Album of the week with artist Sudan Archives: She could throw Beyoncé off her high, glass horse

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Musician Sudan Archives

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Edwig Henson

Album of the week:

Sudan Archives – »Natural Brown Prom Queen«

When is the fiddle coming?

In the second piece, the title song »Natural Brown Prom Queen (Topless)«, in which Brittney Denise Parks aka Sudan Archives breathes out breathlessly that all she really wants to do is let her breasts swing freely: »I just wanna hang my titties out, titties out, titties out".

After this cheeky announcement, the previously chaotic, rattling electro track suddenly becomes calm and epicly flowing like a film soundtrack, Parks plays the violin, an early trademark of their music, in a wistful, sad way over a suggestive jungle beat, the contrast to the previous one could be greater not be hectic.

There is a method to the style crash: Previously there was »Home Maker«, an R&B anthem compressed under full pressure from jazz moods, stomping funk beats and handclaps, which aims to

After Parks already stylized herself as a goddess on her debut »Athena«, she now differentiates her sound again with recourse to her past and the beginnings of her career in her hometown of Cincinnati: What already sounds like a strong, seemingly final statement of modern, Afro-futuristic folk music and soul music, now wants to open up to pop with all its might - without forgoing the usual extravagances and idiosyncrasies.

Other female artists might take it a little quieter and more dignified after two acclaimed EPs and an album, but Parks has the aspiration to always do things a little differently than the rest. "Cause I'm not average" - because she's not average, as she proclaims in »NBPQ«.

The entire first half of the album is an attack: R&B, hip-hop, West African influences, electronic sounds and whipping percussion whirl up the dust of early-onset racism, humiliation, rebuffs and insults in Parks' biography, which apparently partly extends to High -Go back to the school days when the African-American woman might have wanted to be Prom Queen.

What a drama!

Furiously she complains about "fake bitches and fake friends" like a certain "Ciara" or an unfaithful boyfriend ("Loyal") in clear, bitter verses.

"They gone have a fit when they hear this shit/ So independent," she triumphs in "OMG Britt," like a self-assured brat who prides herself on causing outrage, being a troublemaker.

Even unnamed colleagues who copy their original style (and of course fail) get their fat off in »Copycat«.

Parks uses the popular battle rhetoric and style of rappers like Nicki Minaj or Megan Thee Stallion, but she only casually touches on their genres: Musically, she has more to offer than trap beats, mean rhymes and attitude.

This is particularly evident in two tracks that are among the best that Sudan Archives has released to date: "Selfish Soul" evokes their bitterness-hardened stubbornness in a song that can probably best be described as world music punk rock, it sounds, as if angry sound activist MIA had teamed up with tongue-in-cheek British pop muse Lily Allen.

In the text, Parks reflects on whether it was wise to shave your hair off completely, whether it's growing back as long and beautiful as it used to be - and whether that's even worth striving for: all the effort that African American women in particular with weaves make and wear wigs, because the fulfillment of the ideals of beauty brought up from outside (and men) only feed fears and self-doubt anyway.

This should be over now:

"About time I embrace myself and soul/ Time I feed my selfish soul," she sings emancipatory - and frees herself, on and in her head.

Which doesn't mean that in her brightly colored, visually complex video clips she doesn't show herself as a scantily clad sex monster with (fake) mane down to her butt.

This is part of the game in which Sudan Archives proves to be a competent player.

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Sudan Archives

Natural Brown Prom Queen

Label: Pias/Stones Throw

Label: Pias/Stones Throw

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The other special piece leads to a more contemplative half in the middle of the album, which is musically more tender with family, love affairs that have become fragile and a lot of nostalgia for home (»#513«, area code for Cincinnati; »Yellow Brick Road«, no Elton John cover ) occupy.

The journey there begins in a “Chevy S10”, apparently a pimped pick-up truck belonging to her childhood friend, in which Parks felt his first hot romance and lust for freedom.

The song slides from a Frank Ocean-esque R&B ballad to increasingly urgent, swinging disco-funk, then almost house, while also quoting Tracy Chapman's "Fast Car."

It's a departure into previously unexplored, outrageously glitzy pop realms.

Not only is "Natural Brown Prom Queen" a dazzling counterpart to Beyoncé's "Lemonade" through its homecoming theme alone, it also cements Parks' status as one of the most imaginative innovators in the extended R&B genre alongside colleagues like Solange, Spellling or 070 Shake .

And the fiddle, the recognition crutch from first singles like »Come Meh Way«?

It still happens from time to time, but is no longer the main attraction of Sudan Archives.

Parks, as she casually lets it hang out in the video for her self-empowerment anthem »Selfish Soul«, can even play her violin while hanging upside down on a pole dance pole.

If she wants it.

Listened briefly:

Sampa The Great - "As Above, So Below"

Unlike Sudan Archives, who simply doesn't like her first name, Brittney, Sampa Tembo is actually African, being born in Zambia and raised in Botswana.

She fuses Afro influences with Western hip-hop and R&B like no other pop artist of the moment - and has a combative, unmistakable rap voice.

After her previous career highlight »The Return«, she now digs a little deeper into her African roots, sings or raps a few tracks in the Bantu dialect Wemba and incorporates elements of the Zambian psychedelic rock style Zamrock, while rap guests like Denzel Curry and Joey Bada$$ should at the same time uphold the international claim.

The content is about the role of women in Africa and the role of the continent in the world.

This works well (»Tilibobo«, »Bona«, »Mask On«),

all too often it scrapes hard along the lines of world music kitsch.

Unfortunately, further away from the "final form" that Sampa The Great seemed so close to on their last album.

Otto von Bismarck - "Too Many Memories"

With this stage name that leads on the completely wrong track, it won't work again!

Ottmar Seum is one of the most versatile, maybe also one of the best German songwriters that nobody knows.

Bands he played in, Grabhund in the early 80's, Space Cowboys or most recently Two Chix & A Beer, crumbled before it really took off.

So now, after five years of tinkering, a solo album on the Staatsakt label with smooth pop songs ("Leichtes Leben") and lots of funny retro grooves reminiscent of Carsten "Erobique" Meyer.

Again and again Otto von Bismarck, who used to play with noise extremist Caspar Brötzmann, drifts off into his very own space full of weirdness (»Robot«) or suddenly becomes very

and Neil Young-epic

(»Too Many Memories«, »Going Home«).

Or brashly, when over a skeleton of the intro of Bowie's "Under Pressure" about Seum's loved-hated adopted home of Berlin, "the most fucked up (sic!) city" is slandered.

One could well imagine a prose crooner battle with Friedrich Liechtenstein.

Vinyl rarity collectors should definitely grab it.

Jockstrap - »I Love You Jennifer B«

The debut album by the British duo Jockstrap has already been hailed as one of the best of the year by the relevant pop media in the USA and UK.

Well, we shall see.

Art college mannerisms appealing to the intelligentsia of the scene, a mania for experimentation, rapid sound U-turns and the probably ironic claim to become very famous, expressed in interviews, are abundant in the case of violinist and singer Georgia Ellery and electronic musician Taylor Skye.

But there are also a few fascinating songs: the sparkling ballad »Glasgow«, for example, which is as charming as the cool Scottish city and struggling against its grip, the disco deconstruction »Greatest Hits«, which squints at Madonna and Fatboy Slim, or the initially delicate, then over-the-top bedroom Vaudeville of "fear".

Other,

Ozzy Osbourne - "Patient Number 9"

From a rock veteran marked by numerous excesses like Ozzy Osbourne, 73, you might expect funny dontjes in interviews, which could always be the last ones.

But a good album?

Come on!

Surprisingly, »Patient Number 9« isn't half as scary as one might fear, but instead it's a lot of fun (if you're into that old-school, '80s-thumping brand of hard rock).

But there was much worse.

Osbourne, plagued by Parkinson's disease and backache, flirts with death in several songs, states in the fatalistic "No Escape From Now" (with Black Sabbath colleague Tony Iommi) that everyone already wishes him to the grave, but then claims defiant about being immortal ("Immortal").

There are many amusing rumors about "darkness", darkened suns,

Vampires and other occultisms, the madhouse patient in the title song could of course also be the formerly often drug-paranoid "Madman" Ozzy, a pubescent, half-strong blues rock pusher with Iommi about masturbation marathons ("Degradation Blues") and a bombastic power ballad ("God Only Knows «) there's also: sometimes embarrassing, often very touching.

And whoever manages that invited guitar gods like Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton suddenly no longer sound as prematurely aged as on their most recent solo albums, definitely still has enough grains to bite the heads of one or the other hell bat.

Well, maybe if they're made of soft fruit jelly.

there's also a teenage, half-strong blues rock slide with Iommi about masturbation marathons ("Degradation Blues") and a bombastic power ballad ("God Only Knows"): sometimes embarrassing, often quite touching.

And whoever manages that invited guitar gods like Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton suddenly no longer sound as prematurely aged as on their most recent solo albums, definitely still has enough grains to bite the heads of one or the other hell bat.

Well, maybe if they're made of soft fruit jelly.

there's also a teenage, half-strong blues rock slide with Iommi about masturbation marathons ("Degradation Blues") and a bombastic power ballad ("God Only Knows"): sometimes embarrassing, often quite touching.

And whoever manages that invited guitar gods like Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton suddenly no longer sound as prematurely aged as on their most recent solo albums, definitely still has enough grains to bite the heads of one or the other hell bat.

Well, maybe if they're made of soft fruit jelly.

that invited guitar gods like Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton suddenly don't sound as old as they do on their most recent solo albums, he definitely still has enough grains to bite the heads off one or the other hell bat.

Well, maybe if they're made of soft fruit jelly.

that invited guitar gods like Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton suddenly don't sound as old as they do on their most recent solo albums, he definitely still has enough grains to bite the heads off one or the other hell bat.

Well, maybe if they're made of soft fruit jelly.