muthoni the drummer queen - “happy break up”
yesssss, live music discovery! it has been FAR too long.
i saw muthoni and a highly talented backing band* last night as part of the wateule tour @ k1 club. the show started late and the sound system kept cutting out the mics yet despite this hot mess, girlfriend was FIERCE. she was showing off new hairdo à la roux yesterday, which only the reinforced the hawtness.
*comprising other acts that were super-talented soloists themselves. i’ve just had less luck tracking them down online.
the linked track above is reasonably representative, although her music defies handy genre categorisations in a really wonderful way. to contrast, “saidia (brokenness)” is a super-poppy ballad with the main chorus arranged in lyric-syrup arpeggios of voice- and heart-breaking melancholy. as she warned onstage, “you need to get your lighters out”, so of course i’m now obsessed with this song. (that i am a total sucker for such stuff should be obvious from my overt love affair with stars.) as a delicious juxtaposition placed immediately afterward on the studio album, “mikono kwenye hewa (distractions and hidden agendas)” has tragicomic lyrics being thrown down at breakneck speeds, no dipthongs necessary - busta would be proud. “what is that about?!” is a neo-swing lounge ditty that would not be out of place on a yoko kanno score, with a dash of kiswahili or kikuyu, et cetera et cetera.
have a listen. to state the obvious, i think this album is really solid. there are a few spots that could perhaps do with a bit of polish, but the vocals often drip charisma and the mixing of sample lines, instrumentation, and percussion (of course) is superb. i’m getting echoes of estelle or lily allen, with a bit more quirk à la solange knowles and some occasional acid, alternating between sublime notes of karen o. and jean grae.
if you’re digging this, you should go find muthoni the drummer queen on iTunes, or drop me a line. also, support her music - since we are talking about an independent female recording artist in kenya, i think this is a clear-cut case for paid IP if there ever was one. muthoni is evidently fan favorite on a very intriguing, crowdsourced platform for financing the next record. i’m very much looking forward to the project’s fruition, with her sales pitch being the following:
In her previous lifes, the girl currently known as Muthoni Ndonga was among other things the head of shaka zulu’s harem , a cunning street urchin who converted into a renown mystic healer in current day Armenia, a polar bear, a Chinese dumpling maker, a fierce general under Napoleon. Her adventures run concurrently with 300 wars, the invention of the envelope and the discovery of whisky. In this life, Muthoni Ndonga is a living breathing singer of the hero variety.
ZOMG.
