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Mbulelo Mpofu, Showbiz Reporter
HIP-HOP lovers are set to enjoy 45 songs from “The king of Zimbabwe hip-hop” R_peels when he drops his upcoming album.

Yeah, you heard that right, 45 songs in that single project.

I know that this is subjective but I know that both of us agree that 45 is rather plenteous.

Newsflash! This is NOT the first time we have heard of such an abundant musical project.

In 2020, Bulawayo rapper and producer Kuly Tangu (real name Sikulile Tangu) who has over 10 mixtapes, did it.

His album had a staggering 52 songs and such a trend led to these questions: What drives artistes to go to such lengths in recording albums? What’s the point of so many songs?

The number of a “normal album” is subjective but a lot of people are accustomed to listening to plus/minus 10 tracks in one album.

According to the Guiness Book of World Records, the most songs on a digital album is 446, and was achieved by Mark Lee and The Pocket Gods (both UK) with the album titled “500X30 Morse Code Days In Lockdown”, released on 1 May 2021.

Chronicle Showbiz sat down with Kuly Tangu with the discussion of having 52 songs on a single project being the subject matter at hand.

Kuly Tangu said there are many reasons why artistes record many songs in one album.

“Okay, there are a lot of reasons why we do this and they differ depending on the artiste and their formula for their music.

Most of the artistes have a lot of material and they want to give it to the people, hence a lot of songs in their albums.

“An album’s minimum length is 40 minutes and it can reach 80 minutes.

So, for a CD album, one can make songs looking at the number of minutes they want to pack in that album resulting in 20+ songs but still under the 80 minutes mark.

Others will go for a Playlist Album which may contain over 80 minutes which will result in 30-50+ songs on one single playlist album.

For why artists do that, we can’t really know but my point of view is the amount of songs one has and how many they want to release, “ he said.

Another critical issue that Kuly Tangu addressed was that of what would be going on in a creative mind when composing so many songs.

“Most of the songs in my 52-track album, KULY (Kind Unity Loving Youth) took me at least eight months to compile every little detail on the album.

Most of the songs were recorded at night and 78% of them are relationship-based.

The 2019-20 period was one of the worst for me as I went through a rough patch. I was depressed and lonely most of the days.

So, these songs became my escape from reality to a reality that helped me calm down.

You’ll find that there are sad, happy, love and hate songs.

It was rather, a roller-coaster of feelings in which music became my muse, “ he said.

We might never know what pushed R_peels to record 45 songs on one album and it’s only a matter of time before his album drops.

– @eMKlass_49