Black Sherif Shakes Off Stress on ‘Zero’

Ghanaian rapper/singer Black Sherif’s latest single “Zero” is tranquil bliss – with an edge. Mabel, who calls Swedish (with Sierra Leonean heritage) singer Neneh Cherry and British producer Cameron McVey mom and dad – joins him on the new song.

Over a dreamy track punctuated by hard hip-hop drums, Blacko and Mabel meditate on healing and living drama free. While Sherif raps about balancing fame and dark forces with his sense of peace, Mabel sings, “Found me a piano in the hotel lobby/Singing to myself, I don’t – nobody/I know how to fill up my cup.” The singer seemingly uses the Drakeism of omitting predictable words and syllables from the verse and stacking harmonies.

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In an Instagram post featuring a video clip of him and Mabel, Black Sherif called the new track “art we made at our most vulnerable state.”

In December, Black Sherif headlined AfroFuture, a Ghanaian music festival attended by a reported 40,000 guests from around the world. He won the prize for Best International Flow at the 2023 BET Awards. “Growing up in Ghana, makes you dream more,” he’s told Rolling Stone in 2022. “When you start to grow, you want to chase it, you go for it all. Where I grew up, Konongo, I wanted to be a musician, an artist. But there weren’t a lot of people doing it.” He added, “So, my whole life is an experiment. Like, let me just try this. It makes you tough and it’s exciting. There’s a beauty in the journey, too.”

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