Moonchild Sanelly has developed a strong cult-like figure in the industry with her intriguing albums and star-studded single releases throughout her career. An artist who with every offering slowly reveals more about who she is as a creative, artist, leader in South African sub-genres, and now pioneer of her own style that infuses of Gqom and Amapiano in “future ghetto funk”.
Sonically, she is known for her sharp-shooting lyricism and storytelling, combining these with grooving beats that are influenced from all aspects of her upbringing and heritage, inundating all around her with her joyous attitude. Meanwhile, appearance-wise, she is instantly recognisable for her mesmerising hairstyle and compelling fashion style. Returning with her highly anticipated album ‘Full Moon’, Sanelly continues in her already strong footsteps, following up the likes of ‘Rabulapha!’ and ‘Phases’ with a body of work that is sure to propel Moonchild Sanelly even further into the stratosphere of South African greats who have broken into the wider world of music.
Opening the project with the previously released, dub-infused, ‘Scrambled Eggs’, Moonchild Sanelly immediately sets the scene for where she is currently at, and for what is to come. An infectious beat, accompanied by her iconic flow that blazes over the top, the introduction to ‘Full Moon’ is a fiery entrance from an artist who has been leading up to this pivotal moment in her career for years. There are extremely apparent themes of relationships, sexual explorations, and self-expansion throughout the record, with ‘Big Booty’ blending these concepts in a jovial manner, as the track leans back into the no nonsense style rhythm that Moonchild is becoming synonymous for. However, her lyrical flow in this instance delves into a more passionately descriptive style of how to ‘shake it’, as it were, with various instructions including a nod to the 2002 cult film Bend It Like Beckham, detailing how a big booty has the capacity to “fuck up the world”.
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Meanwhile, there are sections of the album that give themselves solely towards the appreciation of the emerging electronic sub-genres in South Africa in ‘In My Kitchen’, ‘Gwara Gwara’, and ‘Do My Dance’, as Moonchild Sanelly reels off her impressive catalogue of knowledge when it comes to blending genres and building an atmosphere within her work.
Portraying a more vulnerable side to her persona ‘To Kill A Single Girl’ explores the previously imagined impenetrable skin of the artist, an image that is often centred around her deviating aura and charging bravado, sparking a charmingly new aspect to her, and one that’s rarely seen on the record. Continuing on the theme of self-exploration but on a slightly lighter note and one more similar to her renowned character, ‘Sweet and Savage’ is a song that essentially details exactly who Moonchild Sanelly is as an artist – a wholeheartedly captivating figure whose spirit and sound is so enticing, with the capacity to devastate through intellectual lyricy and hard-hitting beats.
Closing the album out, it becomes clear that Moonchild Sanelly takes a more reflective approach to the project, one that is undoubtedly her strongest to date. The penultimate track on the album sees ‘Mntanami’, in which the artist opens singing in her native tongue depicting a story of family through her upbringing, with the chorus “Ngixolele, Ngixolele Mntanami” translating to “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, my child.” ‘Full Moon’ then concludes with ‘I Was the Biggest Curse’, perhaps a response to the previous song, as the artist sings “I’m proud of the girl I have become.” Both tracks resonate with more melancholic synths, laid back vocals, and offer what feels like an artist responding to a true sense of achievement from the release of ‘Full Moon’.
7/10
Words: Ben Broyd
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