“Airport Yaoundé” unfolds like a cross-continental cipher, the Johannesburg-based Cold Chinese Food project bringing together producer ILLA N and rapper Sam Turpin with The Charles Géne Suite collective and a wide cast of collaborators. Released on 30 July as part of Vital Ital — an album many years in the making — it brings together themes of food, travel, and shifting geographies within a global hip-hop sensibility.

Here, buoyant afrobeat patterns, funk basslines, and jazz-hued horn phrases pivot around hip-hop verses in English and isiXhosa, with refrains calling for inkululeko (freedom). Cameroonian reference points are embedded in the lyrics — from plantain and ndolé to the bustle of Yaoundé — while the beat nods toward West African rhythmic traditions. Solos from Muhammad Dawjee’s saxophone weave between Boskasie’s vocals, streetwise verses from Turpin, and percussive interplay from McKnasty and Amongst The People I Know.

The track’s arrangement shifts in bursts: rap sections give way to chanted calls, instrumental breaks, and funk-driven vamps. Its forward momentum mirrors the song’s imagery of transit, airports, and new days, grounding a Pan-African vision in danceable form.

Listen to and get your copy of Vital Ital HERE