Hip-hop powerhouse Sampa the Great has had a busy year. From becoming the first Zambian band to play at Coachella in the US and Glastonbury in the UK to preparing for the release of her second studio album (which she created in just two weeks) to becoming an NME cover star, all whilst unapologetically expressing herself and her culture, she’s been hard at work, to say the least.

The Zambian-born and Botswana-raised musician, née Sampa Tembo, made a return to her birthplace at the onset of the global Covid-19 pandemic after being based in Australia since the launch of her music career. It is within this connection to her homeland that Sampa has been able to explore herself, away from societal trappings that had been placed on her. “Coming home, it feels like a lot of the weight of people’s expectations have just fallen off,” she says. “I get to actually represent Sampa and enjoy music as Sampa.”

While living in Australia, she felt as though her Zambian roots were being sidelined, with the media and public tagging her as an ‘Australian star’ or ‘Zambian-Australian’. She comments, “people were trying to push the Zambian bit out of my name and trying to make sure that that’s not part of the story.” She explains, “When I was living in Australia, I felt like I had to represent a lot of things outside of myself. There was so much pressure in making sure that African Australians were represented, that Africans on the continent were represented, that myself as a Zambian was represented. It felt like I was trying to wear too many hats and I put a huge weight on myself so much that I didn’t really enjoy what I love doing.”

Being in Zambia has allowed Sampa to not only connect with herself, but to connect with the country’s cultural and musical tradition. Zambia, located in Southern Africa, is home to a multitude of different music genres, reflecting its diverse population as a country made up of more than 70 different tribes. Two of its modern pivotal music creations are Zamrock, a popular 1970s genre fusing psychedelic rock, funk and traditional Zambian sounds and Kalindula, a style characterised by its up-tempo rhythm, kalindula bass guitar and traditional drums.

“One reason why I resonated with Zamrock so much is because I saw that a lot of people globally knew about this genre, whereas a lot of people in Zambia didn’t care as much, and I thought, ‘oh, that’s just like me.’ It’s like how I feel,” she says. “We’re out here trying to challenge the industry and challenge our countries’ views on respectability, whilst being really experimental with the music.

Sampa’s recent single, Never Forget, featuring Zambian artists Chef 187, Tio Nason and Mwanjé, pays homage to the country’s history. The track’s percussion features traditional Ngoma drums, hand claps and marimba to give it an authentic feel, encapsulating the history, as well as the current scene and future potential of Zambian music. The accompanying music video is a high-quality art film, weaving together imagery of Zambia’s music history, as well as Afro-futuristic sets and outfits: cue the traditional Zambian chitenge dress, alongside multi-tentacled alien costumes and grainy Zamrock archive material. Reflecting on this, Sampa believes she has eclectic interests, including a keen fascination with sci-fi. “For me, I have so many interests and so many things I want to experiment with and explore, sci-fi being one of them,” she says. “I would ask myself and my directors ‘have you ever seen a music video that’s just sci-fi and from Africa,’ like, how dope would that be.”

“We have to get into a space where we really want to redefine what African music is, and redefine what film and visuals from Africa are like,” she continues. “I think that’s the challenge we took upon ourselves. Even though we brought Afro-futurism into the picture, we still had traditional African elements and modern elements as well.”

Sampa’s music presents as a project of Afro-surrealism— breaking through rigid structures of normativity and control to uncover the free sensory image of the journey toward self-exploration. In trying to find her own path, Sampa has been at odds with what she perceives as lazy categorisations of most African artists in the single Afrobeats genre. Afrobeats describes music that comes from West Africa: a fusion of traditional sounds like Nigeria’s Afrobeat with Western influences (such as hip-hop, R&B and dancehall), with notable Afrobeats artists including Wizkid, Tiwa Savage, Burna Boy, and Yemi Alade. It is not, however, as Sampa wants to highlight, representative of the musical mosaic of the entire continent.

“Trying to explain why Afrobeats is connected to a culture on its own and a country of its own and how it’s separate to what I’m doing feels like we’re doing the whole ‘Africa is a country’ conversation again, but musically,” she says. “I’ve had that fight in Australia before where we were all put in the urban category. It’s really a disservice to Black people and how vast the range of Black music is.”

Sampa’s music presents as a project of Afro-surrealism— breaking through rigid structures of normativity and control to uncover the free sensory image of the journey toward self-exploration. In trying to find her own path, Sampa has been at odds with what she perceives as lazy categorisations of most African artists in the single Afrobeats genre. Afrobeats describes music that comes from West Africa: a fusion of traditional sounds like Nigeria’s Afrobeat with Western influences (such as hip-hop, R&B and dancehall), with notable Afrobeats artists including Wizkid, Tiwa Savage, Burna Boy, and Yemi Alade. It is not, however, as Sampa wants to highlight, representative of the musical mosaic of the entire continent.

“Trying to explain why Afrobeats is connected to a culture on its own and a country of its own and how it’s separate to what I’m doing feels like we’re doing the whole ‘Africa is a country’ conversation again, but musically,” she says. “I’ve had that fight in Australia before where we were all put in the urban category. It’s really a disservice to Black people and how vast the range of Black music is.”

“There’s so many countries and so much music that comes from these countries,” she adds. “If we can educate ourselves on the different music and sounds that come from the West then we, too, can be afforded that same luxury on the continent. It’s been very frustrating and exhausting, but also in certain aspects, you get really angry because you’re like ‘okay, you’re gonna pile us all in this one category and you’re gonna make us all fight for scraps’.”

With the new release of Sampa’s sophomore studio album, she aims to surpass these barriers within the industry and merge the perceptions of her on-stage self and off-stage self. The title of the album, As Above, So Below, reflects this tension of double-consciousness; “As Above” represents the self that is perceived by the outside world, whilst “So Below” references herself as Sampa Tembo. She describes the album as her “freest” and “happiest” project to date.

“The message of the project is to be 100% wholly yourself, to love every facet of yourself, and to take time to represent you versus everybody else and what you think expectations of you are,” she explains. “I think the pandemic definitely broke the veil on a lot of things and we saw the industry for what it really was and saw a lot of the world for what it really was so to move forward we really had to strip everything down away from the facade of perfection towards our true selves, even the vulnerable bits.” She adds, “It’s definitely also just self love notes to myself.”

The album’s singles are “Never Forget,” “Lane” featuring American rapper Denzel Currey, and “Bona.” Other artists featured on the album include Zambian Afro-Jazz musician James Sakala, the legend Angélique Kidjo, British-Ghanaian rapper Kojey Radical, Brooklyn rapper Joey Bada$$ and the lead singer of popular Zamrock band WITCH, Jagari Chanda, Sampa’s mentor. 

Sampa admires singers and rappers that unapologetically use languages other than English to express themselves. As she was on the Park stage at this years’ Glastonbury festival, one of the largest festivals in the world, she brought with her Bemba and Nyanja (two widely spoken native Zambian languages). The idea of tenaciously sticking to your own dialect was one reason she was inspired to work with popular Zambian Bemba-language rapper Chef 187.

“I love someone that’ll be like, ‘I’m just gonna rap in Bemba and that’s what’s gonna be the situation’, whether you like it or not or whether you think it’s limiting or not cool or it will never go past Zambia,” she says. “I think there’s strength in doing that and being like this is how I identify and y’all will come to me, versus me having to conform to be palatable.”

Sampa’s music career has already been one of greatness, from breaking records as the first artist to win the Australian Music Prize twice to becoming the first Zambian band to play at some of the world’s biggest festivals and music venues. Her new album is widely anticipated to continue her success, whilst reminding herself of her own journey of self-exploration.

On asking who the album is for, Sampa responds, “it's definitely for young Africans.” She continues, “I think people really underestimate what we can do, the music and art we can make. I remember when we released ‘Lane’, people were asking, ‘is this really in Cape Town, in Africa?’ The assumption is that this can’t be made on the continent and that’s what drove me to push more in making stuff here. Just because the resources aren’t the same, doesn’t mean the art is not high quality. It’s just as good. So the album is for young Africans to know that they’re so worthy of being in any of these spaces.”