Both are thirty years old, they filter into their style the best of soul, dub, gospel, r'n'b, psychedelia and even jazz, and boast a short but vibrant discography, as well as a powerful live performance. They are London's Greentea Peng and Jamaica's Masego.
Masego is a faithful son of his time. Of his time and his heritage. Of the natural fusion of styles and also of the weight of tradition. Sometimes it seems like a cross between his admired André 3000 (Outkast) and Travis Scott, for his way of fusing hip hop (which has a lot of jazz) with trap. The result is one of the most seductive proposals of the latest r'n'b. Trap house jazz, they call it, an accurate label. If you type it into Google, the first thing that pops up is the name Masego. And rightly so. You can tell that Micah Davis, which is the name of this 30-year-old born in Jamaica but raised in the U.S., accustomed his ears from an early age to the classics of soul, gospel and jazz. Years later, he was able to get his first creations on soundcloud, the favorite platform of alternative rap and trap, and from there to celebrate small cameos on albums by Kehlani, Kaytranada or Drake, it was only a step away. His three albums so far, the splendid "Lady Lady" (2018), "Studying Abroad: Extended Stay" (2020) and "Masego" (2023), confirm all the good things he had been pointing out in his previous EPs.
She likes to describe her stuff as "psychedelic r'n'b", but the truth is that Londoner Arial Wells - Greentea Peng's real name - would not be who she is if she had not taken note of what Erykah Badu, Lauryn Hill, Lilly Allen or Miss Dynamite achieved in their day, powerful women who were ahead of their time. The fierce individualism of Greentea Peng, so called because of her fondness for green tea and visually identifiable by her striking tattoos, piercings and beads, is explicited in her axiomatic live performances and on albums such as "Man Made" (2021) and "Greenzone 108" (2022), her two full-lengths to date.
