Gravity, a newly-formed Hip-Hop group comprising Kumasewera and IssueMile, has on 28 September 2020 released its debut album.
The album, titled “Umunthu” was recorded, mixed and mastered in Zomba at Audio Lab by Snicky Virus.
“Umunthu” contains a total of 11 tracks and 2 Skits that were written and performed by the two rappers (except for a few features; see tracklist).
The album features production from Kond-1, M Dot Beats, Sniky Virus, Preb 72, B Made It, and Kumasewera.
“Umunthu” (a variant of the Nguni Bantu term “Ubuntu” which means “humanity”), seeks to capture the essence of existence on planet earth.
The album also addresses issues such as abortion, the state of the world, the concept of time, depression, and destiny.
The title track epitomizes the concept of Umunthu by laying down the ground rules for what it entails to be a person of Umunthu.
The two rappers take turns between bars in an interactive manner, preaching to a country which seems to have forgotten the essence of humanity.
This should however, not lead you to think that there is no fun in the album. Track No. 3, titled “Nchezo”, is purely a play-and-dance-oriented piece in which Gravity bring out dance vibes over over nice bars.
And on “Gravity” (Track No. 7), the rappers seem to pay tribute to the self-grorification element of the rap culture by putting other rappers in their place through an exquisite exposition of bars. For example, IssuMile brags: “Ine ndi nkango, Simba…achina Mufasa Munkangosimba, koma pano Mufasa”.
On the same track, Kumasewera brags on how his bald head is a testament of his wits and how he established “Gravity Consultancy”, of which SKC (“mfana oganiza bho heavy”) is a client.
Umunthu does not feature any verses from renown guest artists. Asked why this is the case, Kumasewera stated that this was done to evade being accused of riding on already famous artists.
“We wanted to put our muscles to the test, throwing ourselves to the deepend, hoping we are gonna teach ourselves how to swim’’, he said.
IssueMile commented, tongue-in-cheek, that, “Which of the famous rappers would have accepted to rap alongside rookies like us? I guess it worked to our advantage as we escaped the very-extremely-unlikely event of facing an embarrassment after being bodied by the ‘goats’ in our maiden appearance.”
Umunthu is a ‘compendium of unclouded hiphop dexterity that amalgamates mindfulness and a little fun presented in top notch poetry’, if the introductory skit is anything to go by.
