time and to have our traditional music mixed with rock was wild in that time. The beautiful thing about Zamrock is its folk stories and we could say it’s like blue music. These are folk stories; oral history being passed down and being done in a style that is very riveting and captivating.
Most of those stories were being told by Zambian News. At the time, youth were leading the Zamrock stories; the Zamrock songs. Now, just a year ago, it was the youth who led our government to change. We had a few years of a dictatorship and that was overrun by the youth being like, “We're actually tired of living in the same dictatorship. We're going out to hold this man out.” A lot of the elders were like, “That’s not going to happen” but they really did band together and literally changed our country for the better. So, it's time that we’re looking at a youth-led genre at a time when Zambian youth are speaking up and using their voice to power. Its folk music is led by stories sung and written by the youth, and it makes it so beautiful and powerful because we tap into music that was played decades ago, ancient music that we’re fusing with the music of today. I think that continues the legacy.
Photo by Imraan Christian
Going back to your growth as an artist from The Return to As Above, So Below, as this year is wrapping up, is there anything that you may have learned about yourself?
My biggest lesson was losing that armor and being free enough to let go of any sort of latches to perfectionism because making music is more for me about being free enough to be eclectic, free enough to explore, free enough to challenge yourself, and you can't really do that if you really stuck in one way of doing things, and I think I really needed that armor to be broken down. I really needed to get back into the joy of creating music and I think it's easy to get lost in constantly defending your culture, especially dealing with a country that doesn't have people who look like you and forgetting the joys that come with your culture and the beauty that comes with your culture.
For a while, there was that ‘I'm going to defend the beauty of my culture and the joy of my culture without actually feeling it because I feel like I have to be a soldier for that. Now, I actually get to showcase that culture and experience it as well. I couldn't have done that without releasing that armor. That was a really huge and beautiful lesson that I had this year and also to connect back to my inner child and explore more, and be more adventurous.
I'm sure taking off that armor is just such a big sigh of relief; feeling so much lighter. As we're heading into the new year, is there anything that you may be working on? Is there a tour coming up or anything you want to tease for 2023?
Yes, we do have a few shows lined up for the end of this year. We have Montreal and Australia and we have two more shows in New Zealand to close up the year. Next year, we're actually going to the states in April and I'm looking to really get into putting my visuals to work and getting into a short film more so you may see some Sampa The Great music in more films. Also, just venturing more into short film and storytelling and see my introduction into the film world next year.
Was filmmaking always a passion of yours, or did you kind of stumble upon it as you became a musician?
I actually studied to be a director in San Francisco before I switched to music.
I didn't know that.
I started with directing. I try to keep that to myself. It went to music for visual media and then it was straight-up music; music being the first love and film and visual storytelling always being there. I think as a kid, moving from country to country, you wanna tell the things that you've seen visually through story and the only way you can do that is if you record it. At that time, I didn't have the luxury of having anything to record. As I grew up, it always became a thing. If I'm telling a story through music, there's always a way to tell it visually as well. I definitely want to explore that world more.
