Konekt: Shatta Wale eyes Afrobeats glory a little too late

15 Feb 2024 - 17:28

Published under the Creative Commons Licence

In temper and tempo, Ghanaian singer Shatta Wale, this generation’s most prolific pop pitchman and fiercest industry critic, is polarising. A holy terror! However, a regular publishing culture and comic image frequently pardon his errant public behaviour as mere showbiz automatism: unconscious hazards of dancehall, his foundational genre.

Shatta Wale.

He has neither run out of songs nor song titles, but the fast-paced nature of his releases means that his offerings, often marred by hasty production, can die just as fast as they emerge, which is why Konekt, his new eight-track album, is both a breath of life to his career, and a breath of fresh air to an industry that has struggled to keep track of the sheer volume of his releases (an ongoing trend for over a decade), and his incessant social media antics.

Konekt is a crossover album for sure; more Afro-leaning – and its author seems to have finally bought into wise counsel to position his music beyond his local kingdom. Shatta Wale, the has-been problem child of modern GH pop, ventures out into Africa – Konekt – as it were. If only he heeded earlier.

The project, whose deliberate brevity proves to be copacetic, is definitely his best, most-rounded work in years, brimming with a copious supply of delightful melodies, guided by the sweet guitars that defer to the superior character of Naija Afrobeats.

Shatta Wale isn’t exactly new to Afrobeats (his guest verse on Beyoncé’s 2019 single ‘Already’ is among the brightest moments on the Africa-facing The Lion King: The Gift), yet the album is envelope-pushing, at least in Shatta Wale terms. He even plays with log drums reminiscent of amapiano signatures, with a dash of Asake-esque experimentation (on ‘Hiray’).

Konekt’s narrative sets out with motivation, as most albums begin. A good name is better than riches, he preaches with gravelly elocution on the lead-off track ‘Real Life’, but frankly that sentiment is confined to that song and that song alone, as his actions, especially on Facebook, have stressed the opposite.

The collection also weaves through a life of excess, Shatta Wale bending his voice to dramatic effect as he discusses his indulgence in adorning ‘Designer’ bags and lavishing attention on curvy interests while living each day like a ‘Holiday’. There’s the pursuit of more money (‘Chasing Paper’), sexual virility (‘King Shatta’), and love (‘Commando’).

With the composite interest in his music waning for various reasons, Konekt should pioneer a new frontier, even if the move is several years overdue.