Exploring everything from heartbreak, Black pride, representation and social activism, to the search for identity and generational trauma, Moonga K’s third EP sees him speaking his truth. “CANDID is about the urgency to be who I am,” he tells Apple Music. “I had to create this record and let that truth live in song. There were a lot of experiences that had happened pre-pandemic that I tackled with emotionally that I internalised—and finally had time to address them during the lockdown. And I just started being very honest with myself about my Blackness, about the way I identify with different things about every and anything that makes me the human being that I am.”
Co-written and produced by Greg Abrahams, CANDID brings together soul, funk, R&B, jazz and spoken word. “Greg's production is so cinematic,” Moonga explains; “It felt like we were creating this sonic movie. That's why I think it's like the best project for me yet because it just feels bigger, and it feels like this statement that I've been waiting to make for a very long time.” Here, he breaks down the EP, track by track.
REBEL TIME [MOONGA K. & Sampa the Great]
“‘REBEL TIME’ started off as a drum loop that a drummer named Asher Gamedze had recorded and sent to Greg. And literally, instantly, I came up with the chorus, ‘rebel time, rebel time’. I was really inspired by Hiatus Kaiyote's “The Lung”; I really liked how gritty and sassy it was and I wanted to tackle that, but I also really wanted to rap. I knew that the perfect person to be a part of that was Sampa. We have known each other since we were kids growing up in Botswana, and our journeys are quite aligned, in the sense that we have the same identity of being from Zambia, being raised in Bots. She's been in San Francisco, and Australia, and I've been [in South Africa], but we're still navigating this conversation of who can claim us, and who can claim our story, and who can claim our struggle. And it's this tug-of-war of ‘who can I make happy and feel like I'm getting the same support from everyone’—but everyone feels the sense of attachment to you, because of my name is this, but my childhood was there, but also my adulthood was here. So everyone feels this sense of ownership, and I'm still trying to figure that out, because I still want to see the rest of the world. And I don't think I want to say I'm from a specific place, but I do acknowledge that all of these spaces have made me who I am today. Sampa and I had that conversation through multiple FaceTimes during the lockdown, and it just felt like, "Cool, let's put it in a song then.” And it just feels like a song to fight somebody to—like if somebody’s messing with you, just square up. It's astounding what finding yourself can do, and accepting who you are, and unlearning trauma, going through unlearning generational curses. I tend to write songs that I don't necessarily feel at the moment, but later on I listen back to them, and I'm like, ‘Wow, I feel like that now’.”
i AM (interlude)
“This continues the story of ‘REBEL TIME’—this idea of ‘this is who I am and you can't take that away from me’. And ‘i AM’ continues that rhetoric of saying, "I am all of these things." I wanted to have this idea of expressing that I am broken, but I am hopeful, but I am more, I am great, I am powerful. Before I started writing songs, I wrote poetry, and I was so obsessed with spoken word. It was a perfect way to tie the story together.”
black, free & beautiful
“I was so angry when I wrote this. I'd watched Lovecraft Country the night before I went into the studio with Greg; I think it was our second day. I'd watched the episode about the Tulsa massacre, and any black person that engages with trauma is filled with all sorts of emotions—mine was rage. And I knew the story, but, the way they portrayed it was so visceral that I just found myself in tears, and in a mess, and just feeling so hopeless, and angry at colonisers. And so the morning of the recording, I just woke up with the melody in my head. I felt so compelled to tell this story of black joy, but also addressing our pain and the systemic issues that are faced across the diaspora. And I did not know that it was going to be a funky song that you could dance to, but that's how it came about. I was just trying to say, ‘Y'all pissing me off, and I want to beat y'all asses, but also let's dance.’ I definitely empathise a lot with people who look and live like me. With the [2020] George Floyd protests, and all of the Black Lives Matter [movement] that was happening in the States, I think—especially because of the lockdown—there was just this information overload that anyone that has access to the internet was exposed to. I found myself fixated on these constant streams of updates on Twitter. And then I did another terrible thing of rewatching When They See Us, and crying again, and just finding myself so caught up in the emotions of seeing black lives be treated the way they are, even though we've done so much for the world, and still do so much for the world. And I just really wanted to write something that was solely for people that look and live like me.”
GIVE IT 2 YA
“This is heavily Prince inspired. I just wanted to create something funky and a testament to people that live and are the rainbow, which is the queer community. I love the queer community, and I learned so much, and wanted to write. Because people constantly sexualise things, it might seem like a sexual song in the beginning, but for me, it's just about stepping into your power and saying that, ‘Who I am, the sass, this greatness, this magnitude, this joy, I'm going to give it to you, whether you ask for it or not. I'm going to give it to you.’ It just felt fitting to also take it into this '70s funk space, but also have a bit of Afro-futurism in it. It’s literally like, listen, I'm free as f*ck. And I'm going to be this way until the end of time.”
honeybee
“My last record, An Ode to Growth, was majority focused on unrequited love, because I am somewhat of a victim to that and find myself in all of these weird situations where I just I am not getting the love that I deserve back. But evidently, I am still in these situations. I saw the word ‘honeybee’—an individual that stings you and gives you so much pain, but you still want to prove to them that you're worthy of their love and attention. I wanted to write this song about wanting someone to see you, and see your worth, and see how you could be good for them and see how you can relationship, situationship, whatever-ship work. And it's just a song that I was like, ‘If we hypothetically make a music video for it, we would definitely do a whole 2000s R&B, singing in the raining on my knees, type thing. Please, won't you see me? Won't you be my honeybee?’ Those are the only three minutes of my life where I will beg someone to look at me. Before, I always used to tell myself, ‘I'm never going to write love songs because it's giving so much power to the other person.’ But it isn't. It's you owning your own power and your narrative and your story, and whatever things and emotions they inflict on you. And if it turns into a hit song, then yes, I'm getting rich over that heartbreak that you gave me.”
WHOLE (interlude)
“This closes the story of ‘honeybee’: ‘So I'm here, begging you to love me, or to see me, or to want me. But I don't need you to, because I'm hot and on fire. And I have so much more to give and you don't make me whole. I make myself whole.’ I wanted to say in my own words to those who have wronged me. Hopefully, they listen to the record and they listen to these words and realise that they really lost out. But I am still going to love, and only if that's reciprocated, and if only the work is also put in. But also, loving someone romantically doesn't make me whole. I love my friends. I love my family. I love living. I love existing. I love being able to do music. There's so many things that make me whole, and I can't put that all on one person. It took so long for me to get to a point where I just realise that I actually am the sh*t. And I mean that kindly and respectfully. But also, if I want to be cocky about it, I'll be cocky about it. I think this is the time to be that way because we need more of that. More of that authentic confidence that doesn't shame anyone for being who they are.”
Tracklist:
- MOONG K. - REBEL TIME
- MOONG K. - i AM (interlude)
- MOONG K. - black, free & beautiful
- MOONG K. - GIVE IT 2 YA
- MOONG K. - honeybee
- MOONG K. - WHOLE (interlude)
Stream the full EP below.
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