Exploring everything from heartbreak, Black pride, representation and social activism to the search for identity and generational trauma, MOONGA K.’s third EP finds him speaking his truth. “CANDID is about the urgency to be who I am,” he tells Apple Music. “There were a lot of experiences that had happened pre-pandemic that I tackled emotionally that I internalised—and finally had time to address them during the lockdown. And I just started being very honest with myself about my Blackness, about the way I identify with different things about every and anything that makes me the human being that I am.” Co-written and produced by Greg Abrahams, CANDID brings together soul, funk, R&B, jazz and spoken word. “Greg's production is so cinematic,” MOONGA explains. “It felt like we were creating this sonic movie. It just feels bigger, and it feels like this statement that I’ve been waiting to make for a very long time.” Here, he breaks down the EP, track by track. “REBEL TIME” [MOONGA K. & Sampa the Great] “‘REBEL TIME’ started off as a drum loop that a drummer named Asher Gamedze had recorded and sent to Greg. And literally, instantly, I came up with the chorus: ‘rebel time, rebel time’. I was really inspired by Hiatus Kaiyote's “The Lung”; I really liked how gritty and sassy it was, and I wanted to tackle that, but I also really wanted to rap. I knew that the perfect person to be a part of that was Sampa. We have known each other since we were kids growing up in Botswana, and our journeys are quite aligned. And it just feels like a song to fight somebody to—like if somebody’s messing with you, just square up. It’s astounding what finding yourself can do, and accepting who you are, and unlearning trauma, going through unlearning generational curses. I tend to write songs that I don’t necessarily feel at the moment, but later on, I listen back to them, and I’m like, ‘Wow, I feel like that now’.” “i AM (interlude)” “This continues the story of ‘REBEL TIME’—this idea of ‘this is who I am, and you can’t take that away from me.’ And ‘i AM’ continues that rhetoric of saying, ‘I am all of these things.’ I wanted to have this idea of expressing that I am broken, but I am hopeful, but I am more, I am great, I am powerful. Before I started writing songs, I wrote poetry, and I was so obsessed with spoken word. It was a perfect way to tie the story together.” “black, free & beautiful” “I was so angry when I wrote this. I’d watched Lovecraft Country the night before I went into the studio with Greg. I think it was our second day. I’d watched the episode about the Tulsa massacre, and any Black person that engages with trauma is filled with all sorts of emotions—mine was rage. And I knew the story, but the way they portrayed it was so visceral that I just found myself in tears, and in a mess, and just feeling so hopeless and angry at colonisers. And so, the morning of the recording, I just woke up with the melody in my head. I felt so compelled to tell this story of Black joy, but also addressing our pain and the systemic issues that are faced across the diaspora. And I did not know that it was going to be a funky song that you could dance to, but that’s how it came about.” “GIVE IT 2 YA” “This is heavily Prince-inspired. I just wanted to create something funky and a testament to people that live and are the rainbow, which is the queer community. I love the queer community, and I learned so much, and wanted to write. Because people constantly sexualise things, it might seem like a sexual song in the beginning. But for me, it’s just about stepping into your power and saying, ‘Who I am—the sass, this greatness, this magnitude, this joy—I’m going to give it to you, whether you ask for it or not. I’m going to give it to you.’ It just felt fitting to also take it into this ’70s funk space, but also have a bit of Afrofuturism in it. It’s literally like, ‘Listen, I’m free as fuck. And I’m going to be this way until the end of time’.” “honeybee” “I saw the word ‘honeybee’—an individual that stings you and gives you so much pain, but you still want to prove to them that you’re worthy of their love and attention. I wanted to write this song about wanting someone to see you, and see your worth, and see how you could be good for them, and see how you can make a relationship, situationship, whatever-ship work. Before, I always used to tell myself, ‘I’m never going to write love songs because it’s giving so much power to the other person.’ But it isn’t. It’s you owning your own power and your narrative and your story, and whatever things and emotions they inflict on you. And if it turns into a hit song, then yes, I’m getting rich over that heartbreak that you gave me.” “WHOLE (interlude)” “This closes the story of ‘honeybee’: ‘So, I’m here, begging you to love me, or to see me, or to want me. But I don’t need you to because I’m hot and on fire. And I have so much more to give, and you don’t make me whole. I make myself whole.’ I wanted to say in my own words to those who have wronged me. Hopefully, they listen to the record, and they listen to these words and realise that they really lost out. It took so long for me to get to a point where I just realise that I actually am the shit. And I mean that kindly and respectfully. But also, if I want to be cocky about it, I’ll be cocky about it.”