Harrysong's 'Reggae Blues' Ranks Third in Africa's Top 40 Songs of 2015 ~ #TheYamboSelection

Harrysong has a reputation for releasing catchy, catchy tunes, and he doesn't disappoint here. Reggae Blues, his latest song, is an oxymoron, and a playful one at that, which adds spice to a song whose name it is; and intrigues those yet to hear it. The presence of five Master Artists in this music video is a brave statement of purpose, which is ultimately well-justified by a very high quality of vocal and instrumental delivery, as well as the high spirits that they thereby infuse into the video and the club atmosphere. Both of these are surely noticed and appreciated by all who have the chance to watch and the time to contemplate, and so savor, Reggae Blues.

READ: (1) Olamide Baddoo's bioinfo, (2) Harrysong's bioinfo, (3) Kcee's bioinfo, (4) Orezi's bio info, (5) Iyanya's bioinfo.

The video's dance-acts are easy-going and self-assured, performed by known impresarios, here blended by team spirit into one but many-sided and swinging and swaying and vibrant thing -- a tour d'force kind of thing inside the virtual live-entertainment spot.

Everyone's just having a good time in the kanightclub, and not minding all that raw slang -- whose meaning everyone knows anyway (which is what I gathered from a recent Harry Song interview with that lovely hostess on HipTV). Not at all. Thought I heard: "Idhi i pop champagne", but I'm sure that's not what Harry said.

The song's tune is very easy to follow, and easy to appropriate -- with body and soul. But its simplicity is deceptive. The thinking behind its use is accomplished thinking and, given the effect it has on one, admirable. One beat, and the one tune, subtly run and loop through the whole song, which is just four seconds short of five minutes long. The sum total of all this creative endeavor is a song, Five Star Music, that will be liked by almost all who hear it, and who watch the video -- or feel moved by it to dance.

Reggae is a word that sounds very familiar in my household. So, let me conclude by saying: "Hi Rege, they're singing your song!"

NOTE: Reggae Blues was published on August 7, 2015. It was directed by Adasa Cookey of Squareball Media. It had a total of 1,600,346 YouTube views as at 3:45 p.m. on December 26, 2015.


Click here to watch the Reggae Blues video

Many More Years of This Day

First it was my wife, Joan, who wished me a happy birthday and asked how it felt. I hadn't noticed any change I said.

Perhaps later in the day. Perhaps not, really.

It was Rege next, who shouted it out while I was in the bathroom. And then he was gone to school.

He's a big boy now -- a man, he insists. Not the skinny lad he was when he was littler -- before all the iron pumping and the rugby (like Kwach). I myself was into basketball at that age, but so do some things go. As others don't.

Then Kwach, the eldest, wished me before he too rushed -- to work.

Then Chikka -- only girl in the house (beside her mother, that is):

-- How old do you feel?

-- Eh?

-- How old do you fee-eel?

-- forty two! (without hesitation)

-- Yeah, you're as old as you feel.

-- Sometimes I feel like 25. (Was I stretching it?)

-- Ha ha ha!

Her mother, beside her at the dressing table, took note of that, with a chuckle spiced with her take on this day. And she added, besides:

-- I feel like...exactly 22.

-- That's the way (I added)

Though what I should really have said, if I was into that kind of talk, was, "Yenyewe!"

By which token she was even younger nineteen days ago! Perhaps nineteen at heart.

In my house, we eat a lot of cake in February, for some reason! In my father's house there were not so many rooms -- though we added some.

February is a nice and cosy month, most of the time. Certainly for Februarists! Stretched by the savouring, it ends none-too-soon. Too much sugar. Spoilsports, I venture to say, are the exception that affirm the rule -- when we shutter our windows and remain quietly inside. In the creeping shade that's creeping all across Africa, quietly inside.

And none-too-soon.

And then there are other events which do not spoil but simply be, tagging with contending, inescapable reality days such as this: Like (Joan's) Uncle George's passing this very same day, revealed to us as we drove to work.

Everyone I know that mentioned his name called him Uncle.

Lucky the day that ends as it had begun. And lucky those that see it through. Things, so many things, happen.



__________________________________________
P.S: Brian, who hadn't woken up when we left, and who opened the door for us without a word when we returned home at nine in the night, comes to me some twenty minutes into nine (can you see the conspiracy?) with a smile in his face and an envelope (with a signed card) in his hand:

-- Here's a surprise birthday card (he/they surprise me alright).