REVIEW | VISAKA ‘MULAN ROUGE: THE RETURN OF THE DRAGON’ LISTENING PARTY

Walk­ing down the streets of Chin­atown, cel­eb­rat­ing the Chinese new year, beau­ti­fully set the scene for the listen­ing party I was about to attend. The new year was in full affect and at the corner of Chin­atown we find the door to a little Vegan res­taur­ant called Vantra.

Greeted with the sweet smell of Ital food, i entered this base­ment res­taur­ant already full with what looks like delighted diners. As flutes are blown on intro, this calm set­ting provided high qual­ity vegan meals.

Up steps the driv­ing force behind the night Dj Snuff who star­ted the night off with the ever blessed voice of Gar­net Silk. After a med­ley of vibes provided by Dj Snuff and Mighty Moe, the moment had come to digest the food for thought on offer.

Visaka graced the Mic to explain the EP about to be presen­ted. She begins with a story of the carpe and the Dragon. Describ­ing her­self as a Carp swim­ming upstream. Ready to take on the final leap and trans­form into a dragon. A mis­sion thru adversity to become the grand dragon that rep­res­ents her.

The intro track Mulan Rouge 2, gives those great tones of dub, with her dis­tinct voice res­on­at­ing power­ful words of revolu­tion and change. As heads nod­ded along to what was being played, this was a good start for my ear­ful of goodness.

Next my ears are blessed with the sooth­ing sounds of the marimba. Sene­g­alese sound­ing drums and singing is the back­drop for the track Skully and Bones. Dis­play­ing Visaka’s diverse roots and melodies.

The diversity and range of pro­duc­tion in this album is tre­mend­ous. Full vari­ety of Flavas and flows. Half way thru the EP we get the track Via Judah. This sounds like the club banger on the track. Spe­cial men­tion goes out to Vice Vic on this EP. Dis­play­ing an abso­lute range of qual­ity, provid­ing a per­fect soundtrack for the album.

Praise The Lord is where we get what I would call the track for streets. The beat bangs harder than a Jack ham­mer on the pave­ment. My misses said it gave her Bil­lie Eil­ish vibes, if Billy was a right­eous black woman from Brighton. Visaka provides dope flows and con­tent of righteousness.

I was fully ful­filled with the range of vari­ety, then drops The King­dom, giv­ing anoth­er sound of qual­ity and vibes. Real Rasta vibra­tions echoes from this Roy­al Queen.

All in all if I was to give a com­par­is­on to the feel­ing of this album, I’m left feel­ing like I’ve heard an Eng­lish ver­sion of Ibeyi with right­eous vibes and a world of vari­ety. Visaka is def­in­itely one to watch for the future and long live the carpe evolving into her Dragon self.

 

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Mas Law

Artist/Producer hail­ing from NW Lon­don. Enig­mat­ic storyteller and End of the Weak Eng­land Organiser.

About Mas Law

Artist/Producer hailing from NW London. Enigmatic storyteller and End of the Weak England Organiser.