Does the album still matter?
Before the pitchforks start bearing down upon me, let me be clear; I worship, and continue to worship, upon the altar of albums. I believe to craft an episodic tale, consistent yet so distinct in sound, and carry your audience into this world of your imagining and they lose themselves in it, is the stuff of the gods. I love a good album. It is also the reason that the greats are defined by the albums. Great artists make great songs, but an immortal album makes an immortal artist. There’s a reason why the Notorious B.I.G is considered among the GOATs (and for many the GOAT) despite the brevity of his time in the game: two classic albums. There’s a reason why, despite the relative longevity, album sales and string of hits of a Nikki Minaj, many purists still rate Ms. Hill higher- off the strength of “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.” If you ask people when Tuku went from being “one of them” to “Him”, those in the know will say “1998- Tuku Music.” Desiigner can mess around and make Panda, and Vanilla Ice can do the same with “Ice, Ice Baby” (both diamond singles), but you don’t mess around and put “Ngoma Ndaimba” together.
That said, the advent of streaming, combined with the hypervisibility accorded by social media—and the resulting dulled attention spans of the era—have made the album less attractive to many: both artist and listener. You go viral on tiktok with one catchy joint, you milk that and try recreate the energy, and maybe in a year or two you find another one. Indeed, it may explain, why even in the modern era of Zimbabwean music, the most anticipated albums are often those by artists whose first projects either predate or were right at the cusp of the streaming era (Macheso, Jah Prayzah, Freeman, Winky etc.) Meanwhile, the likes of Souljah Love (MHRIP) and Enzo Ishall are mainstays in Mount Rushmore or (at least for the latter) Top Ten all-time conversations within their genre: without having put out an album(SN: it’s not lost on me that, at least within Zimbabwe, the new age of Zim Hip-hop artists is definitely album-focused. Since 2020 alone, from Holy Ten to Raykazz, Voltz JT to Young Gemini to our resident failed rapper: albums galore (and often, decent to good ones at that!) It’s a wrinkle in the theory: one that calls for further discourse on another day.)
I enjoy Delroy’s music. In fact, as those who’ve ridden with me when his songs pop up on my playlists will testify, I’m prone to describing the young chanter as “munhu wemimhanzi” (a “music man.”) There are people with good voices;people who understand an instrument, people who can write great lyrics, and so forth: but every now and then you see somebody who appears to be a natural. Their sonic instincts tend to be right, they blend sounds seamlessly, the lyrics always hit the intended mark; and they often have the aesthetic to boot. Perhaps more than most in his class, Delroy feels like, looks like, and sounds like a “music man.”
While his buzz had been growing since the turn of the decade, I, like many, first got fully acquainted with this future superstar on his hit single, well, “Superstar” featuring Saintfloew in 2023. And indeed, while Julian King’s ‘One by One’ cleaned up nicely in the urban music space that year, it felt as if Superstar was the “other” song in that race (it may be the theme or a starring Santa verse on both, but those songs are symbiotic in my mind, for some reason.) Since then, he jumped off the porch (and Nash TV) and dropped a string of fire singles throughout 2024: whether it is the cheekily romantic “fenze”, the didactic anti-mjolo joint “Chipfambi” and, most notably, “Fona” which now boasts 5.7 million views on YouTube, and may well surpass “Superstar” soon (out a year earlier, but currently at 6.1 Million views.)
The 30-Second Clip That Drove Yours Truly Crazy
A few months ago, I saw a snippet of an unreleased song he was vibing to, tentatively titled “Chigumbu.” I exaggerate not when I say that the thirty-second clip must have been among my most played ‘songs’ this season. Thus in September, when I began to hear whispers of a potential album, I got hype: not just because I’m a fan of the music man here, but dang it, can I get a full version of “Chigumbu”? It’s gonna be on the album, right? Right.
The Album:
Peace of Mind dropped on October 7th. It’s…fine.
True to the “music man” motif, Shewe succeeds in syncretizing several disparate sounds, evoking Dancehall, RnB, Afrobeats, and traditional Zimbabwean rhythms. The 14-track project boasts just four features, with Freeman, the highest-profile of the lot, hopping on the lead single, “Madhuve.”
In the acclaimed American television show, The Wire, Baltimore drug kingpin Stringer Bell (played by Idris Elba) famously laments “40 Degree Days,” saying,
That's good. That's like a 40-degree day. Ain't nobody got nothing to say about a 40-degree day. Fifty. Bring a smile to your face. Sixty…ninjas is damn near barbecuing on that motherfucker. Go down to 20, ninjas get their b***h on. Get their blood complaining. But forty? Nobody give a f*** about 40.”
And Peace of Mind feels like a 40 Degree Day in Baltimore. It’s fine. Coming, however, on the back of an absolute tear of a run with the singles dating back a couple of years, expectations were high—perhaps unreasonably so. For the most part, it feels like young Shewe put out all his finest works as singles then, at some point, decided to throw the remaining ones together and package them into an album. Far and away, the best and most popular song on the album is the aforementioned ‘Madhuve” with Freeman, and the numbers concur: at 58 000 streams on Spotify and 144K ‘views’ on YouTube (next most popular one is at 41 000 and 44 000 on the respective platforms.) Indeed, it is the only song I can confidently say would have worked as a single in the tradition of “Superstar” and “Fona.”
The runner-up, “Murder” featuring Shona Prince, also seems to be resonating, while Tarie.(my other favorite on the project, and Kuresa (Downtown) are also doing decent numbers. Hip-hop head that I am, it was also a treat to hear M-Killer, who had come to the public's attention with scene-stealing verses on the Fire Emoji remix and (to a lesser extent) Ihulumende, pop up on "Normally," doing his best urban grooves Shonglish rap rendition. But everything else feels…just there.
(Update: after having written all this, I gave the album one last listen-through before I sent it off to the bosses. I came out of this listen feeling partial to “Bhangu” but again, more in an “I think I’ll remember this song” and not a “quick, play it again” way.)
And while we’re at it, allow me to slip in this very subjective, borderline 'too sensitive' take: upon further begrudging listen, “Murder” is actually a bop, and it’s clear why it’s the second most popular song on the project. After all, Shona Prince (formerly Takura) hardly ever misses. It’s just…self-hurt/terminating is…a rough punchline. If being played to be cute (I’ll murder myself if you leave…) then it’s doing too much (and not especially clever), and if for real, go get help. It also just rings awkward to me, given the latter’s public struggles with mental health.)
The old adage goes “you spend your whole life writing your first album.” That is to say, every bit of your artistic journey builds up to that first big release; then everything from there can be shaped by everything else, and you just have to maintain. But in an era in which someone can become a bonafide superstar on the strength of their singles before dropping an album, does the old adage hold up still? Or in putting your best foot forward to get going in a single-centric market, do you run the risk of running out of steam by the time you drop the album?
Or maybe I'm just mad that "Chigumbu" wasn't on the project.
More importantly, however, now that he has removed that “first album” albatross from his back, I have no doubt that Delroy is at the base of what is going to be an incredible run in music.
Peace of Mind is…fine.
The Music Man will be fine.
