To end 2019, Jamaica’s Chronixx and Zambia’s Sampa The Great gift us with a remix of ‘Black Is Beautiful’. The track is taken from Chronixx’s Grammy-nominated debut album ‘Chronology’.
CHRONIXX
2012 saw the beginnings of Chronixx as a global artist after collaborating with Major Lazer on a mixtape, ‘Start a Fyah’. This spring-boarded him onto the global stage, with praise from tastemakers worldwide. His 2014 project, ‘Dread & Terrible’, immediately topped the Billboard (US) and iTunes (UK and Japan) Reggae charts and solidified him as a credible artist.
In the same year, he performed on Jimmy Fallon’s TV show, preceding a roadblock concert held in Central Park with 9,000 attendees, including Rolling Stones’ frontman Mick Jagger celebrating his 71st birthday. Chronixx’s debut, full-length, album, ‘Chronology’, was Grammy-nominated and established him as the biggest global Reggae artist right now.
He’s since gone on to collaborate with the likes of: Anderson Paak, Ed Sheeran, Joey Badass, Koffee, Protoje and Little Simz. With a loyal fanbase across the world, Chronixx is now performing at sold out shows in major cities to an average of 5k-10k people – including London, Nairobi, Tokyo, Toronto and New York.
SAMPA THE GREAT
The rise of Sampa the Great has been spectacular to watch. Having previously released two mixtapes in ‘The Great Mixtape’ (2015) and ‘Birds And The BEE9’ (2017), the Zambian-born, Botswana-raised and now Melbourne based artist shared her debut album ‘The Return’, in 2019.
Released on Ninja Tune, ‘The Return’, it’s debut single ‘Final Form’ and the live show have seen Sampa The Great awarded many accolades, including an ARIA for Best Hip Hop Release, two Triple J Awards for Video of The Year and Double J Artist of The Year, as well as Hip Hop Act of The Year at both the Music Victoria Awards and National Live Music Award.
Alongside her industry praise, ‘The Return’ found radio support with international heavyweights like Zane Lowe, Ebro Darden (Beats 1) and Annie Mac (BBC Radio 1). While receiving love from the likes of The Guardian, NPR, Pitchfork, The FADER, Billboard, OkayAfrica and countless others, Sampa also made her European TV debut, opening series 54 of Later With Jools Holland, performing her standout singles ‘OMG’, ‘Freedom’ and ‘Final Form’.