Song Exploder - Sampa the Great - Let Me Be Great (feat. Angélique Kidjo)

Episode Date: December 21, 2022

Sampa The Great is a songwriter, rapper, and singer from Zambia. She was based in Australia for years, but came back to Zambia in 2020, shortly before the pandemic hit. When she couldn’t travel, she decided to make her next album there in Lusaka. The album is called As Above, So Below, and it was produced by Mag44. In this episode, Sampa the Great and Mag44 break down the closing song "Let Me Be Great," which features vocals from legendary West African singer Angélique Kidjo, winner of 5 Grammys and one of TIME’s Most Influential People. I got to speak to Angélique Kidjo in her studio in Paris, and I spoke to Sampa the Great and Mag44 in Lusaka. Together, the three of them tell the story of how they made "Let Me Be Great." For more, visit songexploder.net/sampa-the-great.

You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs, and piece by piece tell the story of how they were made. I'm Rishi Kesh Hirway. This episode contains explicit language. Sampa the Great is a songwriter, rapper, and singer from Zambia. She was based in Australia for years, but came back to Zambia in 2020, shortly before the pandemic hit. And then when she couldn't travel, she decided to make her next album there in Lusaka. The album is called As Above So Below, and it was produced by Mag 44. In this episode, Sampa the Great and Mag 44 break down the closing song, Let Me Be Great,

which features vocals from legendary West African singer Anjali Kijou, winner of five Grammys and one-of-time magazine's most influential people. I got to speak to Angelique Kijo in her studio in Paris, and I spoke to Sampa the Great and Mag 44 in Lusaka. And together, the three of them tell the story of how they made Let Me Be Great. I'm Sampo Tembo, also known as Sampo. of the great. I am Magnus Mando, also known as Mag.

I actually was a huge fan of Mag 44. Loved his work. He was part of a label called Lota House. The stuff they were doing when they came out to me was like, oh my gosh, Zambians can do music like this. This is wild. To me, like set the standard in my head as this high school kid who wanted to do music beyond where I'm from.

And Mag was given my songs by my cousin Stephen. And my cousin told him that this is an artist who's amazing. You'd want to work with this artist. And Mag literally ghosted the messages and was like, I have important celebrity things to do. I don't have time for this little university girl who's trying to rap. Tell your side of this thing. To be fair, anyway.

So yes, this is the way my line of work is I get a lot of people who say, oh, there's this artist who's amazing. He just said, oh, there's a cousin of mine who's an amazing artist who's doing amazing things in Australia. So then I'm like, okay, you know. It's very difficult for me to sort of listen to every single person. So now when I heard her music, then I was like, wow, this person is not just being a pop artist. She's someone who's trying to change minds and change hearts. Here in Zambia, we've got this term called Zambia Kuchalo, which is basically taking Zambia to the rest of the world.

It's something that we say, but not a lot of us do something about it. And Sampa definitely had that energy because I'm like, this girl, every performance, she has the Zambian flag on her mic stand. And, you know, those are things that sort of made me feel like, man, like, I wasn't even thinking production-wise because I thought that ship already sailed. I thought now she's too big to even think about me. So I was just now just happy to just watch on her Instagram just to see her evolve and change things. At one point in time, you reached out to me via DM or I reached out to you and I was just like in future I'm going to work with this person.

And when I relocated back during the pandemic, you know, I couldn't get back to Australia. And I think at that time I was like, okay, if I'm in Zambia, I can't get back to Australia. What am I going to do here? And I just decided to work on music. We decided to work on music, and that music slowly turned into a project.

Sampa was big on, like, let's almost create a new genre with this album. I sent through a soundscape to Mag. The guitar sounds I wanted, the drum sounds I wanted, the minor chords that I wanted, and how generally I wanted the album to sound. So none of us were thinking that we're going to go into the studio and just make a purely R&B or purely hip-hop or purely Afrobeat. We knew that no matter what's going to happen,

they will be a fusion of sounds here. So I went into the studio, got the sax player, Arthur, who is an amazing guy. So he played that sax line. And then I started building the beat with the two other guys who were with us. So that's Sam Niambe and Sammy Master. And then Sammy, who's the lead guitarist. And then Sam, who's the keyboard player. You know, the saxophone gave me that like real Afro beat, like the old Felakutti Afro beat.

And of course, you can't have Afro beat without the shaker. Now we thought, okay, how do we add elements of what is Zambian? And the guitar did that very well. That's kind of like Kalindula, but it also has a Lohsi sound, Lohsi which is one of the tribes here in Zambia. So when we built the beat, I think I sent it to you. I sent it to you and then she didn't respond. So I was like, I mean, I think this is probably the greatest beat I've ever made in my life.

When I first heard Let Me Be Great, it was after two weeks of back-to-back studio time. So I'm already like flying high. I'm like, we've made the bulk of this album. This music is dope. And I'm leaving, I think I went to Botsana or did I go? Oh, you know what I think you went for? I think you went for the NPR. Oh, the tiny desk.

Yeah, the tiny desk. Yeah, yeah. So that was for a month. And there's usually a disconnect after, you know, you leave the studio after working on music for a long time. And then I get sent this beat. And let me tell you what was going through my mind. I was just like, overwhelmed.

I was overwhelmed and thought, I don't know if I could write to this because it's really grand. the song was very uplifting, very bright. And I was like, okay, how does this fit into the story I'm trying to capture for this album? How does this music align with the music I'm trying to express for this album? And I was like, this is not dark enough. We're talking about struggles. But again, the aim of this project was to show all facets of me.

So show the influence from Botswana where I was raised, show the influence from Zambia, and show me outside of the range of anger or defending culture, which was usually the case for the past projects because I was based in Australia. So a lot of the messaging around the past projects was, okay, I'm defending my Zambian culture, or you're introducing them to black music that is usually put on the side in Australia.

I'm showing, you know, black African artists in Australia in the mainstream, and a lot of it became what I call defense music. Like my lyrics, I found the themes were always circling around defending my culture. And that's dope and all. But when that is a constant thing, you can't actually enjoy the beauty of your culture because you're always in defense mode. You're always defending it. And I just wanted to do more than that.

And when I got, Let Me Be Great, it was like the opposite. It was so bright, so beautiful, so grand that I knew that I had to. to prepare to write for it. So the times where I wasn't responding to Mag was me actually thinking, how am I going to execute bringing the message that I want for the album in its entirety, but still catering to the part of me

that finds the joy and love of my culture outside of the defense of my culture? You know, and that's a beautiful theme that I couldn't explore previously. I'm one of those artists who sort of record gibberish on their phones just to get the initial reaction to a beat. And I know I'm going to go back the sense, many, men, they, but the shunny, jambi, so I'm

saying that, so I'm saying that's like, st. And I know I'm going to go back, listen to that flow, and add words to the flow. With the verse, I wanted to take on a more spoken storytelling than fully wrapped. and all the ad libs and all the bravado. It didn't need that. The music was doing that for it. All I have to do is give the listener a direction of what the story was about.

You know, we struggle with this journey of pursuing our passion, but we are victorious on the other side if we continue at it. These only are the signs. Many men let to their own devices. Tell the story living at the cries. Many men left to their devices. Tell the story leaving out the cries. You know, you always hear about someone being victorious,

but you never hear the sad part of the story. You never hear the sad part of their journey. And then after that, it was like, shucks to be the boss, the hunter should be licking at my balls. I'm lying, I'm king. My mom doesn't like this line. The hunter should be licking at my balls. I'm lying.

I'm king. I'm the one who's directing my journey. I'm not the hunter in this story. I'm the lion. I shouldn't be scared of the hunter. This is my kingdom. This is my journey. And sort of, yeah, just guiding the listener through a shared sort of

human experience of struggling through something that you want to achieve, and we're talking about that together. You know, I struggle through this part of my story. A lot of people won't tell you the tears they've gone through with their story, but I'm still here. I want to be the author of this story. And so we're going through that story together, listener and, you know, writer. Man, applause. I'm feeling it. But the course, and what is the cost? I'm healing. I'm dealing with my hero's old. She didn't know my flaws. When I was younger, you was on my goals. now which replaced this, there will never be another me, nigger. So I figured I could call my own pastoring.

I'm an exhibit on my name. I'm Sammy, I'm Timbo, I'm Eve, I'm Shampa, I'm great. And then came the chorus. It just felt like you finally reached that realization that you can do it. All these obstacles are happening, but let me be great. That's my sister and my cousin. There's an organ in there. It's percussive.

And an organ is unlikely to be used as a percussive instrument. But it gives the whole beat movement. In the second verse, I was speaking to up-and-coming artists. And you can never fail, where even when you're far, you prevail. And you can never lesson with a lesson. We do actually get into the bitterness of being a young artist who, you know, is inspired by all these idols, but is disappointed also with the lack of guidance.

What's something said, stay in your lane. If I stayed, I'd be playing with them little wine books singing Tupac Hook still ignoring. The fact that the queen named Lauren said that you can conquer any hill. That's how I feel. That's how I feel. The reason I named myself Sampa the Great was because of the self-doubt. But if I was going to take on being an artist,

I'd want to be the greatest version of myself. So that's where the great came from. And calling the song, Let Me Be Great. It's sort of like a play at words. Like, let me actually step into my own greatness and create my own path. Remember when there's doubt, fear. You would have your voice in a sign in your ear. You can time travel any month any year.

You're the greatest, yeah, I told it because it's what you need to hear. Yeah, I'm going to be great. We would laugh in the studio. We'd be having like a heck of a time. And I listen to the songs and I'm like, these sound really good to me but do they sound good because I'm having so much fun are these actually like good songs

we've been just laughing throughout so the beginning of Let Me Be Great was done by Sam Nyambing the keyboard player and one of the main collaborators of the album who is just known to joke like he's getting paid for it like he's getting paid for it and so I walk into the studio

they play the track And I think Wow, the beginning of this track Just sounds so spiritual Sounds, you know What language is this? It almost sounds South African What's the beginning of this track?

And then Sam laughs for a good Like five minutes And he's like, okay, you have to actually Play this backwards And I'm like, what? Play the intro backwards. And we're like, okay. You

You Ha ha ha ha ha Oh no So I'm here thinking I thought this intro was so moving Like the perfect intro into this song About uplifting And here Sam goes

Just say hey you ain't got nothing on a niggum And sadly enough I already got used to it So I said let's Let's hope nobody Rewinds this in it When we were in the studio we were trying to think, okay, how do we end this song?

Because Let Me Be Great is so grand and so cinematic, it felt like we needed a summary. So it started with the... Ma, yeah, yeah. But we didn't know how to circle that back to the song, and I think Simon was just like, why don't we say the chorus again? But we can't say the same way we've said it

because it's very repetitive. Like, how do we switch up the melody? And he's like, okay, say twice. Let me, let me be great. And we're like, ah, that's dope. Do that again. You know, for a minute there, it was just me. No mentors, no family member who understood the musical journey or the music industry.

So it's, they sort of a young disappointment, which is funny enough because the person who ended up featuring on this song is now my mentor. Hey, my name is Angelo. the Kiju, I'm a singer-songwriter from Benin, West Africa. The first time I heard Sampa the Great was at NPR Tiny Desk. I mean, the artistry around it. The theme was an at-home performance. And, you know, we thought,

what better way to do an at-home performance than showing that we're at-home wearing our traditional fabric and really, like, putting our country on the map? And everyone was like, yeah, let's do it. When I watched that, I'm like, whoa, her boldness is just like, I am a queen. I am a goddess. And I will do whatever I want to do. It reminded me in myself when I started it, having that confidence, not knowing where I was going, starting my career. But the fear was always a strength for me because I'm like, I would stumble. I will fall, but I will always grab myself back up and continue. And that confidence, I found it in Sampa. I look at my Instagram and I get a DM from Angelique Kijol.

So I'm just like, first Angelique uses Instagram, wow. Then I'm like, a legend is DMing you. She broke open the doors of Afro Pop, Afrofusion and Afrofuturism. She was one of the first. And allowed young African artists to see our culture

and our music as something not to be ashamed of or demonized. A lot of the times it was like, okay, you have to talk like this. English speaking music is the best music. And that was just not the case for Angelique. She was going to sing in her language. She was going to wear her cultural clothes. Like she was going to make it cool to be African. And to me, as a young girl, seeing that, I was like, oh, so it gave me permission to do the same.

Right. So it's a pretty big deal. So I'm screaming there, squealing, showing my sister. she's like open it I'm like no I don't have the strength I don't I don't think I can take what's on the other side of this DM and so I finally sit in the studio I open the DM and she's like that NPR tiny desk performance was beautiful I would love to work with you I'm making an album and I would love you to be on it I'm like without any breath thank you so much love you an inspiration to me I'll get it done today like really just showing me

my love for her music. And around that same time, we're working on Let Me Be Great. And so I'm like, hmm, I might as well ask her to be on my album as well. And she goes, I love the song. Because at this young age, she already quickly understanding

that in order to make an impact, you have to be deeply knowledgeable about yourself and also realize the world we live in, greatness has no boundaries, has no color, has no gender. When you're an African artist and you're a woman African artist, people have so, you cannot be modern. I went for the same thing. When I did my first album, it was too modern for certain people that want us to be put in a museum.

Modernity is not for African people because people have been fed so many negative narrative about African artists. We have to be traditional. We have to do traditional music. It's like we have to be put on a shelf of a museum. Modernity is too advanced for us. And that song was like, no, let me be great because I am great. She added her chorus to the chorus we had already made.

And I remember listening back to it, and we heard her vocals, and we took our vocals out. We're like, okay, you don't need this. You don't need these. Oh, we need is angelie. I mean, her voice was so. Her voice, she holds, I think, you know, the ancestral way of singing. I did the main voice and I did the backing and then I did harmonization that I have to do. And then she added a beautiful twist to the outro in her language.

I'm singing in the language called Yoruba because my mom and my mother's mother, they are from Nigeria, the southern part, the Yoruba tribe. What I'm saying is, let me be the woman that you look up to. Let me be the leader of my own life. Let me be whoever I want to be. The point that I wanted to bring to the tale is that we can say let me be great in other languages too. Angelique to me today is my mentor. We do talk a lot. We exchange thoughts.

And to be honest, it feels like a great manifestation. Maybe this is already the case, but are you ready to be someone else's mentor? I think more so as I grow, I'm getting myself ready to be somebody else's mentor. My hesitation is just making sure I don't pass down any feelings. or doubts to my mentee. But when I came home, I was surrounded by Zambians. I was surrounded by Zambian musicians. I didn't have to, you know, go above and beyond

to make sure that I was seen. So when we were working on music, I knew that I was working with people who understood the language of this music because they were raised on it as well. And when I finally convinced myself to write to let me be great, when you showed the beat to me the thousandth time,

Yeah, it became less about defense music and more about joy music. And now here's Let Me Be Great by Sampa the Great featuring Anjali Kijo in its entirety. Johnny are the signs, many men led to their own devices. Tell the story living at the crisis. Maybe, Semy, uh, quite shucks to be the boss. The hunter should be licking on my bores. I'm lying. I'm king, man, I'm bloge.

I'm feeling it by the course of what is the cost I'm killing. I'm dealing with my hero. So she didn't know my bros. Younger you was all my goals now was replaced this. There will never be another me, nigger. So I figured I could call my own past story. I'm an exhibit on my name. I'm Sammy, I'm Timbo, I'm Eve, I'm Shumper, I'm great.

Remember when this doubt and fear, you had your voice in a song in your ear. Making time travel any month any year, you're the greatest, yeah, I told you because it's what you need to hear young, Tumble be great. Ever, ever, ever, and ever, never, ever, I'm a beat, great. Hey, you can never feel, where you know when your file you prevail

And you can never lesson with a lesson and I've been pressing So it's not about impressing, I'm expressing and every pep I pay still stressing Or something's there, stay in your lane if I stayed I'd be playing with them little wine books Singing two-pock hooks they ignore it in fact that the queen ain't blur it Said that you can conquer any hill that's how I feel that's how I feel My vision I'm impeccable every strain gained every stage detectable Look into the future full vision no spectacle It's legacy

It's what I see Remember when there's doubt Fear You would have your voice In a song in your ear You can time travel Any month any year You're the way this year

I told you because it's what you need to hear Yeah I'm gonna be For more visit Visit songexploder.net You can find links to buy or stream Let Me Be Great Plus you can watch the music video And you can watch Sampa the Great's

NPR Tiny Desk concert Before we sign off I just want to mention That this is the last episode of the year This is the end of the 9th season and ninth year of Song Exploder. And I just want to thank you for listening. And I want to thank all the amazing musicians who've shared their stories on the podcast this year. We're going to take a few weeks off and then we'll be back in late January. I have a new album of my own coming out on April 24th.

It's been about 15 years since I last put out a full length. And this is the first one that'll be out under my own name, Rishikesh, Her Way. I started making Song Exploder when I was feeling lost in my own music career. And then for over a decade, I've gotten to have these incredible conversations about the process of making music, talking to other artists, and it made me completely rethink my relationship to music and my way of writing songs. And this album is the product of all of that. It features contributions from some of my favorite artists, including some folks that you may have heard on this podcast, like Iron and Wine, Kevin Morby, Vagabon, Fenlily, and the producer Phil Wine Rope. I'm going to be on tour playing in cities across the U.S. starting

in April, and I'm trying to bring the spirit of the podcast with me. So every show that I'm playing will begin with a conversation about the album with a different amazing guest moderator in each city, like Adam Scott, Samin Nasrat, Jason Manzuchas, Josh Molina, Minjin Lee, Ken Jennings, John Roderick, Austin Cleon, and more. They're all going to be my conversation partners on stage, and then I'll play with my band. The album is called In the Last Hour of Light, and the first couple songs are out now. You can, listen to the music and get tickets for the shows on my website, rishikesh.co.co. Or just go to songexploder.net slash live. That's songexploder.

net slash live. Thanks. Song Exploder and the show's theme music were created by me. I produced this episode with Craig Ely, with artwork by Carlos Lerma, music clearance by Kathleen Smith, and production assistance from Mary Dolan. Song Exploder is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a network of independent, listener-supported, artist-owned podcasts. You can learn more about our shows at Radiotopia.fm. You can follow me on Instagram at Rishi Hurway, and you can follow the show at SongExploder.

You can also get a Song Exploder t-shirt at songexploder.net slash shirt. I'm Rishi Kesh Hereway. Thanks for listening, and happy New Year.