MUSIC (Congolese): Amour en Or by Claudia Bakisa ft. Fabregas Metis Noir

A street-dance for two, and only two, is what we come upon in this secluded place, in the sun's final rays of the day. "Graceful Pair Locked in a Twilight Street-Dance", is how I would title the funky rumba -- Soukous, if you want, or #LingalaPop -- that we're all witness to; this flawless art-in-motion act, in which the dancers, oblivious of everything else, are verily birds of a feather.

Willowy Claudia Bakita, aka Black Belt, takes center-stage and figure dances her heart out in this lovers' bond, for sure. Her fine bearing and feline steps draw all, nearly all, the attention -- into her golden bosom. "Nakupenda sana" (= I love you so much), she declares -- as if in every direction. Who would blame anyone? Her sultry voice charms every man, and everyone, bewitched, will take it personally. 

But it is Fabregas. It is he, her companion on that street (in this iconic video) -- and he alone -- who's the reason we have true rumba here and, what is more, all the insinuations of love that fill the calm air in this laid-back and unobtrusive neighborhood. In those final moments of a perpetual saga in which Yin eases Yang, gently, into a dark room, it is he! Wololo!

"Emama wololo
Emama wololo
Emama wololo".


Click to watch the video

MUSIC (Kenya): Party Don't Stop by Camp Mulla ft. Collo

Kenya's hip-hop sensation, charismatic Camp Mulla feat. Collo Mfalme, give no quarters and take no prisoners in this 2011 super-hot dance floor banger -- Party Don't Stop. As connoisseurs have noticed, a tune from this iconic song has frequently featured  in the video rotation schedules of Trace Mziki TV, Eastern Africa's leading music channel. The tune has become an abbreviated anthem of sorts on that channel.

Click to watch the video

Here are the Party Don't Stop Lyrics

KooKoo by Elani

Happy to have Elani's wonderful voices featured here, in this 2014 song. As accomplished and inspired as any group, Elani (Kenya's very own) sings KooKoo in a mellow and marvelously appealing tone for all to hear and be moved by. 

Click to watch the KooKoo video 

It's a charming ballad, a soaring love song, in calm and collected but occasionally super-charged streets of downtown Nairobi. Much Love rends Iborian air, again and again right now (in this fine and romantic song) -- sung in both English and Swahili -- and all because of them.

Here are the lyrics

MUSIC (Uganda): Feffe Busi's World of Yes/No

Feffe Busi's world simplifies its stark inner and outer opposites into dualities of choice that give no room for doubt or fence-sitting of any kind. 

We cannot escape either/or. We're either with either or with or. Everything is yes or if you like no. That is black or if you want white. Like piano keys. Piano keys like. Keys like piano. Piano like keys. Like keys piano.


Avant-garde artiste stands at the very edge of a never-ending, sumtin.


Click to watch the video

Oshe by Praiz ft. Awilo Longomba

With Awilo in town, you do expect a musical feast of some kind. In Oshe, Praiz and his valued guest do give us a music-and-dance treat to remember. It's a fine party. And it's in a back-to-the future mode. Something intriguingly, pleasantly, familiar here.

Click to watch the video

MUSIC (Congolese): Fiko Fiko Fion by Claudia Bakisa ft. Koffi Olomide

All laid back, two great sophisticates join to drop a lovely track: Fiko Fiko Fion. Koffi Olomide reigns still, an unobtrusive monarch. Claudia Bakisa patiently waits, with pent-up energy, for Africa's playing field to level.

What an enchanting voice Claudia has!

It is a song to dance to, and to listen to in a warm and cosy place. It's Rumba. It's truly Lingala. And it's Pop. #LingalaPop!

Click here to watch the video

Gallardo by Runtown ft. Davido

In Gallardo, Runtown and Davido overrun the town with absorbing Thum and Miel [= Music and Dance]. The ear and the eye are finely catered for. Immersed in all that pampering, the spirit levitates and soars. Gimme mo! But wait, that's just the initial read.

Click to watch the video

The song's tone has a certain ambivalence to it -- a double-edged intent, or effect. It charms. Yet it appears to lull and to 'prepare'. Everyone's seemingly in an imposed waiting mode -- for a far bigger thing than the dancing that reads like the culmination of the day the're having. And yet no one's about to emit the subtle waiting vibes that can alert anyone to pick and run with. 

Everyone seems stuck between a Before (that's not to be spoken of, and an After that can neither be figured out nor escaped. An ever-present fire-shower, as a premonition, is pure pre-Vesuvian. Blackout and spare light? Some kind of pre-ritual ritual.

No one really knows where anyone's going to go with any of this maneno. And yet everyone waits and waits -- dancing, singing -- for the story to end, after a fashion, and for the suspense to go bust.

MUSIC (Nigeria): Chop Am by Reekado Banks

Chop Am delivers quality and refinement here, in both the catchy singing and the stylish dance steps. Reekado Banks performs his role delightfully. It's a thing to watch -- the whole thing. It'll remain an iconic representation of the spirit and styles of the time.


Click to watch the video

Nek-Unek by MC Galaxy ft. Davido.

In #TheYamboSelection list of Africa's 25 Happiest Songs, 2014, I added a footnote on 3 outstanding pre-2014 songs. In that short and exclusive list was a song which had impressed me immensely. It was Nek-Unek. All that I said then, so very briefly, about that amazing song was: "Nek-Unek is highly infectious, be warned." 

Inexplicably, when 2013 to 2010 songs were subsequently listed and ranked, contrary to the initial scheme of things, Nek-Unek had fallen under the radar signals, and wasn't included. It suddenly resurfaced from the Deep only this February 20th. And so here it is.


And so, for starters, let's repeat that undiminished truth: "Nek-Unek is highly infectious, be warned." As you play and replay the video, be warned!


Click to watch the video


This Nek-Unek (= Dance, Dance) affair is pure celebration! Pure carnival -- "those sides of" Calabar, perhaps. It is high-spirited fun, spiced with fine, fine tunes and supple dancing. It is slow-motion and it is hot! Hot fun in a field of finely toned bodies. The comedic intent sweeps everything in its path, too, which is everywhere within sight. 

It is mock Waka Waka, even. And there's more than a hint of  Kwasa Kwasa. It is a montage of finely choreographed dance steps and restrained twerking. Plus some comic oogling. Yes, Nek-Unek! Yes, Dance-Dance!




READ: A very useful backgrounder to 'Nek-Unek'

All Eyes on Me by AKA ft. Burna Boy x Da L.E.S x JR

Burna Boy's distinctive voice and his signature montage of jazzy-reggae sounds and circumstances dominate in All Eyes on Me -- from the very beginning. A superb beat fills the air with fine feelings, and does not relent. It's a sort of whirlwind which everyone is, willingly and cheerfully, caught up in.

Click here to watch the video

This is a pretty good song, with several angles of goodness from which to look at all the goings-on. Everyone is really gung-ho here. It's an unmissable party they're all having, with every nook and cranny fun-filled and rippling. 

MUSIC (Naija): Olamide's Ballad, "I Love Lagos"

[Note: The post which appears below is an excerpt of an earlier and longer one titled POLITICS, URBAN DESIGN AND MUSIC. I've retouched it somewhat prior to posting, the main purpose being to have an undivided focus on Olamide's creative intent in his ballad]

In a song published on January 9, 2016 (and which has 2,245,753 YouTube views right now), Baddo sings a heartfelt love song for his 'hometown', the giant and great city of Lagos. So, what kind of city is this that he so genuinely loves, and invites us all to? 


I think that Baddo Olamide, a native of Lagos State, speaks with song to a generally positive trend in Lagos' image in the wider world, but, more specifically, of itself through the eyes of its own citizens. He has been witness to all that with his own artiste's eye and as a regular resident of the city.  

So, in his I Love Lagos lyrics, he sings and makes certain categorical declarations and retorts: 

"...Oyingbo ekolowa oyinbo
Oyingbo why you speaking oyinbo

Oyingbo you dey lagos to oyingbo

If i carry you go banana

My guy you go love lagos

You go love lagos"


He mentions other places, people and things, too, he "could carry you go", and you would love Lagos: Elegushi, Police, Ikedja, Badagri, Ikorodi, Epe, VGC. And there's "oh no hustle", he claims, when you ride through his city. So, indeed, your love would only grow after all these experiences that he suggests we should have. 

The sung lyrics are even more lyrical than the written, I find. That's the power of good sound and voice. Perhaps that is because, as I keep telling my students, the ear is more generous than the eye. The singer, resting his case, concludes after all this:

"You cannot deny you no see
You go love Lagos oh"


Here below is the video. It is has very optimistic and upbeat images (of various slices of Lagos) and aurally matching sounds. The chorus is lovely. This is the best music video about an African city that I've heard. It is sung with unquestioning and even protective/ possessive love and passion. The sites(sights) and sounds we see and hear are so infectiously evocative of a living city evolving toward the dreams inside the chronicler's/troubadour's (i.e. Baddo's) head -- and inside all of the dwellers' heads. Yambo says, "Love it all":


Watch Olamide's "I Love Lagos" Video

CLICK: I Love Lagos Lyrics

Rider by Khaligraph Jones ft. Petra

There is a new song in town, Rider. Mats Rider? It brings together rappers Khaligraph Jones (who is 'everywhere' these days) and lovely Petra, who is emphatically back on the music video scene after an absence [Remember her recent super-performance in Tonight, with Band Beca?] 

Rider is explosive in its imagery and the funky musicality it brings. It'll send tongues wagging -- as Petra's, reptilian-like, momentarily does. And it'll get folks scratching their heads about its hidden import.


Click to watch the video


The first 34 seconds of Rider are plainly grotesque, and will make this otherwise iconic production "an enigma within a riddle" -- nay, an outrage -- for many and perhaps most fans. Certainly for a while, and needlessly. Perhaps it has imagery worth sharing if you have seen and heard of recent upheavals, mostly political, if you live in 'extreme' parts of Nairobi such as Kayole, as KJ (as OG) proudly does. But not all of that which we see. There's no shock therapy here, just shock.

If those first 34 seconds were expunged, we would have 4:34 minutes of a great music video -- of pure rap, from the beginning to the end (and we'd still have a minute or so longer than most music videos go these days). More importantly, we would witness, without distraction, Khaligraph Jones' great artistry and growing power of influence. 

We would more unequivocally savor Petra's dramatic turns of body-textual phrase. She wows, you see, both with her amazing voice and theatrical steps upon that global, that YouTube, stage. She amazes with every line you hear, and with her every pose. Where u been, gal? Still, "Please welcome" -- Petra!






Note: Rider was published on February 12, 2018. It had 138,184 all-time views as at 9:54 AM (Nairobi time) on February 18, 2018.