EP REVIEW: ‘Afrolypso’ is Jaajo’s song of love

BY NDUKA NWOSU

Jaajo Mbadi, the Prince of Njaba who wrote and sang a protest song in support of #Endsars, is back with something refreshingly different.

Last time around Jaajo sang and wept about the blithe disregard, the irresponsibility of the African big man whose brutality and sit tight, do nothing mentality, is the label of African dictators.

That is why he sings to earn the adulation of the patron saint of patriotic lost causes and noble grudges.

This is against the backdrop of a leader that does not give a hoot how those he is leading feel about him, as long as he can part with some of his loot for continuity’s sake.

The Njaba prince’s evangelism then and even now has been about the power-drunk, pixilated, deceptive, and self-serving Nigerian politician.

Has this drumbeat of protest, of complaint earned him respect, clout and fortune? Respect maybe, just maybe, but not clout which comes with fortune.

Ralypso comes with hope, cultural reawakening, and love. Jaajo’s evangelism portrait is not that of the great wailer’s refrain of yesterday on the Lord’s song being sung in a strange land. He has something original coming from his stable. Now Jaajo is waxing lyrical. In Hey Jude, there was an attempt to take a bad song and make it better.

Paul’s inspiration came from Hey Jules, a ballad of his time, just to comfort John Lennon’s son Julian, downcast after his father left his mother Cynthia for Japanese artist Yoko Ono.

An Afrolypso track fits into that bill, the song of a lost love Afrolypso is a seven-track package with a lead: LovuLovu, which rendition is inspired by the script of a love gone sour.

Listen to Jaajo: “A friend of mine was so much involved in a love tango that finally ended in chaos. Here again Jaajo who lives in New York wears that image of the cosmopolitan young and successful music icon still in the mold of a Boy George. He humbly prefers not to have such a bogus comparison for an up-and-coming artist, but hope is on the way, nonetheless. ‘Out of my way’ offers that hope, what he calls a testimonial song of a battle fought and won against seen and unseen enemies, the powers and principalities.

Oyogo

Then comes Oyogo, inspired by a tale of a pretty, young girl in a local part of the country. She was restricted by his father from not seeing her suitors and hanging out with friends.

Well, well, well. Last time around Jaajo could not disclose his real net worth, but these love songs remind us of Jane Austin’s famous statement in Pride and Prejudice: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”

Out of my way

Life is all about fighting the principalities and powers of this world. A befitting victory song tells the story of how we overcame, like the negro slaves, all the odds set before us. We join Jaajo to celebrate man’s defeat of the overwhelming obstacles of life.

Rollam

Here is a traditional highlife song which requires a female to tilt down her head and lift her hips up to render a fast hip dance. According to Jaajo: “It is a song to promote the African traditional dance of the Igbo people in the eastern part of Nigeria.

Control

Control is all about a pretty damsel whose beauty can make the most powerful man on earth lose his control. It is a song to promote the astonishing beauty of African women.

However, the question is: how beautiful is a beauty that makes a man lose his control and become what in local parlance is known as a mumu button? Jaajo does not provide the answer to that.

Yolo

This is a song for loosening up, notes the singer, adding that this is true “especially when you have been uptight on yourself, working like seven days a week. Boom, you decide to loosen up just for one night. It’s a song meant to relieve stress.”

Joro Joro

Joro Joro is all about fun but easily reminds you of Victor Uwaifo’s generational highlife classic Joromi in the context of the title, not sound. Says Jaajo: “It is a song of celebration especially, during the festive time. It was produced at Christmas time when people around the world are celebrating. I was in my Christmas mood when I wrote that song.

“I was in the studio celebrating with my producer and other friends while recording a song, and someone said something like: “we de joro joro” which means in our local parlance, “let’s celebrate.” I picked it up from there and turned it into a song.

“We had to suspend the song at hand and started making joro joro; because of its local-oriented beat, a lot of cultural infusions was put together to tell the African story.”

Jaajo did not say if his collabo partner Naomi Achu, the US-based Cameroonian polymath and rap artist who offered the female lead to lend her voice against the brutality of African sit-tight governments, in his #Endsars gig, was around to make a difference or offer a voice to complete the act.

Whatever, Jaajo still belongs to that generation of the African child that has risen against a jaded old system of leadership, crusading for an Africa, in this context a Nigeria, that radiates deep freshness and unsuspected candour that holds great hope for the youth.

He smiles at a question about his net worth since he left his country for the American experience. His response suggests he is still struggling to build his Taj Mahal but on toothpicks while waiting for the big break. He nearly made it with his #Endsars campaign, but then, nearly does not kill a bird.

Jaajo keeps updating his status as a rising star. The potential is unfolding even in a foreign land both as a musician and a fashion designer. Like Gianni Versace, he still wants to give the world fantasy of unrestrained opulence. In his style of music, he does this through the glamorisation and fusion of Afrocentric sounds of Afrobeat, highlife, and calypso.

In Afrolypso the sounds resonate, and his producers backstage are satisfied with the mix and response from the audience. The Song of Protest-The Land is Blessed, though a reminder of T.Y. Bello’s Greenland, gave Jaajo, the sobriquet of a revanchist African artist. In Afrolypso, the singer has proved he has what it takes to stand shoulder to shoulder with his foreign collabos. We can attest to the fact that his cultural revanchism of African music, does not necessarily lean on the advice of Werner Spies, that German art historian who once asked artistes to beware of dilettante and supplicatory patronage. Spies had chided Max Beckman, Wilhelm Lembruck, and Auguste Macke for their supplicatory visits to France against what he called the French patronage of German art.

However one of Jaajo’s producers, the erudite Walter Blackson had once told us why he did not hesitate to identify with him as a budding artiste of Afrocentric background. According to Blackson, Jaajo’s originality weighed against the backdrop of fellow artistes who recommends him strongly as the new kid on the block, hence his willingness to breathe life into his kind of music.

That was Blackson in the Song of Protest. His belief in Jaajo has not waned since then. Message to the youths Jaajo has a parting message to the youth, the same message he left during the #Endsars crisis: “My message to the youths is to be upright. They should fight for their rights. They must not allow the campaign against bad leadership to degenerate to the point of making them lose focus.

“We should have a stronghold on the society. We have to stand our ground to resist oppression and anarchy. That is on the side of the government, on the side of individual development, we should always be focused on our careers and endeavours. It may not come now but it will definitely come with prayers and consistency. It is disappointing the way things are back home but don’t give up.”