‘I wanted a story that wasn’t just about glamour, but that captured the challenges for young immigrants as well’, says Ghanaian-born, NYC-forged rapper, producer, and thinker Blitz the Ambassador of his latest album, Afropolitan Dreams. With a vision that embraces his personal West African past and a revolutionary future of Afropolitan cross-pollination, the young MC meshes African popular sounds, American vintage soul, and hard-hitting beats and lyrics with the help of an international cast of collaborators, including Angelique Kidjo, Seun Kuti and Nneka. But as always with Blitz, the album is about far more than the music. It’s about the immigrants who made America, who shaped and moulded it. Each person, each generation, each bearer of culture arriving on a boat or airplane has made an impression. Immigration is the chain that links the past to the present, the near to the seemingly far.
‘Nilihitaji stori ambayo si yenye mvuto wa kudanganya, lakini iliyogusa changamoto za vijana wahamiaji kiukweli’, anasema Blitz the Ambassador kwenye albam yake ya hivi karibuni, Afropolitan Dreams. Ikiwa na maono ya kuukubali uafrika Magharibi wake na mabadiliko ya baadae, kijana mshehereshaji mwenye mipigo ya kiafrika, hadhi ya kimarekani, biti za kigumu na nyimbo alizoshirikiana na washirika wake wa kimataifa akiwemo Angelique Kidjo, Seun Kuti na Nneka. Lakini kama kawaida ya Blitz, albam zake huwa ni zaidi ya mziki, ni kuhusu wahamiaji ambao wameitengeneza Amerika. Kila mtu, kila kizazi, nakila mchukuzi wa tamaduni inayokuja kwa meli ama kwa ndege ikaleta hisia. Uhamiaji ni kiunganishi kinachounganisha mambo yaliyopita, ya sasa na yanayokuja.