Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.South African vocalist Moonchild Sanelly collaborated with Beyoncé on her Lion King soundtrack and has featured on songs by Gorillaz and Ezra Collective. Full Moon is her third album. Unlike its predecessor Phases, there are no guest singers or rappers. This is Sanelly in the role of solo star.Real name Sanelisiwe Twisha, she was raised in Port Elizabeth and took up music after moving to Durban in 2005 to study fashion (she now lives in Johannesburg). While her sound touches on South African dance genres such as amapiano and gqom, it isn’t defined exclusively by them. Instead, she calls her style of music “future ghetto funk”. Female independence and pleasure are recurrent messages, delivered with flamboyance and ribaldry.Recorded in Malawi, the UK and Sweden, Full Moon brings out her different sides as a performer. At one extreme is “In My Kitchen”, which finds her stirring up cooking-based sexual innuendo over a banging bassline. At the other is “Mntanami”, a touching ballad in which she imagines her father asking her forgiveness for neglecting her. The songs mix African and western influences so fluently that it becomes difficult to differentiate them. She mostly uses English in her lyrics, but also sings in Xhosa.The album was made with the UK and Sweden-based producer Johan Hugo. He’s a member of Afro-European band The Very Best. The easy musical fusion that characterises their work can be heard here too. “Sweet & Savage” has breakbeats and a pounding gqom bass. “Scrambled Eggs” is a dubby head-nodder with singsong chants. “Do My Dance” has an antic array of vocal loops and dance beats.Sanelly is an engagingly dynamic presence at the microphone, moving between singing and rapping. But the songs are held back by repetitive structure. Despite imaginative textures and catchy hooks, they go back and forth between verses and choruses as though pacing the same terrain. This narrowness turns Full Moon into a more constrained experience than it might have been. Our interest waxes, but there are times when it also wanes.★★★☆☆‘Full Moon’ is released by Transgressive on January 10
