Photo by Simnikiwe Buhlungu

Over the weekend South African alt-rapper Sam Turpin made his formal debut on Eternal Sentiment, a four track introduction to the JHB newcomer's mild-mannered wordplay and stripped-back production. The EP opens with easygoing rhymesaying before heading into revved up directions with the Egypt-nodding "Alexandrie" and "New Sunset," an overseas collab with Congolese/Ivorian New Yorker boom bapsmith Sammus and Chapel Hill, North Carolina's SkyBlew. We caught up with Sam ahead of the drop for a breakdown of his debut EP. Listen to Eternal Sentiment below and scroll on for a full track-by-track explanation.

1) "Cranes"

"This was the first track I came out with as an artist, I wrote it in France and recorded it in Jo’burg but most of the track's message comes through in the video. People really liked it and thought I wanted to use it as the opener for my EP!"

2) "Ace of Spades"

"This track is kind of like my warped perspective of all kinds of stuff that people are always exposed to and the beat was kind of experimental for me."

3) "Alexandrie (Eternal Sentiment)"

"I wrote this track when I was really sad one day. My grandmother was born in Alexandria in Egypt and so that’s why I named it Alexandrie. The track kind of speaks for itself and I guess the rest is up to the imagination!"

4) "New Sunset (feat SkyBlew & Sammus)"

"I remember one thing that I wanted to do with the EP was collaborate with an artist overseas and I wanted to show that if you make use of the resources you have, in this case the internet, you can collaborate with loads of cool people as an artist and in this case I got two! Sammus made the beat and SkyBlew sent me the verse so it was really cool and I’m glad with how it came together. I think it’s slightly more cheerful than the other tracks and so I decided to use it to close the EP."