Kokoro, safe to say, is a concerted effort by two Tanzanian artistes of no mean repute to throw caution to the wind under the feigned cover of innocence, in Dar's staid and organized air; and to do something at once bold n rebellious n different -- p'raps as the starting point of a new normal, in the era of which 'apparitions' may walk free. Something, like, visually outrageous happens alright, for 40 or so discontinuous seconds (between 0:14 and 1:00 on the video). That, if you missed the point, is the very same 'app' of which we talk.
What goes with it is this: a sly taunting of the invisible censor's partial and crooked eye with 'never-before-seen' -- never before! --public visuals of God-given mama's things; here even crossed at the tip with light-absorbing black prudence. The result of all this inner-outer turmoil gives us some idea of what Churchill meant when he described Russia, so long ago now, as a: "a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma". [I think the version of that saying that I first read or heard, so many years ago, was: "an enigma within a riddle within a puzzle". After decades of memorizing the wrong word-play, the correct quote seems so awkwardly awkward, pondering and prosaic, if you ask me].
Kokoro was published only on November 26, 2016, and already had 1,221,018 YouTube views very early on December 15, 2016. But there is debate and concern surrounding Kokoro, already, in Tanzania (click here to read a pertinent observation, para. 1-5). How deep the concern is no one really knows yet. But Diamond is a towering African icon, already; and has many options.
I spy a touch of Spanish (or Portuguese?) sounds from the guitar strings in Kokoro. And more. The vibes one gets from the instruments are at their core all, or mostly, rooted in the same place(s), it seems to me. But they blend nicely with the Tanzanian images, vocals and lyrics. And so, all in all, what we have is a very conscious but perhaps not so well articulated experimentation with something new. Time will tell. I sensed the same kind of thing, with different ingredients, in C4 Pedro's very special Spetxa One. So there's spreading 'ferment' across our continent. Mo power!
In sum: the lyrics of this song may sound tame, but far from it in fact. They are even raunchier that the tub 'apparition'. If you can read Swahili (click here and see for yourself). But the words have rhyme and do flow. They are undoubtedly poetic. The dancers do try out some really new moves, even inside all that twerking -- though quantity masks the innovative quality that should come to the fore.
Click on the icon below, and watch Kokoro:
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