Retro Reviews: Yung Tyran’s Souvenir Created in his ‘Memento Mori’ EP

TAWANDA CHARI

Thamsanqa Silanda, known professionally as Yung Tyran, is a South African-based  Zimbabwean-born rapper from Bulawayo. Attached to record entity Money Dreams & More, the rapper’s rich discography includes projects such as Memento Mori, Zodiac and Late Bloomer.

Memento is borrowed from the Latin word ‘mementō’, imperative of meminī which means "I remember". A memento is a keepsake or a souvenir that represents or is a reminder of an event or a place.

Memento Mori is an emblematic object such as a skull, used as a reminder of one's mortality. Yung Tyran went with blood. That's the first track into the E.P and it captures everything that he says in the 7-track project. We've narrowed down overarching motif of the E.P  as one of passion from the Greeks meaning "to suffer", as in the Passion of Christ. That is, to suffer for what you love.

WRITTEN IN BLOOD

This could have several different meanings, Passion, Energy, or Divine among others. 

“He who writes in blood…does not want to be read, he wants to be learned by heart.” — Friedrich Nietzsche

Yung Tyran is a creative who has something beyond skill that can be daunting as regards proffering intelligible explanations. Writing in Blood is his ability to transcend conventional education and experience to somehow craft novel things and worlds. 

To do anything with Blood—with passion—is to be skillful, deliberate, and precise with actions, and to not simply follow all the right steps and rules, but to put yourself—all of you—into the work to create something immensely powerful and unforgettable.

Written in Blood means including everything that is Yung Tyran into 7 songs; the best and the worst parts of humself, all there, right in the music.

Maybe it was an angry outburst, or simply inspiration (from the Latin word inspirare, meaning “to breathe into.”) Whatever you call it, our power is a gift that is breathed into us and can never be truly explained. Skills can be learned but passion is born with us. It stems from within us. It stems from within Yung Tyran, his memento mori.

The rest of the project follows the same Passion theme that he led with in Written In Blood however switching subject matter a bit. Most of what he wanted to say is captured in thr first track and then branches off to the other 6 tracks. The producers didn't do a lot with the beats and how the songs sound. 

It seems Yung Tyran wanted to capture us with what he's saying rather than the sonical part of the music.

Listen to the project below and reach your own verdict:

https://www.deezer.com/en/album/229371522?autoplay=true&deferredFl=1&utm_campaign=album&utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic