The 9th Wonder-produced track appears on Rapsody’s album Eve.
The fourth single from Rapsody‘s latest is finally here. On Friday afternoon, she released the video for “Afeni,” featuring PJ Morton. The album is a tribute to both Tupac Shakur and his mother.
“Afeni” follows the theme of the Eve album. In 2018, an interviewer asked if she was a successor to Nina Simone and Roberta Flack. Subsequently, Rapsody decided to pay tribute to her Black female heroes. Previously, she released videos for “Nina,” “Oprah,” and “Ibtihaj.” The latter features GZA and D’Angelo. The tracks pay homage to their namesake.
READ: The Curious Case of Rapsody’s ‘Eve’ & Hip-Hop’s Contradictory Pedestal for Women
For this track, 9th Wonder sampled an early recording of what eventually became Tupac’s “Keep Ya Head Up.” Rapsody both praises and bemoans the state of modern Black America, urging Black men and women to realize they aren’t each other’s enemy. She mentions
The video follows a Black couple through the rise and fall of their relationship. The opening shots show the leading woman stands on the shores of a beach. In subsequent scenes, she discovers she’s expecting a child. Rapsody and PJ join each other in an idyllic field between the overarching events.
Unfortunately, the relationship deteriorates shortly afterward. However, the video ends on a bittersweet note, with the new mother and her son holding hands on the beach from previous scenes,
Eve is available on major streaming platforms.
Tami Temple 