.png)
.png)
Interview: Sampa the Great
Interviewed by Olive McCagh
Nu Zamrock is Sampa the Great’s third studio album and is a record of rebellion, connection and innovation. Blending original Zamrock sounds with modern hip-hop and soul sonics to reflect Sampa’s own transformative creative journey. Having discovered family roots in music and Zamrock, Sampa’s uncle inspired this record, and through constant conversation and knowledge exchange, she co-produced a brand-new sound that reflects both her roots and future. Listeners are guided by the voice of Uncle George, alongside major feature artists such as Sia, KAMAUU, Nicole Gumbe and her own sister Mwanjé, stepping into a whole new world. Sampa crafts with intention and spoke on the significance of her family, how to balance voices and Madonna’s almost feature on the album.
I was wondering what you want people to feel when they listen to Nu Zamrock for the first time?
I want them to feel excited. I want them to feel excited for life, excited that life could take them anywhere and that there’s a destiny for all of us.
What elements and sonics of Zamrock did you aim to reproduce in their most authentic form on the record?
Original Zamrock music has Kalindula melodies in it. Kalindula is a traditional Zambian sound that has Bemba roots, especially from Congolese rumba and we made it our own sound.
I wanted to keep some of those melodies, particularly the guitar melodies that come from that sound. Our time signature, I think we go 6/4 or 3/6, I wanted to make sure we bring that to anything that we were going to recreate and expand. Then from there we added the hip hop music, on the keys and bass and then tried to mesh it all together to create a hybrid sound.
I definitely wanted the original guitar sounds of Kalindula music to remain in new Zamrock as well as the time signatures.
It's such a beautiful hybrid and I feel like it would have been really fun picking the elements that you wanted to hold true. And getting into that experimentation stage, I guess that would have been really fun to do.
That was great.
It was a jam session between the bands and we were just like, ‘Which sound? No, that doesn't sound good. That is crazy.’
It was really beautiful, a great experience.
You’ve included so much context and history inside the album, including dialogue with your uncle. Why did you decide to include his voice on the record?
I think discovering that my uncle was a pioneer and also that I have a family member who's done music and has done it in a way that's so huge perhaps filled this gap. Where I felt like I needed a mentor who was from where I was from.
There was no one in my family at the time who I thought had done music as a career. So, it was definitely something scary and it felt like stepping into a new frontier without any map. So, to be able to discover that he pioneered, but also to ask him questions, go through everything we go through as musicians. All the doubts about doing stuff and the musical journey and to be able to hear his voice really calmed me.
I wanted the listener to get that same impression that this is someone who's finding out something about their family and they're learning as they go. As you're going through the journey of the album, you're hearing his voice as well. He's your uncle too. He's guiding you through the journey of the album and the doubts he has or the fears he has.
He says something like, ‘Music, I can't quit music. No matter if I have a band or not, I can only quit music when I die’. There are just so many revelations in our conversations that I wanted the listener to have insight into.
As if they just discovered their uncle was in music. I wanted you guys to hear his voice or hear his jokes, his laugh. So, you can feel how it would feel to have that mentor with you as well.
Definitely, I think that's really beautiful. You've constructed it so incredibly well throughout this album. He keeps appearing and he really is that guiding light. I think it's great that no one can listen to the album and escape its context and escape the story behind it. It's embedded into it.
How did that conversation go? Did you just sit down with your uncle and press record and ask him questions? How did that come about?
It's crazy. You just reminded me that that conversation was a Zoom call. I was in Australia and he was in Zambia.
We were like, I think we need to have a full-on conversation about music and art. Because you know how elders do, they tell you all the stories and you're like,’ wow, this is amazing. I should have recorded that.’
I thought we needed a dedicated time to actually record the conversations that we were having. Because you're dropping so much knowledge. You're also just guiding me through my process of making new Zamrock and making sure I do that right and pay homage to old Zamrock.
I'd record some stuff for demos, and I’d call him and be like, ‘How does this sound? Does this sound like the old stuff?’ I just wanted everyone to be a part of that conversation.
We decided to record one call it was the longest call we recorded. For an hour, we were talking. I had a friend record the whole conversation. When we were done, I was like, ‘Hey, I may use some of these for the album’.
We chopped it up and it fits so well, it just made sense. Especially to begin the album with his voice and him saying, ‘I've been hearing what you're doing. It sounds like you're on the right track’, and then Jack starting the album.
You get to see how me and his relationship is during the whole process of creating new Zamrock.
I'm really excited about all of the feature artists on your album. I was wondering what attracted you to the artist who featured on Nu Zamrock?
With KAMAUU, I've just always loved the way he creates music, particularly how he pays attention to melodies, call-and-response, and chants. I feel like that's something that I've always been able to do. We connected, I think, in 2022 or 2023 while I was touring. And he just reached out, and he was like, ‘I love your music. I want to work on something together’.
But outside of that, we've just always been constantly talking. Talking about music and talking about how we can level up or experiment with sounds. We were always just on the same wavelength with what we wanted to do with music.
When we were in LA recording bits of this album, he happened to drop by, and we played him some stuff. The way he just rapped on ‘Star’, I was like, ‘This actually has to be in the album. There's no way I'm just going to let this sit in a vault somewhere’.
Just the connection and chemistry with musicians. Once it clicks, it's so rare that you want to make sure you give it a special moment. And Kamau was definitely that connection.
Then with my sister Mwanjé, that's always a given. There will be one time when she's like, ‘I actually don't want to be in your album’. She’s an amazing musician in her own right and a great songwriter. It's definitely Mwanjé who I look to ask about chorus, melody lines and harmonies. She's really amazing with those. We got to do a song together with ‘Can't Hold Us’ and she did amazing and killed that.
My friend Nicole, who happened to have sung ‘Black Girl Magik’, is also featured in this project. Her voice is amazing. Definitely her and Mwanjé are who, in my beginning projects, I'd look to for harmony guidance. I always consider myself a songwriter versus a singer. I know what you should sing or what harmony lines you should sing, but if you're asking me to be a soprano, that's crazy.
Nicole's always been super gracious with her songwriting and her voice, and she came to one of the studio sessions we had in Botswana. She did this amazing interlude and basically all of us in the studio were just teary-eyed. We made it its own track, i's called ‘Nicole's Interlude’. I think once people hear that, that's going to be in some meditation sessions for sure. It's really beautiful.
We also did a song called ‘Gone’, that I think is also a different take on how I've expressed myself musically. I think it may be one of the tracks that people were like, ‘I didn't know you could make music like that’.
And then last but not least, the amazing, incredible Sia, which is still shocking to this day. Oh my gosh, just an amazing songwriter, amazing vocalist. A great connection by my co-executive producer Cadenza.
My sister and I were singing some demos to him. And he loved it. And I remember we were talking about the different harmonies singers usually do. A lot of people either study classical or jazz and we were just talking about how differently we use our voices chorally on the African continent. We talked about Angélique Kidjo and we talked about modern contemporary music and amazing singers we know and Sia came up in the session. He sneakily took the demo and sent it to one of Sia's producers and she loved the demo.
And actually, this is a little sneak peek into that conversation; it was Sia and Madonna in the studio session. So, this is an exclusive because nobody knows this.
It was Sia and Madonna in that session. Madonna wanted the track as well, and I'm just like, ‘This sentence is not normal. This is not a normal conversation we're having’. And Sia finally got the track and did her take on it, which was amazing. It wasn't just like little snippets.
She was singing, singing, which I appreciate. She treated us like her peers and was really collaborative on all the notes that we had. It was never a thing of, ‘Oh my gosh, this is Sia; we don't want to say anything’. Just super collaborative, which for young artists like us, that means the world. Our notes and our opinions can be taken seriously.
I just love what we were able to create and love that we were able to give something that I think the audience didn't think we could give. It meshes so well and fits so well within the album. You'd think that we started the whole album together. Which I love when songs come together like that.
It was a pretty amazing experience. And I'm really grateful that she's featured on it.
How do you go about balancing two voices when you're collaborating on tracks?
Yeah, that's a really great question. The features are quite scary for me because you want to make sure both voices are represented. It's a proper balance between whoever's involved to make sure everyone feels heard. I think that comes about by really talking about the song and how you feel and who you are as artists before you actually get to creating. Just to know where you both sit before you collaborate.
I think creating a safe space before the music is merged together has always been a thing for me. Whether it's with musicians or producers, before we sit down and produce this thing, ‘Where are you in your life? What are you listening to?’ Just so we can have that synergy before we get into a studio.
I've found that usually helps balance the work. Helps us respect each other's opinions and what people want to chop and where people see themselves at. It makes for a very collaborative process that ends up with a really balanced song. It really is about connecting first: musically, emotionally, before actually getting into the production of the work.
You co-produced this album with producer Mag44. How did hopping in the production seat change your ability to express yourself on the record?
Mag executive produced the last album, As Above, So Below and in some of the sessions he was like, ‘Do you know you're actually producing?’ And I was like, ‘Oh, I just thought I was annoyingly giving my commentary throughout your production’. And he told me that what I was doing was actually being involved in production. ‘This is co-production’.
Mag has a school, and he has a programme called Girls Making Beats that really advocates for women producers. It's just always been a thing for him to be like, ‘Hey, you're producing. You should credit yourself or get to a point where you want to credit yourself as a producer. Because you're not just hopping on a track and rapping. You're arranging. You're building from the ground up. You're adding instruments. You're removing instruments. You are part of the production process'.
He really encouraged me and gave me confidence to be able to say I'm a producer. And from there, I was like, ‘OK, the next project I'm going to produce’. And I really did take my time, especially after finding out about my uncle and the creation of Zamrock.
To be like, ‘What sound do I want to make with this project?’ And being intentional about the mixing of old Zamrock with some hip hop, rap, and soul. And deciding what else I wanted to add into it, which is experimental.
So, sitting down, creating a sonic soundscape with my band and my producers, as I always do for other projects, but being very intentional. Everyone was really attentive and created a safe space for me to feel like I could break down different songs and how I wanted to go about it. It was a really great process, but I think this time around the difference was actually labelling it.
I'm assuming you've played this album to your family and to your uncle. I was wondering what that was like. How did your uncle react to hearing his voice on the album and the sounds of Zamrock?
I was very nervous playing it for my uncle. I played him ‘Catch If You Can’, which he loved, and ‘Canary’, which he was like, ‘Okay, this is where I saw you taking this sound. This is the direction’.
They've been, and they being Mr. Jagari, who's the lead singer of Witch, have been very supportive. Throughout the process, have been super supportive of taking it wherever. Even the fact that I want to keep Zamrock in there, they're like, ‘Switch it out. Do whatever you want’. They're not even giving me any restrictions. As I mentioned, they've been proud of where the sound has gone to. So, it was really nerve-wracking showing them but getting their response of how supportive and how confident they were in the new sound made me really happy because I did want to do it justice.
And then my mom was just like, ‘Yeah, this is cool’. And then she goes, ‘What are you saying?’ Because my mom can't hear rap that well. She's thinks it's too fast, but she loved it. I gave her some headphones, played the whole thing front to back. She loved that Uncle George was in it.
My dad loved that Uncle George was in it as well. Yeah, my sisters love it. Mwanjé loves ‘Simon Says’. It's great seeing the family excited because obviously they heard me make music before anyone made music. And the fact that they're excited about the journey makes me excited as well. So, it's a positive review so far.
I read that you consider yourself an artist first. You're not a brand and you really are honing in on protecting your artistry. So, I was wondering how you prioritise your musicianship and your artistry over the inner workings of the industry and its pressures?
You know, it's really about having moments during creation when nothing else influences it. I'm definitely an artist where if a person from the business is coming into the session, I'm like, ‘No, not yet’.
We have to keep the art, the art.
Over time, there's always a push on how to make it marketable, how to do this or do that. And I think you kind of lose the essence of music, especially in this really tech-heavy AI time. You want to make sure what you're expressing isn't ones and zeros.
It's something that actually has emotion and feel. The only way to do that is when it's not constrained or restricted or controlled. So, I do make sure during those times of creation, there isn’t heavy input, especially from people who are not musicians, just to get the pureness out of what the music is.
I know sometimes that's not the best when it comes to everyone. You know, we're working with the label and so on, but to be able to be different or give this expression of music, it definitely has to be done in a way that preserves the expression at all costs.
So, I try to make sure those spaces are just meant for that.
Nu Zamrock is out now via Loma Vista Recordings
Buy/stream here
