Carpeting the path to his forthcoming album, Impilo, singer-songwriter Aymos has released his single “10K Yey’nkomo”. Alongside other avant-garde pillars of the amapiano movement such as vocalists Samthing Soweto and BET Award-winning nightingale Sha Sha, Aymos has crafted a lobola-themed tastemaker watermarked by producer Mas Musiq’s touch.
“10K Yey’nkomo” is an amapiano song which espouses the genre’s traditional three-sectioned format to the song’s buildup. Consisting of a simmering percussion-founded beginning, the rising action of soft log drums tempered with Aymos’s harmonies, and a solo jazzy dénouement hanging on the spindly undulations of saxophone treatment, the 29-year-old’s pre-album outing is a crossbreed of countryside nostalgia offset by the charm of youthful modernity which has come to define what piano represents as a young person’s sport.
“10K Yey’nkomo” Single Cover
“Ten thousand yey’nkomo, net imvula mlomo / Ngay’khipha iphelele, zonke y’khukhumele,” Aymos’s beginning overlays the scaffolding of the theme of lobola negotiations with the definitive architecture of imagery ranging from fatten cattle to wads of cash. Remaining faithful to the song’s name, the gate-opening lines are prophecy-fulfillers which usher the listener to the cinematic setting of two worlds only gradually coming together.
Hardly a tale of struggle love, “10K Yey’nkomo” is a nascent lover’s recollection of what it took for him to prove his love to the woman of his dreams. Going as far as diving headlong into the troubled waters of loans with nothing in his breathing tank but a few cents, Aymos’s reminders come off as sincere appeals to be afforded recognition as he swims far and wide looking for it.
Listen to “10K Yey’nkomo”:
Sha Sha and Samthing Soweto’s contributions resonate on a melodic level, giving the song powerful enough wings to lift it to the mellifluous heights Aymos strained to reach but couldn’t quite notch. With their own professions of love, the “Tender Love” and “Lotto” hitmakers occupy their supporting positions, respectively, with equal reservation.
“10K Yey’nkomo” is a meeting of some of the most resplendent jewels in the crown of amapiano vocalists. Measured yet dynamic, the song contains just the right amount of heart and intensity to whet the appetite before Aymos’s grand show coming later this month.
