Artist: Msaki
Album: Nal’ithemba EP

It’s my birthday and I awake to the melody and lyrics of the song “Mfama Ziyabona” roaming freely through the haze of my morning mind:

“…Settle down my friend, Let’s go to the borders. All that’s here are now, unchartered waters…”

What a great way to start the day and my own new year as I let go of the past and enter into the unknown of what my next chapter holds.

“Mfama Ziyabona” is one song of four from Msaki’s recently released EP entitled “Nal’ithemba”. Each song is a great folk acoustic arrangement in itself with an array of musical instrumentation ranging from Guitar, Bass and Drums to Strings, Glockenspiel, Choir and Oboe. But above and within all of this accompaniment; the melodies and harmonies; beautiful and embracing as they are; carry a depth and weight of lyrical content which make you listen; invite you in and ask you to follow and believe if you would.

Msaki stands powerful with each verse and chorus, honest and true to what her heart cries, believes and gives; what has elevated her and is on offer to us all; reminding and sharing with us something greater than our day to day experience yet somehow still so intricately entwined within it if you would have it.

Its been said that love needs to find form and that intimacy needs to be whispered; a responsibility not to be taken lightly, as we allow the artist to do just that while we put the headphones on and tap play.

”And so it begins, the pulling, the pouring, the pain; the what? … Forgiveness, the flame…nothing is waste, put it all together, nothing you have faced…love pulls us together…It’s alright; it’s alright.”

In short it’s an album of hope, a call beyond the limits of fear into a perfect love and for me a reminder of a dream I once carried and one worthy to reclaim as the whisper of promise still remains, “never to leave nor forsake.”

“…Made for the deep of the sea.”

But enough from me, listen for yourself, allow the music and lyrics to _“sink
deep in the well”_ of your own soul and “hope on bravely”.

- Trevor Smith