No Frills Reviews

Sanelly stakes her claim as a potential crossover star with an album full of heart, humour, and horniness

The reputation of South African star, Moonchild Sanelly, has gradually risen over recent years; perhaps more notably for her guest appearances. She landed a spot on Beyoncé’s 2019 Lion King soundtrack and has featured alongside the likes of Gorillaz, Ezra Collective, and Self Esteem. Full Moon (her third album, and second with UK indie label, Transgressive) refines the formula of her slightly scattershot and overlong previous effort, Phases; aptly providing a more rounded view of this big personality, and establishing her as a worthy main character.

Sanelly’s self-styled brand of “future ghetto funk” merges amapiano roots with Western hip-hop and pop influences. The album bursts into life with her twist on the kind of brash, sex-positive party hits in the lineage of Minaj and Megan. An early showcase of confidence, which maintains its sense of fun as moments of humour weave effortlessly through her wordplay, injecting potentially cliché empowerment tropes with casually absurd lines: see “It’s your God-given duty to appreciate my booty” on opener Scrambled Eggs, or “My booty don’t lie, its detecting” on Big Booty. Contrary to the perception I may be giving, it’s not all about booty though.

Beginning with the excellent, anti-breakup anthem, Tequila, we also see flashes of vulnerability beneath the bravado. On Tequila, Sanelly takes a pre-emptive strike on the relationship-busting toxicity brought on by boozing. In a clever bit of sequencing, it adds a layer of bittersweet poignancy to the otherwise carefree, girl-gang swagger of following track, Do My Dance, with its cries of “we pop bottles and we pop the cork”.

Mntanami provides a glimpse of Sanelly’s upbringing; an absent father, polygamy, and the backdrop of a deeply patriarchal society. It helps connect the dots to her empowered persona of today, while avoiding slipping into self-aggrandisement, instead ending on a potentially conciliatory tone. This ability to project strength alongside vulnerability is perhaps the album’s biggest strength. It’s the beautiful dichotomy between the self-doubt of a track like Falling (“I’m scared of falling, scared of losing, Bitch, I know my family looking”) to the glorious smut of Boom, with its refrain of “Rich n*gga dick don’t hit like a broke n*gga dick”.

While the album is generally well-paced and trims a lot of the excess of her last album, it still runs a couple of songs long. With some forgettable, albeit inoffensive, moments in the middle section. Gwara Gwara is the main offender, as her personality gets lost amid an excess of empty materialism. And its not fun enough to overcome the bland lyrics, with its Major Lazer cast-off sounding beat.

Nonetheless, this is mainly a triumph. Splitting the lyrics between English and her native Xhosa language, it stays authentic to her roots, but is packed with potential mainstream appeal. Uproarious, technicolour bangers balanced with big-hearted ballads, from a larger-than-life character whose humanity still shines through.

Best tunes: Scrambled Eggs, To Kill a Single Girl (Tequila), I Was The Biggest Curse

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