Sampa The Great
The Return
Globe-trotting MC’s voluminous, wide-ranging, righteous debut.
BORN IN Zambia, raised in Botswana, schooled in California, currently based in Melbourne, Sampa’s odyssey of self-discovery can barely be contained within her debut’s 19 songs. She walks a Lauryn Hill-esque knifeedge, swinging between rapping and singing, though her pugnacious, gravelly flow is harder and sharper than the Miseducated one, meting out four-on-the-floor black power anthems (Final Form), rousing Afro-funk mantras (Dare To Fly) and M.I.A.-on-poppers sass (OMG). She has a great ear for a hook, while the album’s soft underbelly draws on balmy ’80s boogie and dreamy ’70s soul to inspire its inspirational messages. The Return could do with editing, as its unwieldy 78 minutes risk losing the audience before its finest songs: the epic, autobiographical title track, and the redemptive, gospelsoaked closer Made Us Better. But too much of a good thing is nothing to hold a grudge over. Stevie Chick