Sampa The Great The Great Mixtape Cover Art
(Photo by Pritt Siimon)
"It's a search for creativity, laughter, purpose & rhythms." With those four simple terms, Sampa The Great describes her astonishing newest release, "The Great Mixtape." Hailing from Sydney by way of Zambia, Sampa has a penchant for poetry and weaves dense lyrical mazes with her verses, drawing listeners into a lush, imaginative world. Her music bonds from spoken-word to pure hip-hop rapping, with stops at psychedelic and bluesy waypoints in between; it's the sound of an adventurous young mind pushing out against all boundaries. To listen is to learn.
"The Great Mixtape" hits its stride on "Jamal," a bright bit of jazzy hip-hop over which Sampa ignites brainstorms. The entire record was produced by Australian beatmaker Godriguez, who deserves abundant praise for his progressive tones and wide-spanning style. "The Great Mixtape" contains sounds both classic and completely new, like a Digable Planets record that really did arrive from another, funkier planet. Acts like Hiatus Kaiyote and Kimbra have been proving for years that R&B is alive and well down under; now, The Great Sampa and Godriguez have done the same for hip-hop. With such a fantastic new release now logged, we can only expect to hear more and more from Sampa. Downloat "The Great Mixtape" for free via bandcamp, and stream the record in full below. Okayplayer is very proud to present its world premiere--this is something great indeed.
