Zimbabwean ZiFM Stereo presenter and music artist PD The Ghost put together a project with an interesting mix of disciplines titled Roses. Roses is an R&B project which has the undertones of Hip Hop, Soul, with a fragment of Jazz here and there. This project really is a mixed bag of genres taking us back to some retro sounds and bringing us back to the new sounds of the 2020s.
Roses comprises of 6 songs, including the intro which could pass as an interlude. The second song is spoken word poetry, which is performed by So Profound. Getting deeper into the first track, there is a dialogue between Pd The Ghost and a woman who gives a discreet idea of who was collaborating
with Pd. Honestly, I feel as though the woman wasn’t present during the recording session and this
audio didn’t give us her best (Don’t get me wrong she is good but she can do better). I think she
could have been more comfortable and natural while speaking. Regardless she was kinda sexy and gave some steam and sex-appeal.
Moving into some of the songs that really stood out .‘
’Iwe neni’’ which featured Prophecy and Nyasha Timbe has a feel-good wave about it. From the vocals sung with vigour and passion, not to the catchy background vocal. The song is full of energy and promotes a message about loving your one and only. Prophecy is present vocally taking the beat ‘by the horns’ and owning it with his aggressive voice. Getting to the end of the song, Nyasha ended the song singing in falsetto but to a certain extent, it started to feel strained. He could have sung that part again. Lyrically, there was depth from both the rapper and singer mainly because the writing style is storytelling or ‘autobiographical’ writing.
‘Biascop’ which starts with GZE luring the ladies into the song using his early morning voice and obvious charm flows into this slow jam. GZE is basically telling us about what he can do for his woman and gives us a brief description of this mystery lady. Signing out of the first verse GZE makes reference to R. Kelly as a joke. Something along the lines of assuring us he isn’t a rapist. This landed flat and made the verse rather distasteful and sapped up all the seduction.
On a brighter note. Fungai Nengare serenaded us with his soulful and alternative vocals while telling us about his erotic ideas. Musically this song has a throwback R&B/Hip Hop style the 90s kids will appreciate. In the words of Urban Groovers, it’s for the ‘Grown and Sexy’. Another song that which had a sensual mood was ‘Mirror Mirror’ which featured Mandisa but honestly, it was shallow lyrically. Of course, the song is meant to be catchy but there was a lack of effort with the lyrics. The instrumentation was a bit bare at times.
Paying attention to the details of this project all round, it is obvious to music lovers that these songs
are inspired by late 90s and early 00s R&B and Hip Hop.
This project deserves a 7 out of 10.
The artists were great, the lyrics could have been given more effort, the instrumentation or musicality was good. A visual representation of this project if well-executed would be pretty dope.
You can listen to PD The Ghost’s Roses on Deezer here
Thanks for this. About to check it out.