Listen, I’ll be the first to admit that hip-hop is not really my forte. You’re more likely to catch me at Pink Candy than Prime – but that’s not to say I don’t sometimes… dabble. My taste in hip-hop leans toward the cxnty progressive pop of female pioneers like M.I.A or (gasp!) Azealia Banks, which left me wondering if this debut album from Johannesburg duo Cold Chinese Food would satisfy my appetite or leave me lus for a chow-mein.
Made up of long-time mates and creative collaborators Illa N and Sam Turpin, Cold Chinese Food is fairly fresh, having spent just enough time cooking inside Johannesburg’s hip-hop underground scene to garner a keen following and serve up “Vital Ital” which, in their words, is “A GENRE TRAVERSING, WORLD-EXPLORING RAP ALBUM WITH LYRICAL CONTENT CONCERNING GLOBALISM POLITICS, ECONOMICS, ROMANCE, HEALTH AND EMOTIONS AND MUSIC THAT PAYS HOMAGE TO JAZZ, AFRO BEAT, RHYTHM AND BLUES, SOUL AND UNDERGROUND HIP-HOP.”
Yoh.
What sounds on paper like a zealously researched art school dissertation is in practice far more accessible than I anticipated. “Vital Ital” is a seriously funky piece of work, and I mean this in the best way. It’s almost rootsy? But in a very South African sense. The album is a sonic sandwich with the sort of local is lekker flavour that defines our best exports, while sticking to us locals like Creamy Cheddar Simba Chips on your fingers.
This, paired with the endearing boytjieness of N and Turpin, makes for a laid-back, smooth and cool journey through the stylistic snack bar listed above. “Ethiopian Coffee”, with its sometimes-wailing-sometimes-sexy jazz saxophones and staccato piano swagger, sets the tone of “Vital Ital” with the steely coolness of the mark tree swipes that colour the track to its rhythmic, hand-clapping conclusion. There’s a grimey, gqom-adjacent synth that throbs through the dank layers of “Queen Of Hearts”, which ends in a jaw-dropping guitar solo placed atop scattering breakbeats.
This is thanks to The Charles Géne Suite, a band led by Njabulo Phekani and Noah Bamberger who are best known for cooking up some deliciously funky fusions of jazz, soul, and – yup – hip-hop. They serve as executive producers on “Vital Ital”, grounding N and Turpin’s lyrics. This is a thoughtfully penned album, performed with a glazed but assured rizz, and Phekani and Bamberger craft a sound that moves to the rhythm of the boys’ often gargantuan thoughts.
The food metaphors – from the band name to the album and song titles – might seem a touch gimmicky, but it’s one that works. They give some kind of order to the menu that is “Vital Ital,” serving what feels like a cohesive (if eclectic) meal. There’s loads of space in these songs, which is refreshing, but sometimes Cold Chinese Food get lost in all that vastness. Musically, beats unfurl toward crescendos, resolutions, and contradictions, but while the tracks often aim for the unexpected, they tend to follow a similar route to get there. At 13 tracks, this is a weighty debut, and because of the space and the repeated structural moves, some of them start to blur together.
Still, this is a strong, earnest debut – confident enough to stretch itself across genres, charming enough to make you forgive the bits that drag, and tasty enough to make you come back for seconds. And maybe this time, use the microwave.
