The Urban Retro Playlist

One of my favorite tapes this year so far has been Leap of Faith by Juls, which is a wonderful blend of laid back but still very progressive and considerably upbeat music ironic right ? Anyway the song of the day is actually not from that tape but it wouldn't be hard to believe if it was just one of those songs you recorded for an album but eventually didn't make it to the album for one reason or the other. Definitely not because it wasn't it wasn't good enough though.
The song posses sounds that embody Banky style of music, said to be pioneered by Mr Eazi but another salient individual in the development of this sound is Juls who has prominent in a good amount of his songs. I hope at some point they (Juls & Mr Eazi) work on a project together.
Any Rock your body is heavily influenced by the banku sound and Burna Boy maintains a laid back demeanor and is able to impose his style and personality properly although the song.
Also present are some dancehall elements in the song but they are so subtle, well blended and entirely smooth to listen to. I especially love the array of the various drums on the instrumental. This in my opinion is the closest anyone has shown they posses as much chemistry as the Burna Boy LeriQ duo, I hope to see more collaborative efforts with them in the future.

So it's sometime in December 2016 and its mind blowing news to me that two relatively unknown upcoming nigerian artists have songs on the billboard charts. I mean I was already acquinted with previous bodies of work they had put out and I just wondered "what if these guys actually realize the platform they've been able too get to and decide to work on something together?" To my surprise they actually put out a body of work in April 2017. I mean I was surprised because there wasn't any prior collaboration or affiliation between the two artists. That not withstanding they produced a brief but very solid body of work. Words that instantly come to my mind when you mention this tape are Love, Soul, Smooth, Harmony,  Progressive and Transitions.
The tape starts off slowly with "Ocean" which is filled with numerous vocal harmonies and in verse transitions. It is very expressive and sets the general tone of the tape altogether. Then comes "Don't" which from my point of view describes a complex relationship where there have been intentionally undefined feelings. The begining of Odunsi's verse is redolent of Kevin Lyttles 2004 smash hit "Let Me Hold You". The nostalgia gives a certain appeal, so does the part where the brass instruments are given the spotlight. Right after that part is where I think the tape goes from very good to great, there's an effortless transition from "Don't" to "Stay" which if you're not paying attention to you wouldn't even realize the song has changed. "Stay" is also very progressive, maybe a little more than "Don't". It posseses some subtle and well blended Caribbean elements. The prime focus in my opinion is telling the other party in the complex relationship not to leave. At the end of Stay is yet another smooth transition into the concluding song of the project "War". The tempo of this song is slowed compared to the preceeding song. It ends up telling the partner they should resolve things and avoid getting into a feud. There are some very soft drums which really do it for me at several points in the song, especially the ones that become prominent close to the end of the song.
I've lost count of the amount of times I've listened to this body of work and I feel like it's going to be one of the best I'll hear all year.

Uhm I need to work on how I name stuff, that being said this isn't an album album I mean it has just four songs but we move. One thing I enjoy about music is an apparent development in individuals sounds. I've been listening to Dusten Truce for a while and watched how he's working and is creating a "voice that's very distinct. In this body of work he entire embraced a hip hop direction as opposed to more mixes genres which he usually embraces.

This is one of the songs from my featuring Odunsi post I wrote recently and the tape it's off of would have made my 2016 favorite Nigerian projects if I had the opportunity to listen to it earlier. I'm going to say AYLØ is pioneering and properly sitting on a new sound. The music is very skillful excuted and it was effortlessly exhudes confidence and sensuality. I especially appreciate the producers on this project they really added to the experience.
Island girl was a standout song for obvious reasons, one being  the skit with the Caribbean girl another being the collaboration with Odunsi. To a good extent I believe the "Island Girl " to be a double entendre the first with the girl in the skit and then the other referring to a girl from Lagos Island, Nigeria. I personally love how the emotions of the girl from the skit are apparent and intense. The tempo, tone and harmony  transitions are also very unexpected and effortless. There's just too much to details to pick up on.

In the time I stopped writing (for reasons unknown to me as well) I haven't stopped listening to music, in fact I've discovered so much more music and I've opened my mind  so many new thing I didn't know and my not ordinarily accept. I also decided screw my data constraints, Seun be like: " I will open my SoundCloud more often."  I've in the process opened myself to the many people making mind blowing music especially from Nigeria.
Today I'll be focusing on Odunsi who's music is spreading like wild fire, considering his song "Situationship" made it to the Billboard charts late last year. I'm excited by a lot of things he makes keeping in mind he's a producer as well, there's something about being able to create your own sound.
It's a different experience, it's one of those things where no matter how you explain it can never come close to what you feel. Another thing is how he's effortlessly able to switch and mix up his sounds as clearly apparent in his Time of Our Lives Extended Play.
As a producer it's expected that you'll collaborate with a good number of artists, his collaborations also involve him as a vocalist and I find his performances on features very exhilarating. There's also this calm, not too laid back and still exciting vibe he has I don't know if that makes any sense at all. I'm really excited because I'm going to watch him perform live tomorrow at Young Kulture.

So I decided to make a playlist off songs I've heard which  he's been featured on.

A couple days ago I had control of the speakers at my friends house and for some reason I decided to play "Let The Groove Get In" from Justin Timberlake's masterpiece of an album "The 20/20 experience". I guess it was something in the atmosphere that I can only categorize as euphoric, but the groove really got in. Everyone actually danced for the whole seven minutes of the song, and  asked for an encore afterwards.

2016 was a year with a lot of music and the nigerian music scene wasn't left out, there was a decent amount of full length projects out from different genres. It came to my notice that there were a lot more extended plays as opposed to the orthodox long plays. I was actually cool with that and I experienced a lot more nigerian music off soundcloud this year (closer to the end though) including the likes of Odunsi, D-Truce, Aylo, Nonso Amadi, Bella, 3rty, Muyiwa and many more (yes Soundcloud is a bottomless pit of music and there is an appealing nigerian urban underground scene).
I like to briefly review the projects that I've really enjoyed through the year(you know albums that I've honestly listened to and the ones I felt in my brim the most, I did that previously here).
These are the projects from 2016 I enjoyed the most in no particular order:





I was very excited when I heard the announcement of a new addition to the Illegal Music series by M.I early in the year 2016. My excitement was rewarded with very good hip hop music as M.I gave a mixtape that every core hip hop fan would love to hear (I talked about it at some point here). On this tape he really sounded like the "prime rapping" M.I and cleared doubts about him losing ability. On the tape samples were a focal point on the production. Though I thought it could have been more experimental production wise, but it was still very good irrespective. Lyrically it focused a lot on breaking out of "boxes", shunning people's opinions of what hip hop should and doing it how it comes to you.






My mind was all over the place when I was about to start listening to this body of work. Tay had already set the bar high with his first body of work "Passport" (which I've written about previously here). I actually did not know what type of sound I was going to hear but I just expected it was going to be good. I genuinely had goose bumps when I bumped it for the first time. I was blown away by the direction and production of the tape. The sound entirely was very quirky and a breath of fresh air to be honest. It was very well paced, soulful and sensual sound. Till today I find it difficult to believe Tay isn't a veteran artist and it's saddening that he's still not getting the kind of attention I think he deserves.






The first single of the this Tape "Pree Me" (which I wrote about here) took me to a different dimension. As I was unhappy when he announced his split from Aristocrat Records a while back mostly because I knew it would at some point affect the LeriQ & Burna Boy combination. The absence of LeriQ was evident on his body of work "On A Spaceship", In my opinion it was underwhelming juxtaposing with all his bodies of work.
 The Joy that filled my heart when I heard there was going to be a tape with both of them and I was in no way disappointed. I think it got even better with every listen, the project is one you can just easily vibe with and it seemed in no way forced. There was a lot of experimentation with themes on the project and I know for sure a number of the tracks were freestyled and I
can only imagine the type of atmosphere and the vibes in the studio when it was created. This tape was really a Redemption for Burna Boy as he had been through a lot of unpleasant things with his family, label and the media generally.






I heard a single off this tape the year before and that put Ozzy B back on my radar after he took some music scene for a bit. I was actually expecting a transition as I was aware his sound was evolving. But this body of work put me on a different "cruise" entirely, I did not see it coming at all(I talked about one of the songs here).
There was an aesthetic he was going for and I think he executed it wonderfully and he was entirely consistent with the direction which is something that is very difficult to pull off having in mind it'll cause you're sound to appeal to a particular audience. The production was also on another level entirely, it was a diverse amount of vibes from giving very dark grimy impressions at some points to softer and more progressive sounds at other points. What I love the most about the tape is I think there was an idea in his mind and he executed it so care-freely without considering general opinions.






I am an unrepentant fan of Brymo, I became that way because he's been consistently churning out amazing albums (I've written about him numerously you can check out some of it here). He's had three in the last four years. So when he announced he was releasing an album this year I knew I had to get it even with the controversy surrounding the title and album art (I think it was for publicity to be honest). I think I enjoyed his last album more, maybe because I had more time to listen to it but this one is certainly on the same level.
On this project he drifted to a more urban sound but the rudiments were pretty much the same. Then he still maintained the traditional vibes on a number of track notably "Ko-Ṣaya-Mi", "Something Good is Happening" and one of my absolute favorites off the album "Alajọ-Ṣomolu".








From their first collaborations you could tell Falz and Simi possessed a different kind of understanding. The realized it and decided to leverage it by working on a project together (which I've written about here).
It worked out so well for them in my opinion, they're properly executing the whole comical thing and it something that really gains the whole commercial appeal.
The comical and commercial appeal aside they really put out good music as  harmony was consistent throughout the project. As well as the harmony the songs were witty, conscious and very well produced. To be honest when I initially heard about the tape there was some skepticism but after my first listen I was in tune with the sound. I especially loved the fact that a number songs consisted of live instruments, I can only imagine how a concert would sound.

I'll start by saying this year it seems like Cupid shot a number of arrows at artist looking at Kendrick this year as there was always that part for him to come in with the type of freedom on a verse like jumping off a skyline to the sidewalks with that I don't wanna know the repercussion attitude because those moments you feel the goosebumps as your senses come alive like you're attending a party when your parents specifically said No More Parties or you're a valet and someone pulls up in a double r ghost so you get the holy key.
I think the preambles (like the one I did on my first Kendrick playlist) I do normally are becoming monotonous (i'm not sure this is necessarily better but it was worth a try) so I decided to try something different to describe all the songs Kendrick was featured on this year, He's had a good year if  I might add. I think something that really pushed me more to do it was reading the holiday edition issue of gentlemen's quarterly which he graced the cover in some luxury fur (#pretentiousgoals) and got interviewed by Rick Rubin.

I actually got goosebumps listening to a number of the songs in the playlist; The way the vocals and the production were on That Part took me to another dimension, the verse on Maroon 5's Don't Wanna Know was a perfect match(it made me question the selection to feature Wiz Khalifa on their 2012 hit Payphone all over again) and Holy Key which was a rematch of Big Sean's Control.
Hope you enjoy the playlist and find some new favorites on it.