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Coming Home gets off to a slow, languid start with “Everyday” – a lush-textured summer jam that smacks with a hi-life tone and yet moves to a quiet swerve more suited to the hammock than the dance-floor. There’s a brush of jazz trumpetry, soft drawn synths and wobbling, spiked keyboard effects as Bouga Luv playfully pulls sweet-nothings through nursery-rhyme format; Tokollo sets a raspy-voiced kwaito agenda; and Zwai glues it all together with smooth vocals. It’s one to butter up the ladies. It recalls TKZee Family’s “Fiasco” except without the verve, excitement and outright dance-floor wrecking potential. Well-mannered and reserved, it isn’t exactly the kind of hell-raising kick-start you’d like to see break the trio’s eight-year hiatus. But it carries its weight.
Next up is “Dikakapa” – and well, this is more like it! This is an arrival. Hard-hitting and up-tempo, it’s a classic Tokollo and Bouga Luv tag-team updated to the edge of 2009. Zwai’s production has never had much of that lo-fi kick characteristic of most early kwaito – he’s always gone for a glossier, nuanced production template. That’s what set TKZee apart – aside from the heavy hip hop influence in the way they composed their verses and structured their choruses. On “Dikakapa” Zwai more or less goes with this same flow while Tokollo and Bouga Luv make a strong case of still having it.
After this, things take a bit of dip with “Viva La Pantsula!” which brings Gwyza, S’Bu and Loyiso on board. It’s not so much a bad song as it a bit slow and sleepy for what it is – a defiant celebration of ipantusula by amapantsula. Sure, it’s good of the Guz trio to (momentarily) pull kwaito stalwarts Gwyza and S’Bu out of obscurity, but it’s a reunion wasted. The sweeping horns and too-soft chorus give it a nostalgic accent, slowing it down to the pace of elderly gents held in reminiscence instead of what it should be – TKZee coming back to galvanize kwaito’s dozing heart.
Overall, Coming Home carries a low-keyed and laid-back sound. On most songs, it chooses relaxed and measured steps over going wild and aggressive. But that’s not to say it’s boring – no, far from it. Tokollo, Kabelo and Zwai are perfectly capable of doing what they were doing 10 years ago and they know it (they even prove it on two or three tracks – “Dikakapa”, “Show Off” and “Bhumpa Nathi” come readily to mind). But that’s not what they want to do here. Instead, Coming Home prides itself in being eclectic and versatile: from the party-ready pan-Afro-pop feel of “Skang’Tella” to the gritty, distinctly hip hop flow of “Older” where English raps meet Motswako over a screeching electric guitar; from the 90’s house flavoured “Let’s Go” and the disco-funked “S’Dudla” to the album’s serious moments, “Coming Home” – a take on gospel with Joyous Celebration and Ntokozo Mbambo – and “Children Hold On”, a slow meditative cover that has Zwai on the vox, Bouga on the raps and Tokollo on the swaggering kwaito postures.
With Coming Home TKZee prove why they’ve earned legendary status in the South African music scene. It’s a solid, mature album that extends their catalogue into new territories while retaining the feel and versatility that got them to be favourites to begin with.
We can breathe easy.There’s a breath yet, left in kwaito.
Next up is “Dikakapa” – and well, this is more like it! This is an arrival. Hard-hitting and up-tempo, it’s a classic Tokollo and Bouga Luv tag-team updated to the edge of 2009. Zwai’s production has never had much of that lo-fi kick characteristic of most early kwaito – he’s always gone for a glossier, nuanced production template. That’s what set TKZee apart – aside from the heavy hip hop influence in the way they composed their verses and structured their choruses. On “Dikakapa” Zwai more or less goes with this same flow while Tokollo and Bouga Luv make a strong case of still having it.
After this, things take a bit of dip with “Viva La Pantsula!” which brings Gwyza, S’Bu and Loyiso on board. It’s not so much a bad song as it a bit slow and sleepy for what it is – a defiant celebration of ipantusula by amapantsula. Sure, it’s good of the Guz trio to (momentarily) pull kwaito stalwarts Gwyza and S’Bu out of obscurity, but it’s a reunion wasted. The sweeping horns and too-soft chorus give it a nostalgic accent, slowing it down to the pace of elderly gents held in reminiscence instead of what it should be – TKZee coming back to galvanize kwaito’s dozing heart.
Overall, Coming Home carries a low-keyed and laid-back sound. On most songs, it chooses relaxed and measured steps over going wild and aggressive. But that’s not to say it’s boring – no, far from it. Tokollo, Kabelo and Zwai are perfectly capable of doing what they were doing 10 years ago and they know it (they even prove it on two or three tracks – “Dikakapa”, “Show Off” and “Bhumpa Nathi” come readily to mind). But that’s not what they want to do here. Instead, Coming Home prides itself in being eclectic and versatile: from the party-ready pan-Afro-pop feel of “Skang’Tella” to the gritty, distinctly hip hop flow of “Older” where English raps meet Motswako over a screeching electric guitar; from the 90’s house flavoured “Let’s Go” and the disco-funked “S’Dudla” to the album’s serious moments, “Coming Home” – a take on gospel with Joyous Celebration and Ntokozo Mbambo – and “Children Hold On”, a slow meditative cover that has Zwai on the vox, Bouga on the raps and Tokollo on the swaggering kwaito postures.
With Coming Home TKZee prove why they’ve earned legendary status in the South African music scene. It’s a solid, mature album that extends their catalogue into new territories while retaining the feel and versatility that got them to be favourites to begin with.
We can breathe easy.There’s a breath yet, left in kwaito.
