Anatii has always been a musician seen as a “friend of Hip Hop” more than an out right Hip Hop artist. His affiliation to Hip Hop and collaborations with the genre have seen him gain notoriety within the South African Hip Hop space. Songs such as, Jump and Fuseg made Anatii a contributor to the genre and of course his biggest single being The Saga with AKA became a club hit on high rotation in its time. Fast forward to 2017 Anatii collaborated with AKA on Be Careful What You Wish For (BCWYWF), a collaborative full length album. This confirmed Anatii as a Hip Hop headliner in South Africa, from lurking in the lukewarm waters of the genre to being on one of the most anticipated collaborative body of work this country has ever seen.
On BCWYWF Anatii displayed a side of his catalogue that we had never heard before, he slightly teased his ability to write his music in his native language of Xhosa. He become more dynamic and impressive, everybody was impressed by how effortless it was for him to make that transition and mash it up so well with the style of music, on songs like Angels where he chanted the catchy phrase “masambe, masambe, masambe siyeMonti” and seamlessly interchanged that with English. People yearned for more of that as he did that in bite size chunks. It is hard to not feel like BCWYWF did more for Anatii as an artist than it did for AKA, especially when he carried standout songs like Holy Mountain, 10 Fingerz and Angels. The spiritual references all over the album oozed Anatii’s energy and aura.
A few months later Anatii sprung a surprise with the release of Thixo Onofefe, this is when he left the English aside and went full on Xhosa, the single was crazy and was matched by the reception it got. Still maintaining the spiritual narrative first discovered on BCWYWF, the single seemed to propel Anatii to work on something similar. His sophomore solo album and his third as a recording artist. Iyeza is a follow up to his debut album Electronic Bushman, Iyeza is a full on Xhosa album, with titles majority in Xhosa, Anatii does step into the English territory but Iyeza has a completely different identity. You could argue that with BCWYWF Anatii had stepped into the forefront of South African Hip Hop but as soon as he got there, he made a u-turn opting for rhythm, melody and blues.
Iyeza sits outside the space of Hip Hop and enjoys the luxury of being boxed under the World genre scope. The album is culturally immense and is fused with spirituality. On songs like God’s My Best Friend, where he personifies God as his best friend. Anatii’s strongest musical skill set has always been his well structured hooks and production. He marries the two so well on God’s My Best Friend and it sounds like one of the most commercially strong song on the LP.
Iyeza’s spiritual vibes and aura makes it easy to group it with South African albums such as Mlazi Milano, Afrovision and Espacio Dios’ Percussive Planet album. which Anatii makes an appearance on. Of course Epacio is signed to Anatii’s label; YAL Entertainment and you can hear the aesthetic of his production all over Iyeza. Anatii opens the album with a love themed song tilted Wena, where he flirts with the idea of ilobolo “uphi umalume, ngiphethe iy’nkomo zakhe”. The song is dressed in subtle Afrobeats and it sets the mood and expectations of the album. The production is very minimal throughout the album, the primary instrument is really Anatii’s voice and the best example of this is on Ngozi, where the beat only drops on the two minute mark and his vocals are the primary focus.
On Ehlathini you start to feel like you’re falling deeper into the elements of his offering. The infections single makes you feel like this was the best route he could’ve taken as an artist after his last project. Everything is absolutely right about the song, the narrative, the production, the vocals and delivery, it is by far an awesome song. He uses the narrative of a small town kid venturing into Johannesburg in search of gold and how you can get hurt in the process. This is a story line that resonates with plenty of people, Anatii singing it in his native language makes it more genius. There are of course unimpressive parts of the album, such as Zion (Interlude) where the beat sounds like a recycled version of PARTYNEXTDOOR’s Only You. That’s the only real miss on the entire album and it is only a one minute long interlude. Vuka is easily in the running for one of the best songs on the album, where again he finds the winning formula.
Him venturing into the culturally themed territory is symbolic for South African modern music as a whole with Anatii being a main stream act but it has also given way to his transcendence as an artist. Iyeza is a beyond solid second solo album and puts him in the forefront of the shift creating music that has a South African identity. It goes beyond the sole use of Xhosa but this is relative to the topics he paints over his canvas.
Traits of Hip Hop are evident on the album, with Ntloni, God’s My Best Friend and Thixo Onofefe borrowing their core foundations from the genre. Overall, the album is an almost flawless output and is arguably one of the best to come out of the country this year.
