This Friday, 6th April, Muthoni Drummer Queen- better known as MDQ- shall hold a release concert for her brand new album – SHE – at The Alchemist, Westlands. It’s a masterful 12-track album that gives the “Motown formula” a truly post-millennial makeover. This concept album is the perfect cross-over record- packed to the brim with soul-nourishing, infectious, club and radio-friendly hits.
The album is intelligent, timeless Pop music written to celebrate the beauty, strength, innovation and resilience of African women. From a purely musical point of view, SHE is a record packed with anthems that treat the idea of genre in the same playful manner that golden-age hip hop used to treat sampling.
Almost every song on here is an amalgam of numerous styles, either by the virtue of fluidly switching between them (every few bars) or running several genres simultaneously. There are overt allusions to just about everything from old school hip hop, through blues, dancehall, retro-soul, future r&b, all types of African club in sections and a variety of global bass specimens.
SHE was produced and recorded in Switzerland by Swiss producers Greg “GR” Escoffey and Jean “Hook” Geissbuhler, in what Muthoni dubbed a series of three “bootcamp” sessions. Every time Muthoni flew in from Nairobi, Kenya, she would drop into a ruthless itinerary that not only included the writing and recording sessions, but also, a host of media engagements, live shows and video productions. Being that this LP is a sophomore affair for this particular production constellation (their first project being MDQ released in 2014) the writing this time around was a truly collaborative process across the board.
The bulk of this material was written in the way that a well-seasoned band writes- testing the material on a live audience at shows, then adjusting the sound based on how it felt live. As a result, not only does this material elicit a high level of intimacy from the listener, but it also brims with the type of pure joy found in the act of music making. Even at its darkest and most introspective, SHE is still a fun record! Fans all over the world can find the album here: https://fanlink.to/muthonidrummerqueen_she
For sure, Muthoni has always been an international artist who happens to come from Kenya, and in her words “A lot of thought, creativity and effort has gone into making this show the most spectacular combination of music, dance, performance and visual art. I want to show you how I have grown, how Nairobi has grown and how I am flipping the culture once again. The whole crew is down from Switzerland to work collaboratively with the Kenya art team, so expect a sublime audio-visual experience ”
This concert is made possible through a partnership by Mookh, NRG Radio, Mo Sound, The Alchemist, Pulse Live, Goodtimes Africa & Gogo Simo.
Tickets are available for Ksh 1,000 per person. Get yours here Gates open at 7:00pm with MDQ taking the stage at 10:00pm. Physical CDs and other merchandise will be available for sale.
