Music
Sampa The Great: HERoes
The Sydney artist debuts her spoken word video and reveals the concept behind the HERoes project.
I am not made with heaven sent. I am not one without my flaws I am not praised, ordained, adored. Who am I to be a hero? Who am I to not?
Existentially aware, young, and only half-found; this is what the new breed of artist looks like in 2016.
Sampa The Great isn't from spit-central New York, she didn’t have a childhood which left her hardened, and she certainly isn’t interested in writing self-aggrandising hip hop. Rather, she was born in Zambia, raised in Botswana, and moved to Sydney via a study jaunt in San Francisco two years ago. And she might be the most important female performance poet to emerge in the last few years.
Next month, she’ll perform her first headline show in Sydney, followed by another in Melbourne, where she’ll receive the Corner Hotel’s inaugural Corner Award. Then, before the year is even out and long before the release of a debut album, Sampa heads to the United States for Red Bull Sound Select’s annual 30 Days in LA concert series.
Today, the world receives 'HERoes'; a unique slam poetry video that Sampa calls an introduction to herself as an artist, and her first musical statement since she set the music industry alight with her earnest, socially conscious entrance 'The Great Mixtape'.
'HERoes' is Sampa’s self-portrait. It speaks of self-empowerment, evincing your strength and writing your own story.
“HERoes is constantly reminding everyone that maybe we should turn that telescope, and that praise, and that pedestal back on ourselves, and look at the gifts in ourselves that make us great.”
Sampa is seated at The Winery in Surry Hills. She’s brought with her Ricky Simandjuntak, one of the founders of clothing label Sydney Romantics, and a handmade leather cape, co-designed by Simandjuntak with artwork produced by Indigenous artist and pro-surfer, Otis Carey.
“[The slam poetry video] was important when we discussed with Sampa how we wanted to proceed,” says Simandjuntak. “We thought, ‘Let’s have a formal introduction, like a book. Let’s set the tone; who are the characters?’ That’s why we stylised HERoes as HER,” he adds. “It’s her story.”
Granted, her story has been told many times since before the release of 2015’s acclaimed 12-track 'The Great Mixtape', but many media titles had her pegged as a rapper whose own family weren’t supportive of her career choice.
Sampa belly laughs infectiously as she impersonates her father’s Zambian accent. “He was like, ‘Do you want to take all those piano lessons back? Those singing lessons back?’”
Sampa is extremely close to her parents. Her father was a DJ in his spare time and her mother a dancer, so naturally music was ever-present and creativity encouraged. During the interview, Sampa shows a copy of an old home recorded video on her phone. She is in her childhood home in Zambia with her siblings: her younger brother and sister, and her two older sisters - one of whom now lives with her in Sydney. Waving her hands and very seriously offering instructions, Sampa is choir-directing a singing performance; she’s about nine.
Whether her parents saw Sampa’s early authority as a caveat of what was to come at the time or not, her father is certainly responsible for the musical gifts given so far and the concept behind 'HERoes'.
“That was the basis of most of my childhood: you can do anything,” she says, steadily. “It doesn’t matter if you’re female, it doesn’t matter if you’re black, you can do anything.
“To come into the world with this teaching and then to face the world, who’s like ‘No you can’t do it’ […] You start facing the obstacles out of that one belief that you can do anything. From there what is born is the hero, the great.”
Sampa The Great
© Justin Nacua
Sampa has been facing the world with the cape of her father’s teachings since she was born; but as she tells it, only now is she coming into her own as a self-made - and recently self-managed - artist.
“Wearing the cape is acknowledging that belief in your talent,” she explains. “In my short professional career, everyone else has believed in me more than I have. This is the turning point of me saying, ‘I actually do believe in myself and I’m taking my belief, and I’m wearing it on my shoulders’.”
On the surface, one might think Sampa only began taking her music career seriously when she began work on 'The Great Mixtape'. In actuality, it’s taken almost her entire life to reach this point. Growing up, Sampa filled countless books with songs, she wrote for herself and for other artists, and even recorded two tracks in San Francisco under her full name Sampa Tembo. Naturally her parents wanted her to pursue a Plan B first: a career alternative to keep the bill collectors at bay. Sampa put her stacks of song books aside and graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Audio Engineering from SAE Institute in Sydney last year.
Now, Sampa couldn’t be more divergent from even the rappers who inspire her. Equally many things all at once, she is hard to pigeonhole or categorise. She’s gloriously commanding both on record and in person; she calls it “middle kid” syndrome, but one can’t help but think the colour and conviction she emanates could be intrinsically found in her siblings, or anyone who’s spent enough time with her father for that matter.
“Don’t be discouraged being the first one to do something,” she cautions. “Often, when you’re the only one who sees the vision you’re called crazy; a lot of people will leave you alone, and you’ll be forced to believe in yourself. Part of nurturing a person to be their own hero is to believe in themselves.”
While Sampa’s journey has seen a few collaborative team-ups thus far (' Second Heartbeat' with Urthboy and ' For Good' with Remi), it was her first project 'The Great Mixtape' with Dave Rodriguez, aka Godriguez, where it all began. The pair met at Sydney’s Foundry 616 at the venue’s freestyle jazz and hip-hop open mic night around two years ago. Sampa took the stage for the first time since moving to Australia and performed some of her poetry. Godriguez, a classically trained musician, producer and DJ with a Masters in Jazz, was running the open mic night at the time. By the end of the night the pair had decided to work together - Godriguez would create the beats and she would do the rest.
“It was the meeting of two people who have the same alignment when they put music out,” Sampa explains. “It just clicked.”
You get the sense Sampa ‘clicks’ with a lot of people. As an artist who can lay down a full track’s lyrics in half an hour – based predominantly from improvisation – Sampa is a sought after talent. But while her songs touch on feminist ethos (' Female'), and racial discrimination (' Revolution'), and while she acknowledges a bubbling world shift thanks to movements such as Black Lives Matter, she’s not your saviour.
“I don’t have that authority,” she begins to laugh. “I’m 23! I haven’t gone through that much intelligence to be able to say, ‘This is wrong and this is right’. I’m learning myself, I’m a student myself,” she says firmly. “But what I’m going through, if I’m able to speak on it and it helps you, then take that as it helps you - but I’m nobody’s mentor or hero.”
Video credits
Director of Photography: Priit Siimon
Creative Direction: Sydney Romantics
First Assistant Director: Claudia Sutiono
Cape designed by Sydney Romantics with artwork produced by Otis Carey
Wardrobe provided by Serpent and The Swan
Music produced by Miracle
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