Sampa the Great: Nu Zamrock review – a full-circle moment for a world-class act

Sampa Tembo’s genre-hopping third album meets the moment with charisma and cheek In 2019, as Sampa the Great, Sampa Tembo became the first woman to win an Australian Recording Industry Association award for hip-hop or rap; she’s also the first (and only) person to win the Austral

Sampa Tembo’s genre-hopping third album meets the moment with charisma and cheek In 2019, as Sampa the Great, Sampa Tembo became the first woman to win an Australian Recording Industry Association award for hip-hop or rap; she’s also the first (and only) person to win the Australian music prize twice. But she’s said consistently over the past decade that, while her music career began in Australia – when she was based here between 2013 and 2019 – she is still Zambian-born, Botswana-raised. Having returned to Africa to live and record, she told the Guardian in 2022 : “I was constantly being called Australian.

I felt that I really had to defend Zambia and Zambian music and culture. The fact I was raised in Botswana and heard this music as I was being raised there fell to the wayside.” Continue reading...