{"id":10798,"date":"2017-04-06T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-04-06T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/associatednews.us\/content\/2017\/04\/06\/first-listen-spoek-mathambo-mzansi-beat-code\/"},"modified":"2017-04-06T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2017-04-06T12:00:00","slug":"first-listen-spoek-mathambo-mzansi-beat-code","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/associatednews.us\/content\/first-listen-spoek-mathambo-mzansi-beat-code\/","title":{"rendered":"First Listen: Spoek Mathambo, 'Mzansi Beat Code'"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Piotr Orlov<\/a><\/span> <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n
Enlarge this image<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n

\n Spoek Mathambo’s new album, Mzansi Beat Code<\/em>, comes out April 14.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Kent Andreasen\/Courtesy of the artist<\/p>\n

<\/b>hide caption<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

toggle caption<\/b><\/b><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Kent Andreasen\/Courtesy of the artist<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Mzansi Beat Code <\/em>is Spoek Mathambo’s fifth solo album, the latest salvo of a decade-plus-long career during which the rapper\/producer has established himself as one of South Africa’s primary contributors to the global dance-music zeitgeist. It is also a far-flung, sociopolitical unification statement that, in one form or another, isn’t new to Spoek. But unlike prior attempts, Mzansi Beat Code<\/em> doesn’t simply consider and curate the diverse sounds of South Africa’s nine provinces; it is a fully formed point of view that places the 34-year-old musician at the country’s creative center.<\/p>\n

The focus, as it’s often been for Spoek (born Nthato Mokgata), is to “de-exoticize” South Africa’s post-Apartheid cultural history, its internal struggles, and its place in the global slipstream. In his music, such goals have rarely taken the form of straightforward political lyrics. Instead, as a product of the hip-hop\/house era who in his teens created a music ‘zine that chronicled SA’s sonic networks, Mathambo has always been more focused on freeing and uniting posteriors. That’s appropriate, since in Mzansi<\/em>, a widely adapted Xhosa word for the republic, there are more beat codes than tribal languages.<\/p>\n