Hailing from Francistown in Botswana and now based in New York, Lollise is an artist who draws from the entirety of her musical history when crafting her songs. Hence the sound of her debut full-length I hit the water owes a debt to the styles which soundtracked her childhood and early years—including Setswana and Kalanga folk songs, South African electronic bubblegum and kwaito from the eighties and nineties, Congolese soukous and Zimbabwean sungura—as well as genres like Afrobeat, art-pop and new wave which she immersed herself in after moving to the US. What results is a sound capable of evoking the future and past simultaneously, where traditional styles are repurposed to open new directions, and the line between history and imagination blurs into something entirely new.
The multi-disciplinary artist spent years recording and touring with the likes of Underground System and the FELA! band before setting out on her own, something evident within the ambition and confidence of the Lollise sound. Take lead single ‘eDube’, a bilingual track of English and Kalanga which layers dynamic rhythms and searching emotion into something as moving as it is infectious. The elaborate pop style possesses an irrepressible energy from the opening notes, yet there is a sense of escalation too. As though the myriad of moving parts are all working together with an ever-growing urgency, charging the sound with cathartic momentum.
“I imagine driving by the cemetery, in a taxi, blasting this song out the window to my dad’s grave,” Lollise explains. “I’m reporting to him the egregious and unjust events that took place following his death, how his family stole everything they could from my mother. During this battle, a hen (a metaphor for my mother) fought valiantly and although she lost the property and the cows, she protected us kids and maintained her dignity. I reassure him that we turned out alright.”
I pray, I pray
The lord, the lord,
My soul, my soul to keep
On this day, the 24th of May
I mold myself, to be the way that I feel
I come, I go, my land remember me
Watch the video directed, filmed and edited by Marvin Castro below:
I hit the water is out on the 6th September via Switch Hit Records and you can pre-order it now from the Lollise Bandcamp page.
Photo by Tiffany Smith