WINDHOEK– Kulupa Nayo is a blend of smooth songs with bucketsful of borrowed, and not particularly sought after beats from Namibian artists and beyond.
There is the welcome warm streak of cultural nostalgia, though, stretching just as far as the interlude and reminding you of Africa’s wetlands surrounding mud-huts built by eager and shiny young girls with prosperity glinting on their foreheads. But with total disregard to the pictures that are called up by these two tracks, the train of tracks that follow cut in with unnecessary breathless attempted Rap episodes, and at non calculated junctures spoil the once beautiful medleys of harmonised sounds.
With this compact disc (CD) the unknown artist Mr Rhee has qualified to remain exactly that – an unknown artist yet to create his own and feed it his apparent fans whom if existing, he has now left with a painful expectation yet to be satisfied.
Let me be clear the first two tracks are indeed well done with a bit of Nigerian movie instrumental but what follows them leave you completely disappointed.
On the other hand, it is just fair to commend Mr Rhee on the arrangement of his songs, which placed the best sounding and easily to adjust to songs first on the playlist although he would soon introduce without warning the rest of his tracks that represent complete chaos, sounding no different than artists like PDK and others.
Every second song is burdened with the same knee jerking beat that hits your head at regular tunes, beats that has accompanied Mushe, Exit, Fishmen and many others before him who were not entirely the best either.
Although the first two songs may pass easy through a test, they certainly do leave a bitter taste in your mouth as it drifts to your ears into your mind on an exhausted beat, once employed by former South African RnB artist, Ismael.
The fifth track Kulupa nayo remix is no different, sounding like a remix of something Mushe grew tired of, this right here is what keeps Namibian artists from staying relevant. No originality, everything they brew comes out of freshly packed CDs but sounds as stale as a Sunday service hymn.
You must literally sweet talk yourself into listening to the CD to the end because there is nothing in it that you have not yet heard at a shebeen at an informal settlement or blasting from a properly rimmed GTI golf.
And so you would find yourself listening to a languidly recorded Kulupa Nayo, that would make you fall asleep just to be woken up by the dream catcher tinkling sounds of the 11th track called the Second Chance.
But this new life is not destined to last for long because it leads you into a another disrespectfully Kwaito combination that sounds exactly like The Dogg’s debut song Take out your guns.
But the misery is far from over because seconds after this monstrosity of a song, they break in with a song called Luvy that sounds like a love-chat with bad network connection.
Whoever, recruited M-Jay and Rau to sing this song must be sent home without pay because they cannot sing and even their speaking is far from coherent.
By Jemima Beukes