After a lengthy period of silence, BET Award-winning singer-songwriter Sha Sha released her first single as a lead artist titled “Ndawana”, featuring Durban-born musician Sykes as well as private piano school pioneer and producer Kelvin Momo.
“Ndawana” is a soul-inclined amapiano song fletched with melancholic guitar riffs, laidback log drum bounces, and lingering phantasmal piano loops. With each element soldered to the one next to it by a steady tempo, the song has a hybrid semblance with the feels R&B, jazz, and soul music braided into its base piano production.
The song has a mirror-like structure, with Sha Sha and Sykes taking one verse each, reflecting each other’s songwriting by giving a nuanced translation of what the other is singing. The First Lady of Amapiano’s opening verse carpets the way for Sykes with a honeyed vocal performance studded her soft register touched with the singer’s trademark drawl. Introspective in approach, the singer takes a brooding-cum-imploring tone, letting her lover know that not only is she in search of a soulmate but that she’s already endured too much heartache and turmoil leading up to him.
Sha Sha and Sykes | SUPPLIED
The songstress touches on themes of romantic longing, past heartbreak, and finding fulfilment in her current relationship. Sykes matches Sha Sha’s energy with his vulnerability, identifying a kindred spirit in Sha Sha, which he comforts with his call-and-response-heavy contribution laden with promises of marriage and desperate pleas for her not to play with his heart.
Sha Sha and Sykes maximise their on-song chemistry with their melodic salsa, as heard in the stylstic and helical incorporations of their contrasting harmonies and their shared ability of understanding what kind of space to leave for each other. Perhaps this is a result of their previous collaborations; however, whatever the case may be, the pair are able to do much on one turf to give a performance that should be enough to foment jealousy at the sheer showmanship of love between the artists.
Whether they are teasing each other as when they go back and forth towards the end of the song which references the famous “Sukuma bak’bone” or expressing their feelings to one another over the standalone tiers of Momo production, Sha Sha and Sykes are never out of sync. “Ndawana” not only marks a remarkable return for Sha Sha who retains her Midas touch in crafting heartfelt songs, it extends Sykes’ hit-making record as he continues making his ascent in a steady upward gradient.
