Mind battles
Now she presents Soul is heavy walking on reggae, hip-hop, modern R&B and vintage
soul. “Black Africa, we still survive, we
still will rise for the world needs us to be America? This soul is heavy, the
little you have left to me,I charge to function in your madness, I am… in your
madness” she sings in the title song in which invokes historic Nigerian
revolutionaries including Ken Saro-Wiwa, Isaac Boro and Jaja of Opobo and
expresses her frustration because Africa suffers the same social ills once and
again, that is oppression, corruption, explotation... And she’s always
wondering everything, even sentiments in Do
you love me “Do you love me now, Now
that everything has been said and done, Do you love me, now that I function in
your madness, Do you love me now, for your love is so cold, Oh Sodom and Gomorrah
caution !!Do you love me, now that I am no longer me” But she is, as she
says "I am what you hear, I wouldn't
be able to separate my music from me." And now we can’t separate us
from her.
"It's important that you recognize yourself as part of the system, too,
and that the only way we can make things work is by realizing we are part of
the same entity." Nigerian songwriter Nneka Elise Egbuna creates
her own part writings songs from personal experiences in order to give us her
point of view in so many different social aspects. Soul is heavy (2011) is her third album after Victim of truth (2005) and Not
longer at ease (2008). As she opens the album with My home “I don't know what tomorrow will be, where do I go?”. And
now she’s going directly to our hearts to shake our minds.
Nneka was born in Warri, in the Delta region of Nigeria, in 1980. She experienced the tribalism and the disparity of wealth and division of classes. "All that has a lot to do with why I am the way I am, despite the fact that I have now been able to travel a great deal, and see the world from a different angle." She left Nigeria at 18, when she relocated to Hamburg, Germany, her mom’s country, to study anthropology. There, in 2003, she met the producer and hip hop beatmaker DJ Farhot and from that collaboration she released the EP The Uncomfortable Truth. As she says "I'm always having little battles in my mind, I'm the kind of person who always questions things. It has a lot to do with the way I brought up, and my surroundings." And finally, in 2005, Nneka published her debut album, Victim of the truth, lauded by the press.
Nneka was born in Warri, in the Delta region of Nigeria, in 1980. She experienced the tribalism and the disparity of wealth and division of classes. "All that has a lot to do with why I am the way I am, despite the fact that I have now been able to travel a great deal, and see the world from a different angle." She left Nigeria at 18, when she relocated to Hamburg, Germany, her mom’s country, to study anthropology. There, in 2003, she met the producer and hip hop beatmaker DJ Farhot and from that collaboration she released the EP The Uncomfortable Truth. As she says "I'm always having little battles in my mind, I'm the kind of person who always questions things. It has a lot to do with the way I brought up, and my surroundings." And finally, in 2005, Nneka published her debut album, Victim of the truth, lauded by the press.
NNEKA videos here
Text by Juan Carlos Romero
Photos courtesy of Nneka. All rights reserved