Moonchild Sanelly Brings the Gqom On New Track “Bashiri”
With the growing popularity of Gqom, more and more of South Africa’s electronic artists are finding their way into international ears. Moonchild Sanelly is one of these groundbreaking, rising superstars who has recently signed to Transgressive Records and is spreading her music around the world.
The Johannesburg-based artist has released an intoxicating and hyper-powered single “Bashiri”, which surprisingly has a darker meaning behind it:
“Bashiri is a song inspired by a woman’s testimony in a church where the pastor is treated like a god. There’s a culture of monetizing religion, people pay for ‘miracle oil’ that they must have to attend the service and guarantee miracles and the pastor lands at the service in a helicopter to perform his “miracles”. The pastor is treated like God himself despite taking money from his congregation. This song is from the perspective of a Bashiri disciple whose husband left her. In the song, this woman is lamenting her relationship and takes her husband to her pastor, who promises that he can perform a miracle to make her husband faithful. Which is humorous because infidelity is not solved through prayer and tithing.”
Corruption aside, the song is an earful of mesmerizing African rhythms, interlocking textures and pulsating club beats in the maximalist banger.
