adminPalace, last week, playing carefully selected songs from previous albums while introducing new ones.
The launch, attended by a sizeable audience, was held in association with Kaya FM.
Sephuma kept the audience captivated throughout her performance, mixing the music with flirtatious behaviour.
The album will no doubt easily impress fans familiar with her brand of Afro-jazz over the past 10 years.
I counted three songs in the new album as exceptionally outstanding, making this probably her most outstanding album of the past 10 years.
While I had some misgivings about her live performance on some of the songs, I was left in no doubt after listening to the actual recording of “I am a Living Testimony” that it holds the key to a full appreciation of this new album from the multi award-winning artist.
I did not particularly like the gospel pieces on the album since they made the whole show look like a religious sermon in a church hall.
That seemed to put a damper on the prevailing party mood in the theatre. People do not go out on a Friday evening to listen to church songs. Nevertheless, I found myself having to subtly shake my body to the beat of some of the songs, particularly the three I mentioned earlier on.
Sephuma does not depart radically from her usual Afro-jazz-soul-African folklore sound on this new album, but she was bold enough to go further than she has ever done by introducing strong R&B elements to her music for the first time.
She has also cleverly added more African languages to her music besides Sepedi and English, two languages that are dominant on her previous albums. Now she has added TshiVenda and other African languages to her repertoire.
Sephuma’s latest album will be available for sale in September, but those who attend her live performances from now until its full release, will have the opportunity of buying it at the venues where she will perform. – Sowetan.
Online Reporter