FEATURE: Spotlight: Moonchild Sanelly

FEATURE:

Spotlight

Moonchild Sanelly

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THIS is another case…

PHOTO CREDIT: Phatstoki

of me featuring an artist in Spotlight that has been around for a little while and gathered quite a lot of success. Moonchild Sanelly is one of the most astonishing and fascinating artists of the moment. I am going to bring in a few interviews. The first piece that I want to bring in is from Loud and Quiet. The notion and idea of sex positivity – which is something the South African is keen to promote – was raised and explored:

“Now 32, Sanelly has lost none of her power to provoke, and has long been notorious in South Africa for her forthright attitude towards sex and female empowerment. When I ask if she’s out to stir controversy or simply to normalise such discussions, she laughs, “I’m out to be open about my experiences and what I believe in, and I just happen to be shocking.”

Her forthcoming EP Bashiri – set to be released in September via Transgressive – should elicit plenty of double takes. Sung in Xhosa, ‘Weh Mameh’ sets sex positivity to pounding beats, while the self-styled “future ghetto funk” of ‘Boys and Girls’ is a celebration of sexual fluidity. ‘F-Boyz’ finds Sanelly asserting her power over an irresistible amapiano groove. And then there’s ‘Where De Dee Kat?’, a glorious gqom/trap hybrid that more than delivers on the phonetic innuendo of its title, featuring Sanelly demanding, “Get it up man,” over the distant chant of “Penis, Penis, Penis.” It all feels doubly brave considering that only this year she was censored for much less.

As the mother of an 11 year-old, and seven-year-old twins, setting a positive example is clearly hugely important to Sanelly, and she does so by being authentically herself in the face of hypocrisy. On ‘Bashiri’ – the title track of the new EP – she attacks false prophets with a narrative sung from the perspective of a woman whose husband has been unfaithful. The song critiques a pastor figure who promises to repair the marriage by performing a miracle. When I ask Sanelly where she found inspiration for the song she guffaws, “Experience, girl!”.

“Let me tell you something! So my twins’ baby daddy is a staunch Christian and his mother-in-law doesn’t like me, because mother-in-laws generally do not like me because of my expression and how I’ve looked and whatever. So she brought this prophet from Zimbabwe to shower me in holy water to kick out the demon, and I’m like, ‘What demon?!’ And he was like, ‘You’re not going to get married because you’ve got a demon inside you, and it makes you wild.’ And I’m like, ‘Girl, look! I’m just Xhosa, and Xhosa people are actually very vocal in general.’”

Sanelly has often come under fire for this combination of confidence and determination. She recalls a specific incident at the beginning of her career, while recording at Red Bull Studios in Cape Town, back in 2013. “There was this white girl there who came to me and said, ‘You know what, your image makes me so confused, because you want everything.

You’re here, you’re there, you’re everywhere, and because you’re black you’re probably going to make it before me’. And I was like, ‘What did you say?! Is my drive offensive to you? You’re going to fault me for being ambitious when I’m being given this opportunity to go further? No!’ And actually, I’m here now and she’s not.”

When pressed about future collaborators, Sanelly cites Megan Thee Stallion, Cardi B, Pharrell, Doja Cat and Da Baby as being top of her wishlist. She tells me that last night she actually dreamt about meeting Pharrell, laughing, “So I know what I’m going to say now because I’ve already said it in the dream. I believe so much in the things I want to happen, and I know when I meet him I will feel like it’s happened before, because it’s already happened in my mind.”

Following the release of Bashiri, there are plans to re-issue her 2015 debut Rabulapha!, and she’s already begun work on the follow-up, which will feature contributions from Diplo and DJ Lunatic, and consolidate her love of ghom, amapiano and future ghetto funk with the myriad influences she’s absorbed travelling the world. “I mean, it’s going to be amazing,” she says with trademark enthusiasm. “I’m going for the Grammys. I want a Grammy. It’s going to be lit”.

I am dropping in songs throughout this feature that showcases what a vibrant, bold and brilliant artist Moonchild Sanelly is. I feel that we will see this amazing artist A role model for sexual expression and sex positivity, there are many artists out there that will take inspiration from her. Another facet of her music that I love is that Sanelly uses the Xhosa language in her songs. It is a blend that one cannot find with many other artists. I am keen to bring in a DIY interview. There is a focus on the remarkable E.P., Nüdes:

“Moonchild Sanelly has picked the perfect moment to grace the world with her good vibes. With external misery continuing to closeaa in, her debut international offering, the ‘Nüdes’ EP (released last month via Transgressive), offers the perfect escape - its jubilant ac brimming with body positivity, sex positivity and a determination to let nothing stand in the way of a good time.

The Johannesburg-based singer and rapper established herself on home turf some time ago, where she’s been hailed as the ‘Queen of Gqom’ - the style of minimal house that arose in South Africa during the 2010s. After immersing herself in the Durban poetry scene of the late 2000s (“Give me a word and I can tell you a story,” she says), Sanelly branched off into making her own music because she “wanted something more exciting, something that wasn’t already being done”.

Having grown up obsessed with kwaito, hip hop and jazz, she now has her own way of describing her sound. “I call my genre ‘future ghetto funk’,” she says. “It’s a blend of different things. What I bring to a song is not necessarily limited to a genre, but it is very distinct and you can definitely hear where I’m from. If you don’t understand the gqom, there’s something else that speaks to you; it’s really exciting to see people from different places a that.”

It’s not all they’re celebrating, either. Her track ‘Thunda Thighs’ recently inspired a TikTok dance challenge, acting as an entreaty for women to celebrate their bodies. “It’s a song that reminds women that they are awesome as they are,” she explains, although the South African radio authorities didn’t agree, banning it from the airwaves earlier this year. It didn’t stop the track from becoming an international viral smash, however, and many of the clips are set to feature in a forthcoming video for the song.

August’s ‘Where De Dee Kat’, meanwhile, is a paean to sex positivity, a full-throated anthem to female desire with its chorus of “penis, penis, penis”. “It’s like, man, we come from sex, let’s talk about it!” she says. “I get surprised how people fear talking about sex, and it’s like, why? Why are they scared of something they’ve enjoyed?”

It’s grimly predictable that the singer has had to deal with a measure of abuse as a result. “They associate it with being a slut, saying that you enjoy sex and talking about it,” she explains. “I get called all these names all the time on social media, but they’ll have to deal with it, because I’m not changing anything and I’m not going to not talk.” Does she secretly quite enjoy winding those people up? “Abso-motherfucking-lutely! It really does give me a kick,” she beams. Suck it up trolls, ‘Nüdes’ is clearly just the beginning for Moonchild Sanelly”.

I am going to finish off with a review from The Line of Best Fit. They investigated Nüdes and recognised a vivid and incredible work from an artist who can marry something minimal with the atmospheric, anthemic and electric:

“Across thirty effervescent minutes, Nüdes installs Sanelly as the breakout star of the contemporary South African music community - a blistering, technicolour blast from a country that has been crying out for recognition for too long. Sanelly raps and sings with whip-smart, bounding excitement; her lyrics – whether in English or Xhosa – designed as much to topple outmoded social conventions as they are to catalyse dancefloors. Body positivity; sex positivity; genre positivity; it all gushes from Sanelly and pity the poor fool that tries to stand in her way.

"Where De Dee Kat", for example, is a love letter to female libido, an unshameable celebration that is on the one hand playful (its winking title and its climactic chorus of “penis penis penis”) but on the other carries a sober social message (Sanelly recently said, “unless we talk about female desire, rape culture exists”). Of course, it is a track that could not have arrived in the world with any more timely grace, and in a just world it would ride the "WAP" coattails all the way to the top.

"Bashiri" and "Come Correct" are the record’s two most addictive tracks, both sparkling with the vibrancy of gqom, the style of minimal electronic beats that rose from the blend of kwaito and house in the Durban townships during the '10s. It is a more refined sound than the shangaan electro of Nozinja or DJ Khwaya that was the last South African scene to gain some intercontinental traction, but is nevertheless an earthier, more handmade alternative to mainstream contemporary Western house. Sanelly herself describes it as “future ghetto funk”, although she is also not afraid to bring the energy down at times, such as on the beautiful "Weh Mameh", where a textured, plaintive piano line repeats while Sanelly insistently repeats the title as a mantra, her words lapping like the incoming tide.

Sanelly's assertive, take-no-bullshit attitude may not be deliberately provocative but she has still fallen foul of the censors in her homeland, who banned a previous single from radio airplay in South Africa for the sexually explicit crime of listing body parts. The result is now the track "Thunda Thighs" and its accompanying Insta hashtag, a reminder that her sights are set far beyond the small-minded authorities that would hold her back. It hasn’t, for example, stopped her from working with Beyonce on the track "My Power" from Black is King, or appearing on Africa Express or Gorillaz records too. Evidently, Sanelly knows what she wants and she knows how to get it, so the rest of us had better get ready”.

If you have not checked out Moonchild Sanelly, go and follow her on social media (the links are below) and listen to as much of her music as possible. I feel that, as we look into 2022, there will be some new and exciting music from the South African artist. She has definitely established herself as one of the most inspiring and original artists on the scene. It is no surprise that her music has captivated so many and caught the ears of so many critics. It is going to be curious to see where Moonchild Sanelly goes…