Checking back in on Tanzania…
[Video][Website]
[5.67]
Thomas Inskeep: Upbeat Tanzanian bongo flava, with synth accents that make it stand out.
[6]
Juana Giaimo: There is a pleasent melodius atmosphere built in the verses, with a slight yearning tone in the voice but lived up by the neat and light beat and guitar lines. But suddenly all this is interrupted in the chorus. I don’t know what “Chekecha Cheketua” means — Google Translate doesn’t help — but I’m completely indifferent to its repetition. Should I be dancing?
[6]
Jonathan Bradley: The groove resolves steadily and unerringly, but then there are those tendrils of guitar that weave away through the chorus into wild and wandering thickets. The effect is of something less defined than the dance rhythm this beat might suggest, but also something more dissolute, something that might lose itself as it goes.
[6]
Scott Mildenhall: Those intermittent, turbofolkish synth stabs could threaten to override the alluring smoothness of the main constituent parts here, but they actually enliven proceedings. Everything else is so certain, casually cavorting, but along with Alikiba’s acceleration on the title, they bring an urgency the song would otherwise lack.
[7]
Iain Mew: There’s capturing immediacy and energy, and then there’s feeling like a first draft scrawl. “Chekecha Cheketua” shows no feel for which sounds work and which are annoying, its tendency to dash away from good ideas best shown when a lovely melodic loop finally pops up and it turns out to be the end of the song. Worse, even the sound levels within each section are all over the place, heightening the discomfort. There may be good in there, but as it stands it’s a mess.
[3]
Patrick St. Michel: Extra point for how warm and ultimately optimistic this sounds. That’s all I really get from it, but that’s more than enough.
[6]