Loma Vista レコード& CD

Review: Before recording As Above So Below, her second album, Sampa Tembo decided to move back to her native Zambia after years spent living in Australia. Reconnected with her cultural roots, she set about making an album that brilliantly blends hip-hop and 21st century electronics with native Zambian musical forms and hat-tips to psych, blues and folk. It would be fair to say that it works - and then some - with her chosen lyrical themes and an impressive array of guests (Kojey radikal, Chef 187, Witch, Denzel Curry and Joey Bada$$ included) further enhancing the offering. It sounds and feels like a genuinely landmark album - something that creates something genuinely new and fresh out of disparate musical cultures. In other words, it's a triumph.