Reviews
John Legend & Burna Boy – “Coming 2 America” Permeates From America & Highlights African Barrier, The Review
Popular American singer, John Legend’s “Coming 2 America”, featuring Nigerian Afro-fusion singer and Grammy-nominated act Burnaboy, is a fulfilling stroke of un-hypnotic synth and blustering drums that range from an unconventional spectrum of sonic styles enriched with pop that holistically represents a very strong filming soundtrack for the 2021 “Coming 2 America” blockbuster film. “Coming 2 America” soundtrack is powerful and its sonic essence built on an easy run-down that strictly envision certain scenes from the American comedy movie starring popular American movie icon, Eddie Murphy and was directed by Craig Brewer. The songwriting mostly from John Legend’s verse and the chorus implies a very great build-up that totally depicts a homely description of America. The artistic essence fr...
Wizkid – “Check”, Is The Best Teaser To Elate Nigerian Listeners, The Review
“Check”, the un-anticipated record added next to Wizkid’s successful 2020 fourth studio album – “Made In Lagos”, has been built with the finest afro structural percussion instruments, progressive synth, and bold trumpeting rifts that both accompanies unending melodies which the record entirely displays from start till the end. “Check” literally is like a teaser song and is more like a freestyle that was almost lacking in total serious attitude in the general creation. RELATED: Korede Bello’s Popstar Transformation, Ready To Dominate Once More – “Real Man” Review Though it was released, Wizkid’s delivery sounded worthy to sustain an average Nigerian listener. The record is club and dance-worthy to create a level of happiness and keep a grin and continues glee on the face of Nigerians who ar...
Niniola’s 6th Heaven EP Is An Almost Failed Mission To Keep Nigeria Listeners, The Review
In 6th Heaven, Niniola engineered a range of classic melodic R&B and mid-tempo Afro-beat records, that apparently glow underneath few creations. She almost leaves her native spot that houses a notable sonic spectrum, crafted from a unique markup termed Afro-house music. Niniola is the queen of the genre, and it’s a popularly known fact like she’s grown bigger with it and it has become an edge that she conquers amongst contemporaries in the Nigerian music industry. Afro-house music is a very potent creation that could possibly bring Niniola‘s crossover moments victoriously. RELATED: Ric Hassani: “The Prince I Became”, Album Review A very great attempt was via her previous album titled, “Colors and Sound”, which had popular American singer and songwriter, Timbaland, at the major front ti...
IAN SWEET Finds Her Breath on the Revealing Show Me How You Disappear: Review
The Lowdown: How do you turn introspection into propulsive pop? How can deep reflection push a person into new patterns? These questions weave the eclectic tapestry of Show Me How You Disappear, the third album from IAN SWEET, the now-solo indie-rock project from singer-songwriter Jilian Medford. The collection sparked during the time Medford, 27, spent in an outpatient therapy program for anxiety just before the pandemic, and the songs’ inventive, textured pop marks her best release to date. [embedded content] The Good: The album opens with a momentary squall, the first track, “My Favorite Cloud”, expanding into a Flaming Lips-esque garble that sounds like a sentient modem drowning, before it’s pierced by Medford’s high, filtered voice: “My psychic told me I’d die/ ’Cause I’d forget to br...
Korede Bello’s Popstar Transformation, Ready To Dominate Once More – “Real Man” Review
Korede Bello’s Popstar appeal becomes a fuller expression on “Real Man”, a song where Bello’s artistic brightness as a pop star comes alive stronger through his alluring lyrical demeanor to his exotic delivery that opens up like an actor who’s on some sort of deliberate transformation in the music industry. “Table For Two”, his last year project quickens the transition’s initial phase – from his sparky and tenders to look Jeri-curl hair, to his recent good looking low cut and, gold color-tinted hair which makes him a more manly look with well-deserved broad appeal as it portrays through his music and everything it represents from his previous project. RELATED: Rema Is Creatively Damned: “Bounce”, The Review Well, with his recent single “Real Man”, lies strong conformity of his pop star ill...
Nick Cave & Warren Ellis Offer a Tender Glimpse of Hope on the Beautiful Carnage: Review
The Lowdown: In 1997, Nick Cave sang about a “Kingdom” whose light was so bright that “All the world’s darkness can’t swallow up/ A single spark.” On The Boatman’s Call, Cave yearned for this kingdom through a mist of tears born from what he’d later call “a convergence of events that felt so calamitous at the time that I could not find a way to write about anything else.” In the midst of a similarly calamitous convergence of events in 2020 — when it felt impossible to think on anything but widespread sickness, white supremacy, and the fractured state of our society — Cave found himself drawn yet again to the pursuit of this kingdom of light. Carnage, Cave’s new record alongside longtime Bad Seed and soundtrack collaborator Warren Ellis, beautifully and devastatingly documents their pursuit...
Rema Is Creatively Damned: “Bounce”, The Review
On “Bounce”, Rema is sick and damned creatively – Don Jazzy is the record producer that should be held responsible. “Bounce” is a very strong record built with the popular, notable South African Ampiano sound and Nigerian Afro-beat fusion interlocking, between. Don Jazzy created a stint and left his record label signee Rema, to fully extricate; as he got along into the sonic glider he was given (beats) and then he flew smoothly to an abyss, like in a place where he was creatively damned. RELATED: Naira Marley: Finds Love That Might Reform Him – “Chi Chi”, The Review Well, his previous 2020 single “Peace Of Mind”, also was like a place of Rema’s solace where he deliberately creates art from his inside to amplify the situation in the outside world, his from. “Peace Of Mind” sturdily correlat...
Redman, Method Man, and H.E.R. Join D’Angelo’s Verzuz in a Celebration of Live Music: Review
For music lovers, the COVID-19 pandemic effectively put an end to live performances for the foreseeable future. Many venues across the country have temporally (or permanently) closed or now operate with capacity restrictions. Never again will we take for granted the sweet simplicity of being able to catch our favorite artist/band in concert. But one of the few positive things to happen for live music during all the insanity that has taken place over the last year and counting is the emergence of the Verzuz series. Curated by super producers Timbaland and Swizz Beatz, who dueled in the first battle last March, Verzuz gave fans a lifeline as we sat at home watching our favorite producers and singers reminisce about the creation of their classic songs, many of which have defined hip-hop and R...
Glitterer’s Life Is Not a Lesson Is an Existential, Idiosyncratic Party
The opening lyrics to Glitterer’s sophomore studio album Life Is Not a Lesson sound as if they’re straight from an old philosophical text written in miniature poems: “In between a thought and being / Try to rid myself of feeling / Want to be objective, true / A body’s got nothing to prove.” But that’s just how Ned Russin — the face behind the whole project, and the ex-Title Fight member — is, especially after getting his Master’s in creative writing at Columbia University. Even the title Life Is Not a Lesson reads like a chapter from an antiquated novel. It’s a funny phrase, especially coming from someone in his early 30s. Glitterer, in many ways, seems to follow Russin through his contemplations, and this record transparently communicates his current confusion. “I’ll never know / Just how...
Naira Marley: Finds Love That Might Reform Him – “Chi Chi”, The Review
Marlians president, Naira Marley, finds himself on a special sonic path that leads the way as a character in between, finding the love of his life after he settled for-long term street creations. He finds love in between and goes emotional, off his regular explicit-y. Marley has released and performed highly contagious records that replicate not even an atom of manner from a presentation that strongly stake and cakes in average Nigerian youth’s mind in their mass, and have totally driven them both male and female, to cling n*ked fun, embracing vanity in folds and hedonistic lifestyle at its maximum height, relatively. Naira Marley, deliberately shoves down records that makes the average youth who might strongly connect his art, want to partake like in his explicit music visuals and so...
Julien Baker Embraces the Darkness on Little Oblivions
When Julien Baker toured in support of 2017’s delicately devastating Turn Out The Lights, her audiences stood suspended in time. No cheers or sing-alongs, just several hundred bodies frozen in arrest, observing the solo songwriter as she wailed tunes of broken love, tattered faith and crumbling mental health. While much of Baker’s new LP, Little Oblivions, hits similarly soul-ravaging notes, its accompanying stage show — whenever it comes — will be forced to liven up, emboldened by the ripe drum samples and swirling synth that drive the Memphis artist’s new sound. Hell, people may even dance! The robust arrangements, plucking from modern rock and Americana, do well to mask what is easily Baker’s most candid, heartrending lyricism yet — an unflinching gaze into the mirror, with ...
BTS Bring the Fire and Set the Night Alight on MTV Unplugged: Review
Talkin’ ‘Bout My Generation: Recently, there’s been a growing divide between millennials and gen-z: side parts and skinny jeans are out. Different emojis are in. End up on the wrong end of the divide, and you’re in a tough spot. MTV Unplugged feels much more associated with the millennials, first airing in 1989 and rising to prominence in the ‘90s, ushering in many performances that have since become the stuff of legend. In 1992, Eric Clapton’s Unplugged album became the best-selling live album of all time. Mariah Carey’s episode marked a shift in her public reception and launched her cover of “I’ll Be There” to No. 1. MTV as a whole now often feels associated with a nostalgic time of TRL, flannels, and Blockbuster, but rest assured, millennials — if BTS is doing it, it’s still cool. The m...
