Search - Arosi Suthukazi :: Ubunhu

Not a great example of South African music

S. Hawkins | New York, NY | 06/26/2004

(3 out of 5 stars)

"I'm not someone who is obsessed with musicians of a certain country creating an "authentically [insert country name]" sound. THat's not really my problem with this album.Instead, there's a level of pretentiousness that is present from the album cover to each and every track...it reminds me almost of buying an album by some American diva. THe music, as a result, sounds forceful, yet ultimately slightly hollow and fake.I'm giving it three stars, however, because the backing vocalists are quite impressive, and the involvement of musicians like Andile Yenena on piano and Louis Mhlanga on guitar push this album from being blah into being fairly good.However, the record label, Sheer Sound, has many other recordings (about 100 in fact) that are far better in quality. Look for those."