3-mob.com 
At 22 tracks Soko Matemai is not a jaunt but a full blown excursion by Zimbabwean rapper Sharky.
The album is an offering from an artist whose cultural expression sits firmly on the left frontal lobe of who he is.
A debut album with that many tracks is always ambitious and Sharky gently weaves socially conscious storytelling into the fabric of his own life experience with skill. It is not always mellifluous but never meanders into the tedious.
This is Sharky doing his best to sound true to his first love, hip hop (it is jammed firmly into his soul and cannot be extricated), without becoming to obsessed with its known isms.
He is at his best on tracks like Taita Seiko, Freedom, Dzoka (ft Crimson Blu), Mushando and the sort. Rusununguko which features Coded for example is a perfectly mournful, landing both a prefix and suffix to a feeling of abandonment (and a strange relief) left with us by those who have returned to the bowels of the earth. On Rova Ngoma he gets political in a way that makes you want to do the kongonya just a little bit.
Sharky is in his element when the sound reflects his cultural upbringing, chants (we like that he used African calling, with their affable distortions) and everything. This is not to suggest that he flunks on the other material. On Yours Truly he is more than capable as he steps into a sound that sits firmly outside the rest of the album.
The whole record has two features which is a big ask for the young rapper but he gives it a fair go being careful enough not to get parochial.
With this album, Sharky is not the saviour of Zim hip hop they have been looking for but shows he has enough arsenal to take the throne. Not just as a rapper, because his skills are not up for debate, but as an artist.
3 tracks to download:
- Rusununguko ft Coded
- Dzoka ft Crimson Blu
- Freedom
To buy the deluxe version of Soko Matemai on iTunes click here.
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