Blinky Bill’s We Cut Keys 2: A music maverick returns

31 jan 2024 - 11:41

Published under the Creative Commons Licence

Let’s face it. It’s every African musician’s dream to hit the heights of Kabza De Smalls and Burna Boys of this world. Such is the power Afrobeats and amapiano have wielded over the continent’s music scene that artists from as far as Sokodé (Togo) to Salima (Malawi) are experimenting with the genres with varying degrees of success.

Blinky Bill: Turning Kenyan music on its head since 2008.

While experimentation is a requirement for every solid musician, few artists will ever wear the ‘experimental’ tag stylishly as Kenya’s Blinky Bill. Not a slave to trends, Blinky has carved a musical path all his own – one that is not reliant on fleeting adulation but based on true mastery of his trade.

This is something Blinky’s fans have always known – and one that they had been starved of for a very long time. This is the reason on the evening of 25 January, as Nairobians were starting to shake off the last strains of their post-holiday spending blues, they gathered in their hundreds to witness the unveiling of Blinky’s third studio project, We Cut Keys 2.

Nearly six years in the making, the 16-track collection that has weathered a pandemic, jet lags, creative blocks and all manner of delays was finally here… and the wait was worth it.

We Cut Keys 2 is once again a demonstration of the pure artistry possessed by its creator. Laced with elements of electro, hip hop, funk, jazz, traditional Kenyan music and a potpourri of arcane tunes, the album is at once chill, atmospheric, bouncy, radical, introspective…

A product of global collaboration, one can’t help but be amazed by the respect and admiration Blinky’s work has been able to garner outside Kenya. While he may still enjoy the luxury of popping into a village roadside food kiosk without as much as turning heads, his status as a star is cemented.

Here is why: the project was mixed by legendary engineer Gordon ‘Commissioner Gordon’ Williams, who has won several Grammy awards for his work on Lauryn Hill’s Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, Amy Winehouse’s Frank, Damian Marley’s Welcome to Jamrock. The mastering was then left to Tony Dawsey who has mixed Jay-Z’s Black Album and The Blueprint, Whitney Houston’s My Love Is Your Love and Jay Electronica’s A Written Testimony, and other top albums.

Now let’s take a look at the guest list. There is Mikel Ameen (UK), emawk (Kenya/US), Fuse ODG (Ghana), Muthoni Drummer Queen (Kenya), Shauna Fung Yee (Jamaica), Maji Maji (Kenya) and GoldLink (US), to name just but a few.

By working with these equally talented musical counterparts, Blinky is affirming the power of the well-worn maxim – great minds think alike. By assembling this highly diverse group of artists, Blinky is able to channel their dynamic talents into creating an album that is not only thematically deep but a sonic chef-d'oeuvre.

Right from the intro to the outro, the collection takes listeners through the artist’s world. Even though many of his fans tend to be in love with his beat-making skills, We Cut Keys 2 is bound to give them something else to rave about. Delivered at a breezing pace in sheng (Kenyan slang), English and even Dholuo (Blinky’s mother tongue), the recording weaves tales that are lively as they are thought-provoking.

Here, Blinky is both able to pay homage to his musical influences/icons and delve into the social-political arena. ‘Dracula’, for instance, is a Damian Marley’s ‘Welcome to Jamrock’- and K'naan’s ‘Soobax’-esque offering that addresses oppression going on in the world and a call to push back.

‘Mtaona Nikipaa’, Swahili for you’re going to see me fly, tackles self-belief. It’s an electro-hip hop track reminiscent of Flying Lotus, Mac Miller, and Disclosure.

‘Voice of Kenya’ is an ode to the horn sections in Africa, or as the artist himself says: “It imagines what a Kenyan horn section would sound like in New Orleans and vice versa.” It features Grammy-winning US-based Kenyan trumpeter Owuor Arunga.

‘Boss’, meanwhile, was born after a night out where tipple was partaken liberally, meaning the artist had to take the cab home. During the ride, he came into contact with a drum pattern featured in traditional Luo music that the driver was playing and he was so fascinated by it. The very next day Blinky was in the studio hard at work trying to replicate it.

Away from sound design and storytelling aspects, you can also get a glimpse of Blinky’s visual abilities on ‘Get That Paper’, the track that samples a high-energy sermon by Kenyan televangelist Pius Muiru to an unexpected musical triumph.

Indeed, as someone else has already put it, We Cut Keys 2 – much like its predecessors We Cut Keys While You Wait and Everyone's Just Winging It And Other Fly Tales – is a box of chocolates made with the listener in mind. My advice: go ahead and take a bite.