Throughout his career, Sarz has been a vehicle for other people’s feelings. That’s the long-standing trade-off that comes with being a producer.
While a producer’s personal sonic taste might shape the delivery of an artist, it’s rare for that producer’s state of mind or personal concerns to have room to shine on a record performed by someone else. As a renowned producer whose work has propelled and shaped contemporary sounds of Afropop, this is a position Sarz is attempting to rethink.
In his debut album Protect Sarz At All Costs, Sarz poses an interesting question that runs through the core of the 12-track project. What does it look like when a music producer enters the role of a music curator? The answer is a sprawling world filled with sounds that surprise and a narrative thread that manages to channel various forms of personal and observational perspectives through the voices of some of Sarz’s oldest and most trusted collaborators. From Wizkid to Asake, Lojay to Teni and WurlD, Sarz takes listeners on a journey through the sounds that shaped him and the interests he is now moved to.
“It's mixed emotions; excitement, and there's a little anxiety, but I'm happy regardless, you know. I can't wait to share this with the world,” Sarz tells OkayAfrica.
At its core, Protect Sarz At All Costs is a subversive, extensive, and playful world Sarz has curated with care, but also with instinct and a willingness to reinvent. “It's always been something I wanted to do,” he says. “I've just taken the step forward to make an album because it's a lot of work. It's not something I can just put together in a week or so, because I like to take my time with my work.”
Although Protect Sarz At All Costs shifts through genres of house, classic Afropop, and even jazz, he refuses to identify with a specific sonic language. As Sarz sees it, this album sits within different pockets and can only accurately be defined as his personal perspective, not by any generalist understanding. “I'm here collecting things that inspire me and making my own world, making my own universe,” he says. “It's really my own world and protecting that world because I'm sure there are people who can identify themselves in the intersection of what I create.”
The album fiddles with different forms, disregards any established notions of what Sarz sounds like or should sound like, and flows with the delightfully cohesive energy of an exhibition. Here, Sarz has a philosophy of an African sound that is globalist, thoroughly experimental, and averse to quick and flat definitions.
It’s all in the energy
Sarz’s career began in 2010, producing for stars like eLDee, JahBless, and the late Goldie Harvey, but many might be more familiar with his later collaborations with stars like Wizkid and WurlD. Sarz’s sonic language is sleek but unpredictable. His iteration of Afropop, which is bouncy, cosmopolitan, and deeply esoteric with its sources, helped shape a generation of producers.
But Sarz excels best as a producer who is collaborative rather than functional. In his debut and only other album, I LOVE GIRLS WITH TROBUL, released in collaboration with WurlD, Sarz built a tastefully theatrical world that examined contemporary dating culture. And even though he doesn’t voice the record, his perspective as well as his personal one is thoroughly reflected.
Sarz brings that same ability to speak through other people in this latest album. And it all begins with how he facilitates who he works with. “I wasn't particular about working with certain people or not,” Sarz says. “It was more about what you create with these people. Do you like what you're doing with this person? And if it works, it works. If it doesn't, you know, that's fine. We'll try another time.”
With collaborators, Sarz says he looks for people who are human first. People for whom the weight of celebrity doesn’t get in the way of simply being an artist, even for a couple of hours. “What's most important to me is working with an artist as a human being without ego,” he says. “Working with an artist and you know you can express yourself, you can make mistakes in their presence, you don't feel judged. You can share an idea that's not fully developed with them, and you know they understand, and you guys work together to make it magic.”
Throughout Protect Sarz at All Costs, these elements of fluidity and artistic freedom shine through. They’re present in tracks like “Up” with Victony — an uptempo, house/EDM mix with biting lyrics, memorable hooks, and a beat that creeps in before exploding. They’re also present in “African Barbie” with Teni and Libianca, a classic Afropop track that casts the two incredible artists in a different and intensely sensual light. And on “Getting Paid,” Sarz makes an unlikely, but incredibly inspired pairing of Wizkid, Asake, and Skillbeng for a track that’s steeped in island flavours and hip-hop sensibilities. It’s in these unpredictable but well-blended pairings, bringing Byron Messia together with Fireboy DML in “BMF,” or WurlD with the Ndlovu Youth Choir on “Grateful,” that Sarz’s curatorial eye excels.
And in that way, Protect Sarz at All Costs is at once indulgent and also steeped in perspective. There are moving reflections on getting older, musings on figuring things out, and of course, different manifestations of desire.
“I've never been one to come from a direction that everyone else is coming from. I've always been one to dig deeper, try new things with my sound. I always want to find new ways of getting the desired results from people. Find new ways to make people dance how they love to dance.”
While working on this project, which spanned more than two years, Sarz pulled from a range of sounds from across the world, often in passing. “The song ‘Getting Paid’ has a sample from Toumani Diabeté called ‘Jarabi.’ I heard that song, and it just sounded so sick. One thing that I know how to do really well is bring different things that inspire me together and make them cohesive.” Ultimately, Sarz has created a project that is incredibly delightful and intensely global-facing. It’s a curatorial, truly tasteful feat that not only tells the world what Sarz thinks of African music today, but also offers a unique window into the mind of a man who keeps much of his life away from the limelight. Sarz lets these artists he works with sound incredible, otherworldly, and boundless. And in so doing, we hear so much of him, even though he doesn’t utter a word.
