Sampa the Great and Some Special Guests Perform on 'Jimmy Fallon'

Sampa the Great performed on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon this week and brought some very special guests along for the occasion.

The Zambian star was the musical guest on Fallon’s late night show and performed “Let Me Be Great”, a cut from her acclaimed 2022 album As Above, So Below.

The song originally featured a guest turn from Angélique Kidjo, and the iconic singer-songwriter backed Sampa during the performance. Fallon’s house band The Roots and Mwanje Tembo also helped out Sampa, and you can watch the entire performance below.

Sampa picked the perfect episode to appear on, with Michelle Obama also being a guest on the show: the rapper featured on Michelle’s Summer Playlist back in 2020 (she also featured on Barack’s playlist two years later). Sampa’s Fallon appearance also came around one year after her debut Coachella performances.

Sampa has been landing career highlights wherever she goes recently. Last year saw one of her songs soundtrack the trailer for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. The outdo of “Never Forget”, which memorably contains traditional African chanting and rhythms, prominently played as the original Black Panther cast were introduced to audiences again, opposite the film’s new villainous threats.

“Can you imagine! Me … A Non billboard charting ass, No huge awards having ass, non Viral video ass, No Sold out Arena tour having ass Independent artist, Whose song is on a Black Panther Trailer! This how God works. Thankful!!” the Zambian rapper wrote on Twitter at the time.

“Never Forget”, which featured guest turns from Chef 187, Tio Nason, and Mwanjé, was the third track on Sampa’s second studio album As Above, So Below, released last year to positive reviews. The follow-up to her 2019 award-winning debut The Return, the album reached number 12 on the ARIA Albums Chart.