Album out now: Sampa the Great "NU ZAMROCK"
Today Sampa the Great releases the defiant new single ‘Location’, produced by GRAMMY-award winning Cadenza, as the 3rd track to emerge from her forthcoming 3rd album ‘Nu Zamrock’, out October 30th via Loma Vista Recordings. On November 4th Sampa will play a special double show at new London venue Blue Note - final tickets are available now.
“While African music influences the world, the infrastructure rarely supports its creators. This song confronts the global imbalance - and the cost of creating outside the West.” — Sampa The Great
While recently reconnecting with family back home, Sampa learned that her blood uncle George Kunda (Groovy Joe) was a founding member of Zambia’s legendary psychedelic rock band WITCH, pioneers of the 1970s movement known as Zamrock; that daring 1970s fusion of rock, funk, and African rhythm.
On this new album, Sampa finds herself reimagining Zamrock through her own lens, merging it with hip-hop, poetry, and soul to create Nu Zamrock, a form both ancestral and futuristic. “Nu Zamrock is not nostalgia.” says Sampa “It is the future remembering where it came from. This album is a reclamation of my lineage and bloodline: it is my homage to the disruptive, rebellious spirit that Zamrock represented at its peak and carried Zambia forward with, reintroducing the genre to the world, in my own way.”
Fans had their first taste of ‘Nu Zamrock’ with the 2025 single “Can’t Hold Us (feat. Mwanjé)”, which was featured on EA’s FC26, the new Arsenal x Adidas campaign, as well as highlighted in the summer Fortnite trailer.
‘Nu Zamrock’ Tracklisting:
- Intro
- Prayer In A Dance
- Can’t Quit Music
- Simon Says
- Catch If You Can
- Can’t Hold Us (feat. Mwanjé)
- Location
- Canary
- Maybe Then
- Supernova (feat. Sia)
- So Mone
- Star (feat. KAMAUU)
- The Journey Is Underrated
- Gone (feat. Nicole)
- Nicole’s Interlude
- I Can Love
‘Nu Zamrock’ follows on from Sampa’s acclaimed ‘As Above, So Below’ (2022) and her breakout debut ‘The Return’ (2019), which was met with a series of accolades including three ARIA Awards (from six nominations), Bandcamp’s Album Of The Year, BET’s Amplified Artist of the Month, and the 2019 Australian Music Prize - the latter making Sampa the first artist to win the award twice. Sampa blew up globally, beyond Australia and gracing The Roots Picnic, NPR’s Tiny Desk series, AFROPUNK and, Later....With Jools Holland. An artist who landed on Michelle Obama’s personal playlist, who earned support from industry heavyweights like Zane Lowe, Ebro Darden and Annie Mac.
Live dates:
November 4th - Blue Note, London, UK (early show)
November 4th - Blue Note, London, UK (late show)
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