Reviews
Music Review – Amanda Black Power
Amanda Benedicta Antony, popularly known by her stage name Amanda Black is an Eastern Cape born Afro-Soul artist from uMtata.
She rose to fame after season 11 of South African Music TV show, SA Idols and gracefully finished at Top 7 of the competition. She then later signed a record label deal with Ambitiouz Entertainment in January 2016.
Her 1st album and single titled- Amazulu garnered over 4 million views on YouTube by June of that same year and was further certified Platinum on its first three weeks of release which won her 5 accolades, of which 2 were from Metro FM awards and 3 from the South African Music Awards.
Earlier this year,Amanda announced that she signed a deal with Sony Music Entertainment and highlighted that she was working on a new album. During one of her interviews with Drum Magazine Amanda stated: “It’s a new chapter and I’m so excited. I’ve been waiting to start over again”. She further announced her new record label called Afro Rockstar Produtions where she wrote all of the songs for her new sophomore album titled POWER.
She released the debut single Thandwa Ndim at the beginning of this year which tells the story of woman stuck in an abusive relationship and and is made to believe she is worthless without him. The single received positive reviews and reactions from musical critics and was number 1 on the iTunes charts of its 1st day of release. She later released singles from the album including Egoli, Hamba, Ndizele Wena and Afrika ft Adekunle Gold (Nigeria).
The sophomore album was released on the 25th of October 2019 and is expected to be one of the biggest releases of the year and features guest appearances from the Charlene hit-maker, Anthony Hamilton, freshly talented artist from Port Elizabeth – Ami Faku, The Soweto Gospel Choir and Kush Mahleka who delivers are very powerful and heartfelt poetic Intro to the album.
The album consists of 18 tracks and on the song power, Amanda talks about her experience and disappointment with her previous record label. In the lyrics she says, “See I believed that I found a family, I believed that it would be forever, it seemed as though I found my perfect fit, I wasn’t ready for the storm that came after”. Other songs in the album include Bayile, Famous, Mmangwane and Vuka, just to mention a few.
The album has received a very warm response from the streets of Twitter and the country as a whole and is believed to do exceptionally well on the charts.
