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CMU Approved
Approved: Moonchild Sanelly
By Andy Malt | Published on Tuesday 30 June 2020
Moonchild Sanelly is currently best known outside South Africa for collaborations with the likes of Gorillaz and Diplo, as well as being one of the artists chosen to appear on Beyonce’s ‘The Lion King’ spin-off compilation ‘The Gift’. However, new single ‘Bashiri’ – her first under a new deal with Transgressive – sets her up for wider recognition in her own right.
With a ramped up take on the South African dance music sub-genre gqom – she dubs her sound “electro-pop-ghetto-funk” – the track is a psychedelic takedown of deceitful evangelists out for profit. If you don’t want to listen to something like that, I can’t help you.
It’s “a song inspired by a woman’s testimony in a church where the pastor is treated like a god whilst monetising religion”, says Sanelly. “People pay for ‘miracle oil’ whilst the pastor lands at the service in a helicopter, being treated like God himself despite taking money from his congregation”.
The song is from the perspective of a woman whose husband is cheating on her and who “takes her husband to her pastor, who promises that he can perform this miracle to make her husband faithful – which is ridiculous because infidelity is not solved through prayer and tithing”.
Watch the video for ‘Bashiri’ here:
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