Album review: Black Sherif’s The Villian I Never Was

20 Oct 2022 - 20:56

Published under the Creative Commons Licence

Ghanaian music has never known a story quite like that of Black Sherif. The demure 20 year old’s unlikely pop validation has arrived via a daring departure from overused tropes to brazen takes on heavier themes such as fear, spirituality, mortality and the road less travelled.

Black Sherif.

Throughout The Villian I Never Was – his 14-track hip hop-fuelled debut album, which also summons old highlife signatures and R&B-esque sentimentality – the musician, whose raw honesty and culture-shifting vocal vibrancy are best heard on breakout singles ‘Second Sermon’ and ‘Kwaku the Traveller’, remains head-deep in personal and social consciousness, ensuring that he is leaving a solid musical footprint.

Particularly by the end of submissions like ‘The Homeless Song’, ‘45’ and ‘Soja’, Black Sherif defies an openly depressive template, opting for a more uplifting worldview. This unique new style is not only reshaping how urban music probes topics surrounding mental health but is also anchoring the singer as an astute commentator who is ahead of his time.

The album, which features a single guest appearance in Burna Boy, also emits a distorted aesthetic that makes you feel like it is the result of sketchpad brainstorming at some point, and perfectionism at another.

Celebrated Kenyan author Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o would tell you it’s imperative that an artist creates in a language that feels most authentic, as this medium brings him closest to his truest thoughts. One could argue that Black Sherif’s use of Twi is among his biggest strengths. Indeed, part of the reason for his appeal across various age brackets is that his sound rides on a youthful exuberance but also houses nostalgic sonic references and deep enough lyrics to lure older ears.

Yet the album reveals linguistic concessions based on a conundrum befalling an artist who shot to international fame singing in his native lingo but who is tempted to switch to English to find new audiences. Bongo flava and amapiano acts are hardly consumed by such pressure. In neighbouring Nigeria, Asake is thriving without having to dilute his Yoruba with English. Beninese legend Angélique Kidjo and South African a capella group Ladysmith Black Mambazo, who boast multiple Grammys, have also proven this.

Still, although the lyrics on The Villian I Never Was may be largely bereft of his mother tongue, they are nonetheless hewn in an astonishing English that is hospitable to demographics beyond the Ghanaian ear, preserving the emotional openness of his personal experiences (and customary stream of expletives) that drive the singer’s resonance.

Sometimes, the curse of being a genius is that you could become a victim of your own success. Every release since Black Sherif’s arrival into the limelight has been disruptive, etching him among the most commercially successful Ghanaian acts this year. Such an explosion would expose his work to more scrutiny than usual. Be that as it may, Black Sherif has passed the litmus test, flourishing as the face of a new generation – a young guru with the hallmark of a legacy artist.