In the early 90s, Sir Mix-A-Lot shined a light on the White world’s Fear Of A Back’d Planet. (Before that, they only needed to mind Tina.) The likes of Wreckx-In-Effect, Juvenile, Mystikal, and Sisqó laid more foundation, but it took Nicki Minaj to wrest ownership away from men and put women in the butt driver’s… seat. Lizzo, Megan Thee Stallion, Doja Cat and now Moonchild Sanelly lord over all the derrière in the air.
The multilingual South African has a mutli-metaphorical album title in Full Moon, announced last May with the single “Scrambled Eggs”: “It’s your God-given duty / to appreciate my booty.” Its follow-up single, “Big Booty”, doubled down and the two tracks kick off the album.
But, she ultimately reveals, they’re just icebreakers (“Why yes, that is my booty!”) and not her end-all, be-all. Full moons often mean a sophomoric prank or a literary trope that launches people into madness; in astrology, however, they symbolise completeness and clarity. Full Moon represents a journey into self-accpetance, cloaked in body positivity and twerking off the stereotypes of big-bottomed rappers. “If I had a big big booty I’d fuck up the world”, she sings while already signalling for the next topic. “Oh I do, and I already am.”
At 40, she’s done with faking her way through the party lifestyle: “I don’t drink no tequila / ’Cause my memory goes / I don’t fuck with tequila / ’Cause it kills my joy”. On “Broke”, Sanelly nods to the boys trapped in a system where sexual conquest is the only conquest they’ll ever know, while “Do My Dance” uses her doorway to block their toxic masculinity: “I don’t take no rules from a mouse”.
With the outsider energy of Janelle Monáe, OutKast, M.I.A., and (in regards to hip-hop) Gwen Stefani, Full Moon wrestles with sexuality, patriarchy, complicity, and survivor’s syndrome. It references No Limit and classic Miami bass music, while sampling dub and electrofunk. Though singing in English and Xhosa, Sanelly conspicuously disregards conventional, South African idioms. “I Love People” shows touches of syncopation (largely hidden by Full Moon’s most sexually graphic lyrics) and “Mntanami” has a dignified, one-world solemnity. The Westernisms underscore her alienation.
She presents herself superficially as a sexual omnivore; “Sweet & Savage” opens, “I like girls, I nibble on boys now and then / Slots open / Are you gonna try and be an applicant?” She might “like” girls, but boys have her full attention. Halfway through the album, “Falling” begins to illustrate their emotional toll. “‘It’s not my baby’,” she sings, “That’s what he said / He kicked us out / Without a test / I had to find / A home for kids.”
Slipped into a track about independence, it seems initially to be motivation for the fortunes detailed since “Scrambled Eggs” (which, incidentally, is about having acclimated to a lifestyle that avocado toast represents). Instead, the story of her eviction commences a tale that climaxes in “Mntami” and its grim reminder, “Women don’t count”. The rejection of her mother by her polygamous father feeds directly into her complicated, carnal heterosexual relationships, culminating in the confessional “I Was The Biggest Curse”.
The narrative arc – so expertly disguised when the album started – yields a release with surprising character and soul. (You, like me, probably assumed this would be a review filled with increasingly complex ass-puns.) Just as Minaj finally reminded us that there’s a face and a heart attached to each of them, Sanelly demonstrates that those faces and hearts have fears, regrets, and dreams. She’ll do sidebends or situps, but she’ll never lose that butt.
