Music and indeed the base artistry of every musician and performer evolves within the organic ecosystem of a stage assembled with nothing in mind but bringing a live performance to life. From the helping hands of a band manning their mastered instruments to the raw vocals of the artist slightly given to human error owing to strain, live albums seldom fail to extract emotionally resonant offerings from artists who have chosen to undertake the endeavour, allowing the host to not only deliver soulful music in real-time but to also indulge the fans with conversations sandwiched in between the asymptotes found between each song, that breathing space that allows the team to regroup and get their ducks in order.
Afropop singer-songwriter Jabulani Hadebe, mononymously known as Sjava, has released his first live album – well, an EP, to be precise – titled Inkanyezi, which is a five-track opus with songs carefully distilled and refined over a period of a year and a month.
Sjava | SUPPLIED
With a playback time of forty minutes, Inkanyezi is an afro-pop package with elements of gospel, soul, and R&B. Most of the album is constructed with threadbare sound engineering, stripped-down production which often features the emotive harmony of crestfallen piano loops and lingering guitar plucks to perfume the atmosphere with subtle yet palpable touches of romance. As brief as the extended play is, the lush sound, the cleanness of the arrangement, and the way Sjava’s performances tone in with the band’s backing, all serve as testaments of the deliberate curation that went into the project.
Exploring themes of heartbreak (“Kuye”), affairs of love and dating (“Sleepover”, “Madibuseng”, and “Indoda Enjani”), as well as spirituality (“Uyena”), Inkanyezi breathes its first breath with a soul-rending opener from the BET Award winner, with the song tenuously balanced on plaintive and yearning guitar strings and the Morse Code-like tapping of a drum stick pecking at the rim of a snare. Punctuated by the occasional woos and cheers of the audience, Sjava gives the pain in his heart words as he speaks of yearning and heartache, sending prayers to God that his brokenness be not evident to the one who shattered him. As is the case with the following songs, Hadebe turns his words into a refrain of sorts wedged between sumptuous and lush guitar solos.
Sjava | SUPPLIED
Prefacing the EP’s second song with a comical interaction between himself and the concert-goers, small talk about the concept of sleep overs in the modern dating world, Sjava doesn’t merely transition into the song, he smooth-talks his listeners into it and cleaning up the residual tension heavy in the air from “Kuye”. “Suku lwanamhlanje lube intokozo,” he sings, the first words paving the way for the track rich in storytelling and the narration of his feelings. Featuring lull and echo-multiplied guitar strings and rippling pianos, the sound is as sparse as the first song, allowing Sjava to paint the details of how love has transformed him into a man of vigor and eating out frequently when he was previously a man who didn’t have these traits.
The Trompies-inspired “Madibuseng” and “Indoda Enjani” travel to the rocky terrains of love, with the former covering the subject matter of an on-and-off situationship, while the latter delves to a story of a man who neglects the physical and emotional needs of his partner because he’s too obsessed with fashion and maskandi culture. Both songs are unique explorations and interpretations of what romantic negligence is, and what it does to one’s psyche, particularly arousing impassioned feelings of frustration arising from being stuck in a hot-and-cold affair.
Sjava | SUPPLIED
“Uyena”, of all the songs, sticks out like a sore thumb, with Sjava taking his listeners back to church. Accompanied by quavering organs synonymous with the type of music played ematendeni (churches of pitched tents), the “Vura” hitmaker fires up the crowd and has them following his lead with the call-and-response approach he employs to keep the audience involved and mixed in the action.
The defining characteristic of the album is its simplicity, which is Sjava’s default musical style when it comes to songwriting and composition as a whole. He is able to make the most of what is available to him, and the finished product feels so polished that next to an album recorded in studio, there aren’t any glaring differences.
Listen to Inkanyezi (Live):
