King is the latest single from Brucella, the Bulawayo based HipHop artist with roots that stretch from across the Atlantic. It’s her first release of 2023 and it serves as an announcement of her return to the music space. Delivering a dancehall influenced hook complete with patois lyrics, King features Mambo hitmaker and Dej Jam signed rapper Asaph.
King is high tempo, with a dynamic instrumental that has a fervent bounce to it. It doesn’t feel typically HipHop but more like a crossover song with other genres. The song was produced by Muse’s The Balcony Studios making it a song born out of Bulawayo in all it’s elements. As Brucella tells it, it was a collaboration that came together by chance.
The song was a result of self-validation, belief and emancipation to express fully what one is capable of. It cuts across genders and one fascinating thing was that the collaboration wasn’t planned. One day as I had popped by the studio, sampling instrumentals, Mambo Asaph paid a courtesy visit and we were jamming to the beat and started trying out some lyrics till the whole song made sense.
Brucella is quick on her feet, and although her style of rap lacks in punchlines, she has great flow and makes light work of lyricism that would have the average tongue in a twist. After having previously released several projects, Brucella scrapped them from streaming platforms. The artist felt that they didn’t represent the sound and image she wanted so she decided to start over.
Now King might not be the breakout hit that makes Brucella a household name but I see a bit of the vision behind it. She didn’t play it safe, or try to mimic the sounds already dominant on the Zimbabwean HipHop spabut offered up something different. A little rough around the edges but bold.
You can checkout the single “King” here.
