Vivid Sydney

It's no small miracle when several songs into Sampa the Great's high-energy show, the crowd are not only sticking around during a new, untitled song, ...

It’s a mesmerising primer for the new music Sampa says she’s been working on while stuck in Zambia last year visiting her COVID-stricken father, as well as a reminder that we’re lucky that the bold, brazen and supremely talented Sampa the Great has chosen to bless our stages and call Australia home. Whether she’s taking a seat or prowling the stage, Sampa proves she’s a rapper in full control of her craft, none more so than on closing songs “OMG” and “Final Form”, where both Sampa and the agile dancers fall into lock-step for a perfect rhythmic marriage of sound and movement. It’s the five adept Zambian musicians and singers and half-a-dozen hyper-energetic dancers joining Sampa on stage that truly lift the performance into a spectacle that is often transcendent, as it is when “Let Me Be Great” - another new song featuring Angélique Kidjo - effortlessly rouses the crowd to their feet once more.