Moonchild Sanelly: Phases review – on track for global adulation

You don’t need a working knowledge of niche South African genres – gqom or amapiano – to appreciate Moonchild Sanelly, a mischievous and box-fresh artist who is based in Johannesburg but has mainstream global adulation within reach. Combining the hard-hitting primary colours of Nicki Minaj or Doja Cat with the edgier electronics of MIA, the blue-haired, sex-positive rapper-singer is in a category all of her own, mixing snatches of Xhosa with the international language of flexing.

The more eagle-eared will have clocked Sanelly’s rise: her cameo on Beyoncé’s Lion King 2019 soundtrack, her Gorillaz team-up, or her killer hook on Ghetts’s Mozambique. But it’s on her own originals that she really shines. Demon is a banging diss track (“She’s a heifer! A demon!”) whose energy rebounds on the many idiosyncratic party tunes here, many of which could be singles. At the opposite end of the emotional range are songs such as Favourite Regret or the yearning Bird So Bad, as close as this versatile and fizzing double album comes to vulnerability.

Any concerns that such a western-facing album might sacrifice Sanelly’s originality are largely unfounded. Even when she echoes more standard-issue trap pop – Cute (ft Trillary Banks) or Uli (ft Blxckie) – her personality can’t help but warp the form.