Today’s artist is from the country of Namibia, one in the region also deeply emersed in the culture of hip hop and has been homebased to rappers such as Sunny Boy and Jericho. Proklaim is a rap artist based in the capital city of Windhoek. He just dropped a new single last Wednesday on October 19th entitled, “Options,” and it is some vibey, heavy hitting fire, check it out here:
There has been so many hip-hop movements happening from within the continent of Africa, it’s almost hard to keep up with. Ghana and Nigeria (in particular Lagos) are what come to mind first for me when I think about where a lot of the music is coming from in that region. I’ve also heard about a lot of things Blxckie and C.I.B. have been active with in South Africa.
Coming fresh off his full-length album, “Zion’s Hill,” that was just released October 2nd, Proklaim returns with another banger spitting rapid fire rhymes over chilled out U.S. west coast sounding beats. A man on a mission it seems, not even letting the dust settle after “Solitude” epically closed out his last album. This move appears be consistent with what he’s stated is his personal quote, “Carpe Diem,” which means “seize the day.” Not about to wait for a “someday,” he’s putting in work now as he becomes inspired.
He stated that the hook (“Love is still the same as always”) wasn’t even officially “written,” it was an ad lib inspired by the beat as he was recording it. Proklaim cites his main influences to be Big Pun, Tupac, Biggie, Lauren Hill, Wu-Tang, Drake and J.Cole. That kind of work ethic and production rate is certainly Tupac level energy. According to his press release:
He believes in the power of music to shape society and indeed hopes to make such a contribution to it.
In that respect, I also see a Tupac influence. However, from the perspective of musical approach, his flow is different, generally faster than Pac’s raps used to be.
The way he strings his words together is more reminiscent to me of Big Pun, and the way he annunciates is much more “on top” of the beat similar to how Lauren Hill would rap, when she would rap, on Fugees records. From a production standpoint, his beats sound very “west coast” as I said earlier, reminding me of the way Dr. Dre would sample a classic funk and Funkadelic song, yet at the same time the beats sound a lot more modern with slapping basslines like you’d hear in Drake or J. Cole music today.
Proklaim has appeared on MTV Base Africa and Channel O, so he is certainly an artist to keep up with and keep an eye on. Just one more interesting artist contributing to the ever-evolving hip-hop movement in that part of the world. Check out this new single and his latest album and make sure you turn those speakers up! His music knocks.
¡LISTEN NOW!
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Just love the artwork on this