Friday was meant to mark the release date of South Africa's most recent joint hip-hop album titled BCWYWF. But AKA and Anatii catfished all of us by not releasing the album, and instead giving us a pre-order, a tracklist and the fourth single titled Holy Mountain.
BCWYWF
The album is titled Be Careful What You Wish For (BCWYWF). It is a joint project rumoured to incorporate gospel, similar to Chance The Rapper's Coloring Book and Kanye West's Life Of Pablo. The album was rumoured to be released on Friday, but the artists pulled a U-turn and pushed the album's release date to July 28.
The tracklist for BCWYWF:
- Bryanston Drive
- 10 Fingers
- Psalm. 1000
- How You Like Me Now
- Camps Bay 3
- Holy Mountain
- Don't Forget To Pray
- Angelz
- Jesus Plug
- The Saga
Teamwork makes the dream work
AKA and Anatii make for a solid team. Thus far they gave us The Saga, 10 Fingers & Don't Forget To Pray prior to the album, and their chemistry makes for a dynamic duo.
Like Watch The Throne in 2011, in which JAY-Z partnered with Kanye West, BCWYWF Aka & Anatii have strategically come together by incorporating AKA's lyric game, arrogance and style with the innovative producing skills set and vision of Anatii.
AKA is the more experienced artist, and this joint venture could be a win-win for both. AKA, possibly one of the most successful hip-hop musicians on the continent, is a platinum-selling artist, and has won numerous awards, including South African Music Awards, MTV Awards, SA Hip-Hop Awards and Metro FM awards. He is also a judge on the country's only TV show dedicated to the music genre, The Hustle.
Anatii is a futurist who has produced for the likes of the US's Omarion, DJ Khaled, Cassper Nyovest and even AKA himself before this collaboration. He also released Artiifact in 2016.
There is no beef
We can commend the two artist for squashing the beef and coming together for one project. Who could forget in 2015 when AKA released Composure, in which he took shots at everyone in the hip-hop industry, including Anatii himself when he said;
"I'm the reason people had the saga on repeat, now you want to charge me R80 000 for a beat, streets on smash but your video trash"AKA on Composure
With this out of the way and a new precedent-setting in South Africa, the two could revolutionalise the sound of the country's hip-hop with this new album.
BCWYWF hits the mark on music, marketing and business points of view. And with AKA still to release his own individual project, which was put on hold to create the joint album with Anatii, AKA might be using it as a warm-up to anticipate reception to a possibly new sound for South African hip-hop, which is bombarded with trap right now.
The reason why AKA keeps releasing singles
AKA is infamous for releasing a bunch of singles off his albums before dropping the finished product, minimising the element of surprise. Holy Mountain is the 4th single from BCWYWF, and we already know almost half the album. The tracks on BCWYWF go back to even 2015 (The Saga).
But AKA is a calculating artist, and iTunes and digital media play a big part in why he opts to warm his fans up with singles before the album is released.
He knows that by putting the album on demand, pre-order sales on iTunes will soar, and he almost guarantees himself a solid foundation of sales and album demand before the album is even released.
The album is scheduled for release on July 28 and we hope that we finally get what we wish for from AKA and Anatii.