Check out Moonchild Sanelly's Teenage Kicks playlist, feat. Spice Girls, Dr Dre, Brandy and more | Dork
Check out Moonchild Sanelly's Teenage Kicks playlist, feat. Spice Girls, Dr Dre, Brandy and more
Moonchild Sanelly takes us through some of the music she listened to in her formative years.
When you load up Spotify, a great big chunk of the time you can’t think what to play, right? You default back to your old favourites, those albums and songs you played on repeat when you first discovered you could make them yours.
This isn’t about guilty pleasures; it’s about those songs you’ll still be listening to when you’re old and in your rocking chair. So, enter Teenage Kicks – a playlist series that sees bands running through the music they listened to in their formative years.
"Tell me what you want, what you really really want. I'll tell you what I want!" I love the Spice Girls; I feel that song without even looking for a lover. I don't even care about boys, but it was just like the freedom of it, and literally every time we played Spice Girls, I would be Scary Spice or Baby Spice; those were the two I would always juggle between. I feel like the experience of seeing freedom, girl power, and all that jazz were definitely contributing factors to me as an artist. I loved the Spice Girls!
Tamia - Falling For U
I love that song because that's when I was doing ballroom and Latin, and I got to dance. I used to do the cha-cha with my friends outside of the dance school, so we literally played Tamia all the time, and it was for dancing the cha-cha.
Dr Dre - Still Dre
I was a very sweet kid, but whenever I sang Dr. Dre, I would swear, and that was my license to swear without getting in trouble because I'm just singing a song!
Jill Scott - He Loves Me
Jill Scott was in the discovery of me, like finding soul music. I recorded her on VHS, and I remember it was that song that had the lyrics 'You love me, it's special'; I remember that was my discovery of soul because I was mainly exposed to hip-hop, and it was hard hip-hop! It wasn't the common and soulful one. So that was definitely me going down the rabbit hole after coming across Jill Scott playing that song live.
Christina Aguilera - Dirrty ft Redman
She flipped it, and I was FOR it… I loved it. I mean, I'm a dirrty girl now, so thank you, Christina!
Brandy - Full Moon
Probably one of the albums I actually had and sang along to; it was an original copy for a change, and I loved it myself. I loved 'Full Moon', and nothing ever related to relationships; whatever the context of the song was, it always just contributed in other ways. I wasn't even Moonchild at the time!
Thebe - Safety Belt
The next one is from South African legend , and it is fucking 'Safety Belt'! I feel like he was also one of the influences around just having that cool demeanour; one doesn't sweat it but makes music that makes everyone sweat… It's a track where energy is not shouting; it's just like something it gives. I love him for that, and I got the privilege to work with him when I did the Road to Amapiano Festival in Johannesburg this year.
Joyous Celebration - I Love U
Every Sunday as a kid, when they were cooking 7 colours at my grandmother's house, the gospel was playing. Joyous Celebration was one of the artists, and they gave me American church vibes. They were within the church structure, but they were just a little different, so that's the song where we used to sing along with all my siblings, and we'd all have to come up with the melodies to make it sound like a gospel. Even if you didn't want to wake up for church that Sunday!
Taken from the February 2025 issue of Dork. Moonchild Sanelly's album 'Full Moon' is out now.
