After their widely praised debut »The Warm Heart Of Africa«, The Very Best have finally come up with another album. The singer Esau Mwamwaya from Malawi and producer Johan Hugo from London spent five weeks in Mwamwaya’s hometown Lilongwe in order to record a colorful and diverse mix of Dance-genres with numerous African influences somewhere between Kwaito and high life. Massive beats influenced by dubstep, borrowings from dancehall and Kudoro, and even potential summer-hits or anthems worthy of a football World Cup can be found on the record (though the latter could be due to the guest-singer K’naan…). All in all, the impressive number of guests who were asked to contribute (in addition to K’naan, there are artists like Amadou & Mariam and Mo Laudi amongst others) is even a bit counter-productive. Of course, the songs are much more varied this way, but it also makes Mwamwaya’s voice get a bit lost and makes the record lose parts of its autonomy. The individual tracks are just too different from another, so that it feels much more like listening to a sampler instead of a consistent album. Still, these minor flaws can’t change the positive mood, the summer feeling and the joy of dancing, plentiful provided by »MTMTMK«. It’s a perfectly timed summer-record that’s neither boring nor annoying.
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