Sampa the Great is one of the most important emerging talents in hip-hop, if you can even call it that. Her 2015 release, The Great Mixtape, was astonishingly varied, especially for a mixtape. Echoes of funk, ambient electronica and even the kinds of scratchy, twisted soundscapes you might have heard on an early Nine Inch Nails interlude.
Her lyrics, meanwhile, are so thickly layered and nuanced that it takes a few listens to really grasp what she’s driving at, and even when you do, there’s usually still plenty of room for interpretation. Sampa is originally from Zambia (currently based in Australia), and her cultural identity plays into both her lyrics and her sound. Her vocal style falls somewhere between Soom T and, dare I say it, Kendrick Lamar, with a kind of fluctuating, rapid fire flow which fires out four syllable words with just as much potency as every well timed ‘fuck’.
Now signed to Ninja Tune offshoot Big Dada, she’s put out a new single, entitled ‘Rhymes to the East’. Allegedly, Sampa got the bars in one take, having been so captivated by the beat when she heard it. “As soon as I heard this beat, I knew exactly what I wanted to say.” She explains. “I was immediately transported to the East.”
Having already notched shows supporting Thundercat, Kendrick and her fellow Aussie residents Hiatus Kaiyote, and now she’s embarking on a European tour in support of Joey Bada$$.
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