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  • Writer's pictureEze Bolade

Introducing Sampa The Great

Updated: Jun 29, 2022



Introducing Sampa the Great from Melbourne, Australia, she is a rapper who was born in Botswana and raised in Zambia—drawing on styles such as reggae, dancehall, jazz, hip hop and grime. The genre-sampling artist is making a big name for herself with some very innovative music.


So far, she has achieved a lot in the Australian music scene, winning the Australian Music Prize for Best Album of 2017 and a cash award of A$30,000 for her second mixtape, Birds and the BEE9. She is signed to the UK imprint Ninja Tunes; her debut album, The Return, was released in 2019 to widespread acclaim. Sampa is now ready to take her music to the rest of the world.




With standout songs, such as "Energy", "Final Form" and "Black Girl Magic", Sampa has established herself as a rapper in the Australian scene doing Larrikin rap and as a thoughtful, politically conscious defender of the feminine "energy".

Although based in Melbourne, African iconography and sentiments are present in her style and music. Sampa is aware of her responsibility to bridge the gap between her life in Australia and her roots in Zambia and Botswana and its political implications.


In a recent interview, she declared, "I don't choose to do any political music, my life is political. This is the life experience of a black woman and because there's not that much representation in hip-hop, it will automatically be political."


In late 2019 she collaborated with reggae star Chronixx on an amazing remix of his song "Black is Beautiful", expanding her global reach as her songs are getting exposure in Jamaica.




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