Spoek Mathambo - Mzanzi Beat Code

The Guardian 80

(Teka Records)

As well as a singer, producer and instrumentalist, Spoek Mathambo is a curator, bandleader and street hawker on his new record, championing talent from across his native South Africa. The country’s various dance styles get triumphant airings: there’s robust, Black Coffee-style deep house on Black Rose, with a closing half-tempo rap that finds spiritual elevation in oral sex; elastic sirens from ghetto-house legends DJ Mujava and DJ Spoko are threaded brilliantly through The Mountain and Pula; there are nods to the stuttering, drum-loaded gqom style, best of all on Sifun’imali Yethu, which features Jumping Back Slash witheringly comparing your wealth to the size of an Oompa Loompa. There is beautiful songwriting, too, with Loui Lvndn feeding in nimble, strangulated soul vocals that blend Busta Rhymes and Sampha, and sister duo Kajama creating a unique ballad in I Found U, as ramshackle guitars twine around another uncertainly propulsive drum pattern. Note to Drake – this is what a “playlist” release really looks like.