Blu Tries To Reconcile With His Roots On Nottz-Produced 'Afrika'

At 40 years old and with dozens of projects under his belt, Blu has seemingly rapped about it all. From the beacon of hope that was Below the Heavens to the digital experimentation on York, the LA-bred rapper always found new ways to package his free-flowing thoughts. Blu’s latest record, Afrika, might be his most explicitly-themed one yet, leaving little to the imagination as he spends over 40 minutes getting to the root of who he is, not only as a rapper but as a Black man in the United States.

Each of the ten tracks on the album, save one, is written in Swahili, with the aptly-titled opener “Kuwakaribisha” beginning with Blu and producer Nottz welcoming the listener to their musical history lesson. Blu celebrates his roots with raps about Africa’s geography, population, and importance as the originator for much of human life but contrasts it by briefly retelling the common global racism it encounters. He isn’t saying much about the continent that isn’t already widely known, but as a welcome mat track, starting at the surface makes some sense.

Across much of the album, Blu paints Africa out to be a potential cure for his identity problems. On “Mama,” he raps about the African diaspora, preaching his love for each person whose ethnicities may be mixed, all while imploring life to give him a reason to go back home. The hook alludes to Blu, and all the guests on the track, being illegitimate children of Africa, each reckoning with their place in the U.S.

Blu’s exploration of his Blackness features a plethora of different voices, some not even American. He enlists Canadian rapper Shad on “Marcus Garvey,” a track named after the Jamaican activist whose ideologies were important to Pan-Africanism, to rap about his parents returning home to Rwanda after 25 years of living in the West to reconnect with their past. He highlights their desire to not face the same day-to-day racism that they would experience in Canada or the U.S. and the bonds they would create with people who looked just like them and with whom they shared a deep cultural history.

Most of the tracks handle their topics rather valiantly — there aren’t any particularly bad verses — but Blu’s ear for hooks could use some refining. “Mungu” features a repetitive chorus, with the track’s title repeated several times over a thorny beat littered with screams in the beat’s backdrop. “My N—a” shares some of these problems, with Nottz’s beat recycling samples from what sounds like war tracks in the 1700s, while Blu repeats “Nah, my n—a, I’m an African” several times. Both hooks are redundant to be sure, but Nottz’s production feels forced, almost as if it is trying too hard to bring the African-centric concept to life.

Nottz’s production choices on Afrika can range from truly captivating, like on “Rangi” to baffling on “Matunda Marufuku,” with the latter employing a playful vocal sample to drive the beat through its verses. Each of the artists featured on the track sounds like they have something to say, but it can be hard to keep up trying to decipher the raps with the underlying vocals repeating incessantly. “Rangi,” on the other hand,” works better because of its more straightforward, guitar-led beat, with Blu coming across as more energetic in his verse and hook.

Afrika culminates with its best song “Baba,” a dense final look back at the continent that created who he and his family are. The track sees Blu debating his place on the planet as a Black man and how the world can devalue his culture. He remains hopeful through it all, never doubting himself or the importance of Black culture on the planet.

He cites Africa as the birthplace of all humanity, and while he’s correct, his reminder serves as a lesson to everyone who continue to forget their most basic history.