Warrior King x MzVee: African Love Single Review By Mr Topple for Pauzeradio.com.
What happens when you sample a classic Reggae track, throw in a global superstar and add some legendary production? Warrior King’s latest track is what happens – and it’s a success all round.
African Love, released via Crawba Productions, sees Warrior King team-up with Ghanaian superstar MzVee and producer Jermaine ‘Crawba Genius’ Henry (of Crawba Productions). King and Henry first worked together on the 2016 cut Moonlight Bright. Now, African Love samples the legendary Garnett Silk’s 90’s hit Hello Mama Africa. But Henry, King and MzVee have taken the hook and created a track that is fresh and cleverly arranged – treading a more traditional Afrobeats path while stopping at some Reggae points along the way.
It opens with a gently tinkering (what sounds like) synth horn: central to the overall track. Henry has heavily engineered it, if it is a synth horn – presumably running a low pass filter across it and then a wobble on top. It runs a staccato melody that is near-identical to the bass line in Hello Mama Africa. It’s cleverly done, and brings that classic hook bang up-to-date. Then there are various Afrobeats devices that Henry has used throughout.
Keneil DeLisser’s drums are one of the drivers of African Love’s Afrobeats vibe – albeit a very unfussy yet effective one. Gone is the usual modern emphasis on a heavy snare, dominant kick and hi-hats, running a stuttering, complex rhythm. Instead, the focus here is on light synths: snaps run dotted on-then-offbeat rhythms; the snare delicately mimics them at time and a tin drum does the occasional roll at the end of each two-bar phrase. But DeLisser and henry can’t help but add a bit of 21st century AfroDancehall to the mix – with a heavy kick striking the first downbeat and then the ‘and-four’ at the end of the bar. This generally light-touch percussion means that African Love feels older skool Afrobeats.
Meanwhile, Henry has also nodded to Reggae throughout African Love. Almondo Douglas’s guitar follows a dotted note riff; you could almost say it’s an embellished skank, which at points breaks out into an attractive melody of its own. Its timbre is whining, presumably with Douglas playing nearer the bridge. Another guitar line also picks up the synth horns’ Hello Mama Africa motif, feeding it through the left input – creating a clever musical aside to Silk’s original; almost like it’s playing in the background.
Then, the gentle balafon runs a half bubble rhythm at points (striking chords on two instead of the usual four offbeats per bar). But it also offers a meandering Afrobeats countermelody, too – making it almost a third vocal line at points. The bass, having lost Hello Mama Africa’s original riff, instead focuses on a winding drop-beat riff, which skips beat four of each bar to give a veritable intake of breath. And MzVee’s chorus directly takes Silk’s original melody and lyrics, and weaves them into this version. Overall, African Love is a clever piece of composition from Henry – neatly paying homage to Silk while avoiding falling into any heavy AfroDancehall traps – keeping the vibe nicely traditional. Then, enter King and MzVee to finish things off perfectly.
Despite recording their individual lines on other sides of the earth due to the pandemic, the two artists marry perfectly together. King himself is crisp and clean across African Love. He delivers a smooth performance in his upper vocal register, with nice rhythmic flow and good attention to details across the melodic gymnastics. King has the air of a Soul singer, here – providing classy vocal runs and riffs along with dynamic light and shade. MzVee marries it perfectly, with attractive improv in the background. Then, she also delivers a performance akin to something Soul. Her voice across the main chorus is extremely pleasing, here – gliding around her mid-soprano range but at times veering on an alto in terms of the richness of her timbre and pitch. Her enunciation is crystal clear; notation precise and her use of note extension and then clipping is intuitively done. And when she moves up into her higher register for the bridge, she shows a real flare for dynamic control – switching up the dB often across the same note and syllable.
African Love is a very attractive offering from all involved. Henry’s composition and production is skilled and sympathetic; intelligently incorporating Silk’s track into the mix. King and MzVee are perfectly placed as a vocal pairing – and the end result is a track which shows the best of both Afrobeats and Reggae – merging two parts of the world, that are intrinsically linked, together. Blissful.
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Warrior King & MzVee African Love review by Mr Topple (28th May 2021).