BY KWANELE TSABEDZE
MBABANE – History, gender, love, and self-development.
These are some of the themes which Lution’s fans got to explore at the listening session of his new album, ‘The Autonomy’, which was officially released today.
The SWAMA award-winning artist dropped the much-anticipated album after a successful listening session which was held at the Mbabane Theatre Club on Friday the 7th of October. Fans at the listening session were treated to an exclusive first look at the 15-track project, and an even more exclusive breakdown of the concepts in the album from Lution himself.
Lution, real name Mzwandile Nxumalo, warmed up the crowd by playing his last musical project, ‘The College Kid LP’, and by delivering a few of his classical verses on a cappella. After the introduction, the eager crowd experienced ‘The Autonomy’ for the first time to much ululation, dancing, and sometimes silent reflections on the songs.
The 15-track album features 23 artists from Eswatini, South Africa, Lesotho, and the United States (including his mother and father). Speaking on this unprecedented number of features on a Lution project, Lution revealed that the process of making the album was different from the way he created his last offerings.
“I decided to explore more of what is in me as an artist instead of staying in a certain box as a backpack rapper. I decided to burn the box and stretch my ability to other sounds. Through this process, I ended up working with this many different artists and sounds,” said Lution when answering a question from Phumlani Matse during the listening session.
The listening session, which was by invite only, was attended by Lution fans from different parts of the entertainment industry. In addition to collaborators in the project, the guest list included U.S. embassy personnel, media personnel, artists, businesspeople, as well as Lution’s family. Notable faces included Young Zesh, Lyrikal Busta, Elfoe, Kena, Sarnilo, and Dzeli the poet.
After the listening session, attendees were invited to vote for their favourite songs as a form of feedback. According to Lution, crowd favourites were the majority Siswati songs, including ‘Masonga’, ‘Ondiyaneni’, and ‘Vuka’ which is a house song sampling classic material from the local radio station EBIS 1.
After the event, Lution took to social media to express his appreciation for the support and feedback at the listening session.
“I would sincerely love to express my deepest gratitude to God for blessing us with such an amazing and successful listening session yesterday. A huge thank you to Lution Music, XLR Media, Platinum Concepts, Mic’d Emotions, Interior Novela and every single member of the team that worked to make it happen. Most importantly I would like to thank YOU who honored the invitation and came out to show love and support to Lution’s Autonomy Listening session at the Theatre Club last night. It was amazing and I’m so humbled and grateful. “THANK YOU!” said Lution.
Lution, who is also the founder and CEO of Kingdom XLR Media, expressed excitement for the rollout of the project, citing that the next big event is the album launch to be announced soon.
“I’m looking forward to a lot of work which will happen in the next few months, where we’ll be working on the rollout of the music on the business side of things. This won’t just be my music, but all the artists under XLR – lookout for Chaboy, lookout for Kena, lookout for Tella, lookout for Jael LaPour, and lookout for Bluujay,” said Lution.
The Autonomy is currently available on all digital platforms besides YouTube.
