Monarch is a 20 track album with musical influences from Kwaito, Rap and Lady Zamar’s traditional Pop and House sound will offer a soundtrack to every moment.
Lady Zamar explained the remaining 10 songs on Monarch.
Dangerous Love: For me this is a piece of art. We came up with this concept OF creating an epic song. The producers really wanted to create a cinematic feel to this song and that is exactly what they did.
ICU: The people who know me from my Mamelodi and the Cotton Candy days will gravitate toward this song. I needed people to know that my “day ones” are still my “day ones”. They are the people that got me to where I am today and are the people that supported me during my Pretoria days when no one knew who I was. I would not want to reject that part of my identity.
Collide took my music to a whole other level and it is very easy to lose your fans when you’ve gone that far. This song is me telling those that have travelled this journey with me that I haven’t forgotten them.
Delaware: One of the beautiful things about this country is that it has a rich history and one of the songs that came out from that was De La Rey. A lot of black people see it as a very offensive song to sing but from what I know (maybe my Google search lied to me), the song De La Rey was symbolic of a time when people came back from war.
Addiction: Addiction is just a fun song about being addicted to someone (chuckles) that’s it. When I’m sad I don’t listen to sad music. There is already so much sad music, so no matter how dark the story, Ima put a fun beat to it so we can dance to it. We process better when we are happy.
Mary Jane: A lot of people are going to think this is about weed… that is cool. Who is to say I am not the master of interpretation? Mary Jane is actually about my favourite series, Being Mary Jane. I have this thing where I rely on series to get through difficult stages in my life.
Sharpshooter: Sharpshooter is one of my favourite songs! This is another reference to Greek mythology. Imagine Cupid was not cute and innocent. What if he was an actual sniper, going around demolishing people with their arrows of love.
Say Yes: As you can hear, Say Yes is an Afro-tech song and I was a fan of the genre for the longest time. I then decided to create my own one. This is actually a gospel song. It’s really about God and I found it humorous to mix gospel lyrics with Afro-tech beats.
Low Low ft Tellaman: It is such a boppy 80s sound and I felt like Tellaman has this fresh view of music right now. Having someone that dynamic, in terms of how he appeals to a more African audience, made him the right fit for this song. This song is about work.
Fat Girl: Fat is one of those uncomfortable words. Who likes hearing it? Fat. Once I walked into the house and my mom hadn’t seen me for like 2-3 years and she went ‘Hayi Yami! You’re so fat!”. Anyway, because it is such an uncomfortable word, putting it in the title of the song felt like more. I won’t take credit for the idea completely. One of my favourite writers, Muzi Khuzwayo, challenged me to write a song that makes me uncomfortable because that is only when you can really test the limits of who you are.
Freedom ft Rapsody: I picked this one as the last song because I wanted to make sure people get to the end of the album. If you listen to Freedom on its own, you kind of lose everything else.
There is a change in the air from Low Low, you start feeling a little lighter. When you get to Fat Girl, you feel empowered and by the time you get to Freedom, you get to the reason why you were listening to the album.
I found out about Rapsody through her poetry. I wasn’t aware of the impact she had in South Africa when it came to Hip Hop, I just knew her as one of the most ‘woke’ poets that I had ever seen. Whenever she recites poetry I get goosebumps.
That is why I took a chance and just reached out. The song is called Freedom but in brackets it’s Monarch and that’s because this is the theme song to the entire album. Rapsody knocked it out the park.
I hope people understand this song for what it is. It’s an anthem, it’s a message that should echo to the young generation so that they realize how amazing they are.
