Who Produced Sampa the Great's Nu Zamrock? Cadenza, Solomon Moyo and Sampa Herself

By Dani Reyes, October 30, 2026

Sampa the Great's Nu Zamrock was executive produced by Sampa the Great and Cadenza, per Apple Music's song credits. Cadenza holds a producer or co-producer credit on 11 of the 16 tracks, Sampa (credited as Sampa Tembo) produces eight, and Solomon Moyo and Magnus "Mag44" Mando each produce six.

Sampa the Great Nu Zamrock: the basics

The Zambian rapper's third album came out Oct. 30, 2026. It runs 16 songs and 37 minutes. The ℗ line reads "2026 Sampa The Great Pty Ltd., Under exclusive license to Loma Vista Recordings. A Concord Label Group Release," on Apple Music.

The earliest released track is "Can't Hold Us" with Mwanje, which carries an Apple release date of Nov. 14, 2025. Sampa announced the album on Sept. 10, 2026, alongside the new single "Simon Says," Stereogum reported, noting that the album also includes "Can't Hold Us."

Sampa the Great: "Simon Says" (Official Visualizer)

Every track, producer and feature

All credits below come from each song's credits page on Apple Music. Executive producer credits for Sampa and Cadenza run across the whole album, so the table lists track producers only.

1. Intro: Cadenza
2. Prayer In A Dance: Solomon Moyo, Sampa Tembo, Mag44; co-producer Oliver Rodigan
3. Can't Quit Music: Solomon Moyo, Sampa Tembo, Mag44; co-producer Oliver Rodigan
4. Simon Says: Solomon Moyo, Sampa Tembo, Mag44; co-producer Oliver Rodigan; additional producer Harry Edwards
5. Catch If You Can: Solomon Moyo, Sampa Tembo, Mag44; co-producer Oliver Rodigan
6. Can't Hold Us (feat. Mwanje): Cadenza
7. Location: Cadenza
8. Canary: Cadenza, Harry Edwards
9. Maybe Then: Cadenza
10. Supernova (feat. Sia): Cadenza, Jesse Shatkin
11. So Mone: Sampa the Great, Cadenza, Solomon Moyo, Mag44
12. Star (feat. KAMAUU): Cadenza
13. The Journey Is Underrated: Cadenza
14. Gone (feat. Nicole Gumbe): Solomon Moyo, Sampa Tembo, Mag44; co-producer Cadenza
15. Nicole's Interlude: Sampa Tembo, Sammy Masta
16. I Can Love: Sampa Tembo; co-producers Solomon Moyo, Lazarus Zulu, Cadenza

Two camps behind the boards

Read the table top to bottom and the album splits in two. Tracks 2 through 5 belong to one team: Solomon Moyo, Sampa and Mag44, with Oliver Rodigan as co-producer. Cadenza is executive producer there but takes no track credit. That team comes back on "So Mone," "Gone" and "I Can Love."

The middle of the record is Cadenza's. From "Can't Hold Us" through "The Journey Is Underrated," Cadenza is the producer on every song, sharing "Canary" with Harry Edwards and "Supernova" with Jesse Shatkin. The Note calls Cadenza a "Grammy Award-winning producer."

Mag44 matters here. Dazed reports that Zambian collaborators worked across the project, including "production from local legend Mag 44." Apple's credits also list him as a recording engineer on every track.

Then there's Sampa herself. Apple's editorial notes say she first moved to Australia "to study audio engineering." Here she produces half the album under her own name. That's not a vanity credit. It's eight songs.

What the critics hear

I'll let the reviewers describe the sound. The AU Review wrote that "The production, with Sampa and Cadenza sharing executive producer credits, gives each track its own identity while maintaining a cohesive feel across the album." On "Supernova," the same review hears "heavy drums that sound like a marching band approaching."

The Note heard "Simon Says" as Sampa rapping "over a rock-rap production." Clash said "Star" "hypnotises with its swampy, pulsating bass and airy harmonies." The Guardian's Caitlin Welsh pointed to "raw, high-gain guitar fuzz."

The WITCH connection

The album starts with family. Per Apple Music's editorial notes, "Nu Zamrock opens with Tembo interviewing her uncle, George Kunda, about his role in co-founding Zamrock icons WITCH." Apple credits Kunda, listed as George "Groovy Joe" Kunda, as a vocalist on "Intro," "Can't Quit Music" and "Maybe Then," and as a songwriter on "Intro."

Sampa put it plainly when she announced the album. "Zamrock is part of my family legacy," she said, via Stereogum. "It's my voice." She added: "Nu Zamrock is not nostalgia. It is the future remembering where it came from."

On "Intro," per The AU Review's transcription, she says: "We can hear the traditional Zambian music, we can hear the rock music, and then we add our hip hop infusion and our Afro-fusion, and we are sort of creating the new (nu) Zamrock."

My read

The credits back up the pitch. A Zamrock tribute could have been one big-name producer dressing up old sounds. Instead the work is split between a Zambian team, an executive producer with a hand in most of the record and the artist herself. The best rap records let the credits tell you who actually built them. More credit breakdowns live on the KAZI hip-hop hub, including our credits-first look at Melly Mike's TIME4WAR.

Dani Reyes, Behind the Boards. Credits check: Solomon Moyo on 'Simon Says'.