Reviewed by Ian Phillips.
By Sampa The Great, Ninja tune 2020.
I find it difficult to comment about hip-hop/rap with any definitive voice.
It’s not a musical form that I’m comfortable with mainly because I know little about it.
With most other forms of popular music I have a shared culturally acquired knowledge, a history if you like, to draw upon when analysing the product but, despite some effort on my part, I’m still a novice when it comes to hip-hop.
And yet Final Form has somehow found its way under my skin.
Sampa the Great is a young Melbourne based Zambian-born Australian singer/songwriter who burst onto the scene in 2019 with the release of her album The Return.
Final Form is the second single to be lifted from that album.
So what is it about this song this made me sit up and take notice?
On the surface Final Form follows the usual hip-hop format that punctuates spoken word verses with choruses that are often sung. These lyrics are performed over a musical backdrop that is heavy on the rhythm, which is more often than not electronically produced, and mostly light on melody.
While this is still largely true about Final Form there is something that has drawn me in, and that ‘something’ is that there is much more musicality to Sampa’s production than is normally the case with hip-hop, and rhythmically it’s more intricate, which probably reflects Sampa’s Zambian heritage.
Hip-hop has become the musical form of protest for this generation and it is totally understandable that black artists from around the world have been quick to adopt it as their form of musical expression.
Music has played an important part in furthering the causes of freedom, equality, and justice throughout the generations.
For those of us who grew up in the 1950-1960’s it was folk and performers like Bob Dylan, Peter Paul and Mary, and Pete Seeger were household names.
However, for black artists it was jazz, gospel and blues.
To understand the role that hip-hop is now playing I recommend that you listen to Nina Simone’s Strange fruit, Louis Armstrong’s Black & Blue, and Marvin Gaye’s What’s Goin’ On.
These are powerful protest songs that range through jazz, blues and soul styles.
Final Form takes its place in the long line of songs about injustice and that’s why it has touched me.
