Sampa Tembo, the Zambian-born, Botswana-raised rapper, aka Sampa the Great, wasted no time kicking off her headline set at KOKO last night. The rescheduled gig opened with the unrelenting pulse of Bona before Kojey Radical bounded onto the stage full of vim for his guest verse on IDGAF. It felt like we’d joined a party that was already well underway: a thrilling, high-energy start.
“You are part of history right now,” Tembo said as she took a moment four songs deep to address the London crowd. Zambian bands don’t tour internationally, she said while prowling the stage, backlit by pink hues. “This doesn’t happen.”
But Tembo and members of her Zambian band, who were enlisted in recent years, have made that happen. The KOKO show was the latest in Tembo’s accomplishments as the first ever Zambian artist with a full Zambian band to perform as a solo act on the world stage, counting shows at Glastonbury, Coachella and beyond. The tour stop off in London in support of second album, 2022’s As Above, So Below, was another “mad”, proud moment for Tembo and co.
Tembo has good reason to bang the drum for Zambia. Despite winning multiple Australian Music Prize awards while living in Australia in the 2010s where she had studied, the rapper eventually felt a disconnect. She was burnt out from trying to navigate the music industry as a woman, a black person, and an African in a far-flung continent.
Her debut album, 2019’s The Return, helped cement her status as a spokesperson on race and gender rights. “As black artists, we don’t often have the leeway to just be artists,” she told the Evening Standard this year. “I felt like I was trying to represent so many people…I ended up putting a huge weight on myself that took a hold of my artistry.” In 2020 she moved to Zambia and enlisted native musicians to support her project.
Wanting to “just be” an artist is what inspired the grand closer to As Above, So Below, Let Me Be Great. Last night, the uplifting single was carried by Tembo’s slick assertions about tenacity in one’s career (“So I figure I could carve my own path”) while syncopated beats popped and the backing singers’ earthy harmonies burred.
Tembo had earlier introduced Never Forget as the night’s key Zamrock stomper (Zamrock – a blend of psych rock and traditional Zambian music – is explored heavily on her latest album). It proved to be an impassioned rendition. Tembo spat verses with machine-tooled precision over sinewy guitar riffs and grumbling drums.
Encore song Final Form, however, was clearly the moment that fans were waiting for. Dozens mirrored Tenbo’s infectious snarls at the chorus (“Great state I’m in, in all states I’m in, I might final form, in my melanin”) and bounced along to the song’s hip-hop grooves and soulful brass blares.
“London, you’ve made our dreams come true,” Tembo said as the set neared its end. The audience was elated to be part of that history.
