''Keleketla!'' is the self-titled studio album by British/South African musical project brought together by

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu language, Zulu and Xhosa language, Xhosa: eGoli ) (colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, Jo'burg or "The City of Gold") is the most populous city in South Africa. With 5,538,596 people in the City of Johannesburg alon ...

's Keleketla! Library founders Rangoato Hlasane and Malose Malahlela and English

electronic music Electronic music broadly is a group of music genres that employ electronic musical instruments, circuitry-based music technology and software, or general-purpose electronics (such as personal computers) in its creation. It includes both music ...

duo

Coldcut Coldcut are an English electronic music duo composed of Matt Black and Jonathan More. Credited as pioneers for pop sampling in the 1980s, Coldcut are also considered the first stars of UK electronic dance music due to their innovative style, ...

. The album's title means "

response Response may refer to: *Call and response (music), musical structure *Reaction (disambiguation) *Request–response **Output or response, the result of telecommunications input *Response (liturgy), a line answering a versicle * Response (music) o ...

" in the Sepedi language. It was released on 3 July 2020 via Ahead Of Our Time. Recording sessions took place at Trackside Creative Studios in

Soweto Soweto () is a Township (South Africa), township of the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality in Gauteng, South Africa, bordering the city's mining belt in the south. Its name is an English syllabic abbreviation for ''South Western T ...

, at Denmark Street Studios and at Assault and Battery Studios in London.

Critical reception

''Keleketla!'' was met with generally positive reviews. At

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from professional critics, the album received an

average In colloquial, ordinary language, an average is a single number or value that best represents a set of data. The type of average taken as most typically representative of a list of numbers is the arithmetic mean the sum of the numbers divided by ...

score of 81, based on nine reviews. The aggregator AnyDecentMusic? has the critical consensus of the album at a 7.7 out of 10. Adriane Pontecorvo of ''

PopMatters ''PopMatters'' is an international online magazine of cultural criticism that covers aspects of popular culture. ''PopMatters'' publishes reviews, interviews, and essays on cultural products and expressions in areas such as music, television, ...

'' praised the album saying, "Consistently exciting, always surprising, and full of soul, it is undoubtedly one of the most remarkable releases of the year to date".

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...

's Paul Simpson stated, "''Keleketla!'' is a powerful combination of activism and musical exploration, bonding the sounds of several locations and eras in order to express messages of joy, optimism, and revolution". Safiya Hopfe of ''

Exclaim! ''Exclaim!'' is a Canadian music and entertainment publisher based in Toronto, which features coverage of new music across all genres with a special focus on Canadian and emerging artists. The monthly ''Exclaim!'' print magazine publishes seven ...

'' said, "With contributions from over 20 artists, including such musical giants as Tony Allen and Thabang Tabana, ''Keleketla!'' is a collaboration of rare magnitude. It is at once a celebration and a call to action". Jemima Skala of '' Loud & Quiet'' said, "''Keleketla!'' breeds an impossibly enticing sense of hope that one day things might be better". Writing for ''

musicOMH ''MusicOMH'' (stylized as ''musicOMH'') is a London-based online music magazine which publishes independent reviews, features and interviews from across all genres including classical, metal, rock and R&B. History ''MusicOMH'' was founded an ...

'', Steven Johnson said, "In short, it’s an album that demonstrates the continuing merit of musical collaboration while also offering a hopeful counterpoint to a world all too often consumed by negativity and strife". ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'' reviewer Ammar Kalia said, "Here, the component parts of

hip-hop Hip-hop or hip hop (originally disco rap) is a popular music genre that emerged in the early 1970s from the African-American community of New York City. The style is characterized by its synthesis of a wide range of musical techniques. Hi ...

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its roots are in blues, ragtime, European harmony, African rhythmic rituals, spirituals, h ...

, dub and

protest music A protest song is a song that is associated with a movement for protest and social change and hence part of the broader category of ''topical'' songs (or songs connected to current events). It may be folk, classical, or commercial in genre. ...

are pieced together, like the many languages of a diasporic conversation. If the call is for music'' Keleketla!''s multilingual, effusive response is one worth hearing".

Accolades

Track listing

Personnel

* Matthew Cohn – backing vocals (tracks: 2, 11),

horn Horn may refer to: Common uses * Horn (acoustic), a tapered sound guide ** Horn antenna ** Horn loudspeaker ** Vehicle horn ** Train horn *Horn (anatomy), a pointed, bony projection on the head of various animals * Horn (instrument), a family ...

arrangement In music, an arrangement is a musical adaptation of an existing composition. Differences from the original composition may include reharmonization, melodic paraphrasing, orchestration, or formal development. Arranging differs from orchestr ...

(tracks: 2–4, 11), JammPro

MIDI controller A MIDI controller is any hardware or software that generates and transmits Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) data to MIDI-enabled devices, typically to trigger sounds and control parameters of an electronic music performance. They mos ...

(tracks: 5, 9, 12), producer * Jonathan Richard More – horns arrangement (tracks: 2–4, 11), JammPro MIDI controller (tracks: 5, 9, 12), producer Vocalists *Nono Nkoane – vocals (tracks: 2, 3, 6, 7, 11), backing vocals (track 4) *Tubatsi Moloi – vocals (tracks: 2, 3, 6, 7, 11) *Thabang Tabane – vocals (tracks: 2, 3, 11) *Soundz Of The South Collective – vocals (tracks: 1, 10) *Afla Sackey – backing vocals (tracks: 2, 11) * Yugen Blakrok – vocals (tracks: 5, 12) *

The Watts Prophets The Watts Prophets were an American political poetry group from Watts, California, United States. Like their contemporaries The Last Poets, the group combined elements of jazz music and spoken-word performance, making the trio one that is ofte ...

– vocals (track 4) * Benny Wenda – vocals (track 8) * The Lani Singers – vocals (track 8) Instrumentalists *Tamar Osborn –

baritone saxophone The baritone saxophone (sometimes abbreviated to "bari sax") is a member of the saxophone family of instruments, larger (and lower-pitched) than the tenor saxophone, but smaller (and higher-pitched) than the bass saxophone, bass. It is the lowe ...

(tracks: 2, 4–6, 8, 9, 11, 12), clarinet &

bass clarinet The bass clarinet is a musical instrument of the clarinet family. Like the more common Soprano clarinet, soprano B clarinet, it is usually pitched in B (meaning it is a transposing instrument on which a written C sounds as B), but it plays no ...

(track 9) * Tony Allen – drums (tracks: 1–4, 8, 10, 11) *Afla Sackey – percussion (tracks: 1–3, 8, 10, 11), additional percussion (track 6),

djembe A djembe or jembe ( ; from Maninka language, Malinke ''jembe'' , N'Ko script, N'Ko: ) is a rope-tuned skin-covered goblet drum played with bare hands, originally from West Africa. According to the Bambara people in Mali, the name of the djembe ...

(track 8) *Al Riley – percussion (tracks: 1, 2, 10, 11), keyboards (track 4), additional percussion (track 6) * Ed 'Tenderlonious' Cawthorne – flute (tracks: 1, 2, 6, 10, 11),

tin whistle The tin whistle, also known as the penny whistle, is a simple six-holed woodwind instrument. It is a type of fipple flute, a class of instrument which also includes the recorder and Native American flute. A tin whistle player is called a whistl ...

recorder Recorder or The Recorder may refer to: Newspapers * ''Indianapolis Recorder'', a weekly newspaper * ''The Recorder'' (Massachusetts newspaper), a daily newspaper published in Greenfield, Massachusetts, US * ''The Recorder'' (Port Pirie), a newsp ...

(tracks: 1, 10) *Miles James – guitar (tracks: 1, 2, 8, 10, 11) *Gally Ngoveni – bass (tracks: 2, 3, 6, 7, 11) *Thabang Tabane – percussion (tracks: 2, 3, 6, 7, 11) *

Shabaka Hutchings Shabaka Hutchings (born 1984), also known simply as Shabaka, is a British jazz musician, composer and bandleader. He leads the band Shabaka and the Ancestors, and formerly led Sons of Kemet before its dissolution in 2022. He was also a member ...

–

tenor saxophone The tenor saxophone is a medium-sized member of the saxophone family, a group of instruments invented by Adolphe Sax in the 1840s. The tenor and the alto are the two most commonly used saxophones. The tenor is pitched in the key of B (whi ...

(tracks: 2, 5, 8, 11, 12) *Joe Armon-Jones – keyboards (tracks: 3, 4, 7, 9), piano (track 9) *

Martin Perna Martin may refer to: Places Antarctica * Martin Peninsula, Marie Byrd Land * Port Martin, Adelie Land * Point Martin, South Orkney Islands Europe * Martin, Croatia, a village * Martin, Slovakia, a city * Martín del Río, Aragón, Spain * Mart ...

– horns arrangement (tracks: 2–4, 11) * Antibalas – horns (tracks: 2–4, 11) *Sibusile Xaba – guitar (tracks: 2, 3, 7, 11) *

Dele Sosimi Bamidele Olatunbosun Sosimi (born 22 February 1963) known as Dele Sosimi, is a Nigerian-British musician. Biography Sosimi was born in Hackney, London, England. His career began when he joined Fela Anikulapo-Kuti's Egypt 80 (1979–86). Sosim ...

– keyboards (tracks: 2, 6, 8, 11) *Patrick Carpenter – loops & editing (tracks: 2, 11) *DeeJay Random – scratches (tracks: 5, 12) *Chris "The Jungle Drummer" Polglase – drums (track 6) *Tubatsi Moloi – flute (track 7) *Darren "Sangita" Evans – piano (track 8) * Eska Mtungwazi – strings (track 9) Technicals *

Eric Lau Eric Lau is a British music producer and DJ from London, England. His production style is characterised by heavy drums, often unrecognisable samples and a mixture of live and sequenced instrumentation. Career Lau first gained exposure with the ...

– mixing *Al Riley –

engineering Engineering is the practice of using natural science, mathematics, and the engineering design process to Problem solving#Engineering, solve problems within technology, increase efficiency and productivity, and improve Systems engineering, s ...

, recording, additional mixing *Andrew Curnow – engineering, recording *Dion Monti – engineering, recording *Hugh Fothergill – engineering * Guy Katsav – engineering *

Matt Colton Matt Colton (born 30 March 1975) is an English mastering engineer and member of the mastering group of the Music Producers Guild. He has mastered recordings for artists such as Muse, Coldplay, James Blake, George Michael, Hot Chip, Gary Nu ...

Critical reception

Accolades

Track listing

Personnel

Charts

References

External links