MUSIC (AfroBeats): Yanje by Ommy Dimpoz ft. Seyi Shay

It is a 'season' of invisible tears here, in Yanje, which flow copiously in detectable emotional directions. A riveting melody marks the start of this conflicted and deeply moving reunion. It stays with it to the end, and tempers the pervasive brooding. 

A troubled reconnecting of lovers is what the song is all about. Remembered and still raw feelings of betrayal make it all painfully tentative and defensive. Through all the hurt and heartbreak, and clumsy apologies, love struggles still to find a firm footing and the clarity to roll back time and erase all the bad stuff that still lingers. Like all the days through which she was alone and stir-crazy, even, and beside herself with anguish.

Sexy Seyi Shay now joins, via Yanje, a small group of Nigerian artistes who've begun to add Swahili lines to their lyrics. I'm thinking of Yemi Alade and Tiwa Savage, in particular. She does so with surprising finesse, and frankly to greater effect than I've heard in earlier attempts by other artistes. Hers (as the artiste) is truly funky -- it's acScented Swahili.

The clip's blurb informs us that the song has a third language -- besides Swahili and English. It is Kinyarwanda, which presumably gives us the song's title as well.

How the two singers, he from Tanzania and she from Nigeria, found each other -- so improbably, it seems -- for this amazing clip will be a mini-thrilla in itself when the tale is told. It's a glorious aural and visual match. The voices, and the instrumentation, are an unceasing delight.

Click here to watch the clip