MUSIC (Tanzania): Vanessa Mdee Stars in Cash Madame

The sound clip with which the Cash Madame video starts is from another song, Juu, which Vanessa (a.k.a. Vee Money) sang with fellow Tanzanian called Jux. It is a sly marketing gimmick for Juu, which you won't recognize if you haven't heard the song. And Juu, as connoisseurs will notice or remember, is a blatant undoing (deletion, even) of One More Night, its fore(shadow), in which Jux clumsily appears, but not with Vanessa. It is all rather tell-tale. 

Cash Madame's opening images are unreal. Forget about 'em. The arrival in broad daylight of four skimpily-dressed beauties in a pink, convertible Mercedes, armed only with a pistol and a metal bat and overwhelming harmlessness -- it's unreal. To fix, thusly armed, to rob a bunch of hard-core goons of their hoard of hard-fought cash (there u r) -- it's hilarious. And then, and then, to get away with it without a sweat (without a barrage of four-letter words and finger-flicking chasing after 'em) -- forget it. Never happened!

The real treat begins soon enough, though, 50 seconds into the video, with Vanessa the obvious heart of the party. It's all make-believe for Cash Madame, who has more dough than time to figure out how best to spend it. So, unlimited fun is to be had, day into night, without a worry, or hurry. And the fun images that float to-and-fro before our very own eyes are indeed fun to watch. A black 'dame' in flowing blonde hair, her curves all in the right places, charmingly all-smiles, sits on that hula-hoop of a thing and precariously swings -- hanging and turning by a "thread" from an invisible ceiling -- all to the tunefully 'dutiful' refrain of "Cash Madame". It's all a thing!
   
Eye-catching, almost still-images of all the goings-on leave a lasting impression of hauteness, cat-like coolness and all-round fashionista demeanor. It's like Cash Madame and her friends were all out for a weekend splash on select photo-shoot locations downtown. We're let in on the act after the fact.


While the video displays considerable creativity, the vocals and the other sounds are not attention-grabbing. They do not soar. They are modest. But they blend well into the bigger scheme of things, and the choreography of ever-shifting feline images is masterful. In the end, what stands out is that; that is, the artistry of body motion cloaked in elegant female voices.

I think Cash Madame secures Vanessa's status as the leading African songstress in 2016. She's has had three hits: Niroge, Juu and Cash Madame (Dume Suruali, on the other hand, isn't "so fun"). All this in a year when others dimmed, despite impressions: Yemi Alade (despite much activity), Tiwa Savage, Seyi Shay, Simi, D'ija and Skalled. More broadly, there was limited evidence of top-notch diva creativity out of Southern and Eastern Africa. Arguably second to Vanessa in 2016 was Nigeria's electrifying Lola Rae. Uganda's Shebbah also stood out in a consistent and remarkable way.

CLICK: Cash Madame Lyrics

MUSIC: Vanessa Mdee Sings Niroge

Diva Vanessa Mdee, from Tanzania, has released a bewitching music video in Swahili titled Niroge -- which literally means "Bewitch Me". Niroge represents a continuation in 2016 of the great burst of pop musicality we've witnessed across sub-Sahara, particularly since 2014. 

This video has stunning, swirling, non-stop visuals. It's a real treat for the eyes. The dancing girls, low in body fat and high in spirit, populate an ecosystem of playfulness, and dazzling vignettes of liberated color. And all that color seemingly coordinates -- with itself, and with the mirth which becomes it. 

click to watch the video

The song moves seamlessly and naughtily, unperturbed, through a raft of judgments which (one suspects) the girls know is out there in the packed and invisible audience -- sprinkled, so to speak, with curious a(u)nts and baffled 'ankles', with pastors perhaps, with old neighbors and schoolmates. And it moves through Time, which, alas, is too short for present purposes -- for this funky collage of fabric and motion and seductive pose, and ad hoc decor, which, while it lasts, no one, I think, no one really wants to cease.

Niroge is an allegory of liberation, too, by virtue of which no girl should be afraid to strut her stuff and share her deep feelings -- of love, and about anything else besides. To mix love and life and business.

It is likewise a refined statement of artistic presence, however limited the space available for dreams. It is a tribute to a rapidly evolving milieu in which a girl should feel perfectly comfortable and, subtly, in control -- of how she feels. What, ever, she wants to do. 

Through the lyrics, Vanessa wants to tell us she's not afraid to express, for herself and for all the sisters, this feeling of love that she harbors for her man -- whoever her/his competitors think he/she is. She's a grown girl. As one metric has it: Osepong'. The song is, in the end, an ode to the man. Not everman, but her man. The man, and pillar, of the house. Of her home.

So she sings, unabashed:

"Naomba uniroge,
Naomba uniroge,
Kwani mapenzi matamu!"

Upon hearing all this, there are people who will still want to roga Vanessa, regardless of everything. That's how trouble begins in the pot, I tell you.

Here below are the lyrics in full, sung, as you'll hear, in soft, tender tones. She's the bewitching one, in fact: