MC Yallah & Debmaster – Gaudencia
MC Yallah’s battering ram of a voice remains the standout on her patchy reunion with Debmaster
Gaudencia, the second LP (second-and-a-half if you include their tracks on 2023’s Yallah Beibe) uniting Kenya-born Uganda-raised MC Yallah and French producer Debmaster, feels like a consolidation of their chemistry, but it never quite manages to build beyond that.
The record’s at it’s best when it lets Yallah stand front and centre. Her voice is akin to Chuck D in its focused power but with a snarl that makes it so much lighter on its feet, and allows her to tear through tracks like Higher and Kekasera. Debmaster for his part knows exactly how to play to her strengths, the skeletal structures he guides her voice with are perfect, and his sledgehammer bass is the perfect mirror for Yallah’s sonorous tone.
However, where the smattering of other collaborators on Yallah Beibe gave a broader sense of what she can do over a variety of beats, things are a little more one note here, and when the beats do try for something new, they’re hit and miss. As much as the glitched stutter of Yalladana is lightning fun, the likes of Deception and Tunyedde never quite match the magnetism of her voice.
Listen to: Yalladana, Higher, Kekasera