The August night still has traces of June in it. And that’s because around here, June is less a month and more of an emblem for cold. The small crowd arrives at Pikicha, the venue in Harare to be greeted by walls adorned with abstract paintings of what seem to be locusts. Kuda Rice is already in the crowd, pacing up and down the room, denim jacket drooped below his arms to expose a black t-shirt.
He seems relaxed, but this is undoubtedly a big day for him. After no less than half a decade on the country’s poetry scene, he finally hit the studio to produce a body of work! An Extended Play(EP) titled Beneath The Veil. And boy, doesn’t the first note that comes off of it do precisely that?
This EP is for us of whom have followed Rice for almost as long as he has been active on the scene. Those who have felt at times as though he had hit a plateau and had started to sound the same. To us, this EP was a return to the out-of-body experience we once felt back when he first arrived on the block. Only, we are now older and more demanding. We have listened to mind-blowing projects and then some. His task isn’t minor. It’s definitive, even.
A bar has to be set for the industry, right?
The EP begins with the poem’s character repeating the Shona Proverb “sango rinopa waneta” and then adding “asi rangu ziya ndanzwa nekupukuta.” Rice uses these two lines as strong anchors before swiftly shifting to English. His cadence marks a difference from his usual delivery. Is it the presence of both an instrument and strong vocals in the background that demand he brings more to the table? Maybe, but it’s evident he is negotiating a sharp curve here. His rhythm is undecided about whether it intends to slowly stride into a rap or remain rooted in Spoken Word.
Someone once said true poetry must, in its essence and presentation, always remember that it was once a song. Kuda Rice comes to Beneath The Veil with a clear, even if possibly unintentional, mission to have these two art forms work in service of each other. The instruments foreground and emphasize his imagery. In the lyrics, he has “planted his two feet on earth’s surface” he drags the word feet with musical rhythm, and there starts his play with consonance in his repeated dragged hiss of the ‘s’ sound in the words that come thereafter. All while the vocals and instruments in the background are threatening to swallow his voice, but not quite doing so.
We do not struggle to hear him, yet the notes continue to rise sharper and add urgency to his message. His intro establishes almost all of his central themes. Now we know he is stuck in a valley somewhere searching for his purpose; now we know he isn’t alone because down in that valley, he “sees familiar faces” so maybe we are all down there, searching with him, and maybe above all, he hopes at the end of it all, his “soul becomes a gift that heaven embraces”.
His transition into the second song, the title track, isn’t as smooth as I would imagine it.
After warming us up in the intro, all he needed to do was to keep the mood where it was or improve it. Like, how live performers are arranged in a show, you can’t place a slow act in the middle of a high-tempo performance. His entry into this track, perhaps because he wanted to give context, to me, does so at the expense of musicality.
To me, starting with the definition of the word veil worked well, but as soon as he began to further define it on a personal level, it becomes a dance on the steep edge overlooking a sermon. Luckily, he didn’t fall over it, but that’s because he quickly comes back into the territory he has mastered so well over the years. There, his lyrics gain their ‘poetry’ back, from the “disguises” echo onwards.
“Understand that purity of self can not be sold.
We were born free enough to see that we are in cages,
Understand all that binds us blinds us,
Be tied to all that frees you
And all that frees you demand nothing from you.”
This poem is the most lyrically dense in the Ep, a nod to the Kuda Rice we know on stage. His delivery is with a tempo that rises and falls almost suddenly to let one word be finished in an almost singsong whisper after every few lines. These breaks make his dense delivery digestible and, to some degree, mask that he is packing a lot of lyrics in this particular song. Toward the end, he drives home;
“I hope you see the divine beneath the logic of this story,” because, after all, this is Kuda Rice, and best not forget that he intends in his art to maintain a ‘Kingdom gaze.”
The Poet’s cry is a reminder, mid-EP, or coaxing of the listener, to remember that they are being let into the Poet’s most vulnerable world, being let into a therapy session, and perhaps also being asked to handle this package with care. The entire song is a refrain of the same few words, recited to vocals that sound like how a cry would sound if it turned into a slow song. He asks,” this is a poetic testament. Will you relate to this?”.
Yes, we will.
The EPs high point seems to be The Prayer. for the first time, he braves a more danceable sound. He is not flying at too high an altitude away from the other songs, but he has no doubt injected more life into it, and in it, both he and his producer shine! I more than love the instrumentals and backing vocals to this and how they gather the artist’s lyrics as he prays and both dramatizes and amplifies them. The mood is celebratory; the soundtrack feels as if it’s one that would be played during important celebrations, complete with ululations and loud thuds of the drumbeat.
Fit for a King, fit for prayer.
In Hold On Me, he is again starting with contextualization, though this time context is actually needed, and so it works well. The vocal prowess of Tahle weDzinza pierces through this song and meets Rice’s easygoing, deep voice to form a beautiful union. It’s clear that Rice has changed his writing style to give room for the music to also have centre stage.
Overall, Beneath the Veil manages to do what we hoped it would; that is, break Kuda Rice out of the form and general presentation he has stayed with for a long time now.
It forced him to work miracles with his voice. Lyrically, he stayed within his bandwidth, but his delivery was almost impeccable! It’s been long since I have been this excited about a body of work, (the last time was Nutty O’s album), and I did not dream that the next would be for a Poetry EP. Kuda Rice has won a huge goal for the team. He has made poetry that can be listened to by anyone who appreciates music, and isn’t that the way to broaden the audience for the art?
View this post on Instagram
