For multi-award winning dance house duo, Black Motion, a song-full of drums helps the medicine go down. And through their fourth studio album, Ya Badimo, that journey continues to healing a world in turmoil through music.
Although the album is set for official release on 04 November, Black Motion will be releasing to fans a week earlier, from 28 October, exclusively on Apple Music. And anyone pre-ordering the album from today, will receive their street single Heartless Intentions instantly.
Their official fist single Omo Dudu is an upbeat song featuring, US-based, Nigerian vocalist, Wunmi. And of the uplifting song,
Smol says: “There are still some children now in 2016, who think black is associated with being dull or nothing positive or progressive. So Wunmi is saying black will always shine.”
The album title, Ya
Badimo - which is loosely translated into “For the Ancestors,” is a
13-track offering that builds on the narrative that the Soshanguve-raised pair
started unpacking in 2010. With their breakout hit, Banane Mavoko,
Thabo “Smol” Mabogwane (30) and Bongani “Murdah” Mohosana (29), who make up Black
Motion, established themselves as storytellers.
The common thread in the story of their career is the fact that Black Motion sees itself as a musical traditional healer. As Smol explains: “Our music consists of drums and our spiritual beliefs and so, we liken our journey in this music industry to that of a traditional healer undergoing training.”
With this story in mind, Black Motion’s debut album, Talking to the Drums (2011) became the first chapter. Here, they had to acknowledge the calling. “You get the calling from the ancestors,” says Smol. “They call you with the drums. So we were asking the drum to show us the way and people accepted music from us as a true calling.”
Aquarian Drums was released in 2012 and reflected the second step on the path to becoming a traditional healer: the point at which the prospective healer must delve beneath water to learn.
“By going ‘underwater’ we also meant that we were travelling to different countries and learning their native instruments and sounds,”
informs Murdah. “When we came back from travelling, we wanted to show people what we had learnt which is why we named the third album Fortune Teller (2014).”
With Ya Badimo
(2016), Smol says: “We are honouring the ancestors and what they have
done for us. In a traditional healer’s world, this would be the stage where you
are able to undoubtedly heal people. It’s like we’re graduating from
initiation. So this album is our offering to the gods.”
Ya Badimo traverses topics including black pride, romance, and money and even sees the duo take on “electronic Maskandi.” On the album, there are collaborations with the likes of Chymamusique, Simphiwe Dana, Tresor, Madala Kunene, Tlokwe Sehume, Brenden Praise, Nokwazi Dlamini as well as frequent collaborator and long-time friend, Xoli M contributing to the music, among others.
As a group that is known for its energetic, almost-trance-inducing performances, the gold-selling Black Motion believes it will keep on telling its story through purpose-driven music. As Smol concludes: “We know that in the Western world, traditional healers are associated with voodoo but that’s not it. We want to heal people through music.”
