– THE CHARM OFFENSIVE –

I’ll be honest, there was a part of me that was initially interested in Koffee’s new EP because, looking through a list of new releases, I mistook the Jamaican singer and guitarist for the Dutch eight-piece Koffie, of whom I was already a big fan.

Needless to say, had I heard Koffee before I read about her, I wouldn’t have made that mistake. For the music of Mikayla Simpson (as she’s known to her Mum) is more akin to the sounds of Chronixx and Protoje than the afrofunk tendencies of the blokes with an ‘i’ in their name.

Raggamuffin is rich in the super-cool, sundrenched reggae / dancehall rhythms of Simpson’s home country but that disguises (all-too-well for this white, English blogger, sadly) the less-attractive side of Jamaican culture.

“Give the youths dem a feature / What a gwaan a Jamaica / Parliament tunn di paper / Fi ghetto youths them nuh cater / That’s why di country nuh safer / Hear seh di guns dem pile out here” she says, which I can just about make out is a reference to the country’s gun violence and the political idleness that comes greets it.

However, speaking of idleness, one reference I did manage to get was the one she makes to football player, Mario Ballotelli. Now, as a football fan who endured three years of the mercurial (is that the right word?) Italian doing sweet FA for my club except relieve them of vast amounts of cash, that should be enough to ruin any song for me. That it doesn’t spoil Raggamuffin is saying something about the quality of the track.

The track comes from the EP, Rapture which is out now.

More From This Week’s Mix:

LAFAWNDAH | “STORM CHASER”
MDOU MOCTAR | “TUMASTIN”
LAURENCE PIKE | “DRUM CHANT”
JUST A GLANCE | “MEMORIES II REMEMBER”

You can find all of the tracks reviewed above in the 45 Revolutions per Minute playlist below or click to access the 45 RPM Playlist on Spotify itself.

If you like what you hear (or even if you don’t), please engage in dialogue with me @45rpm_Reviews on Twitter. And, if you’d like to receive updates weekly, please subscribe to the email list to get these recommendations sent to your inbox weekly.

– SV –