Victim of Truth

It only takes a burst of “Material Things”, one of 16 tracks on her debut album to understand why there is such a buzz around Nneka. The power of her voice resides not so much in its soaring nature, but more in the warm and searing texture she puts into her words. And then there is that grain, that little indefinable ‘sandy’ quality that sets her apart from so many of the other outstanding female voices we hear. You know, what we immediately identify with the likes of Billie Holiday and Janis Joplin. Not that the 25 year-old Nigerian has reached anything like their dizzying heights yet. Victim of Truth has too many compromises to the nu-soul scene and the tiresome western rhythms bathing the R&B scene, to make her a serious candidate.

Yet, a more than cursory listen to songs like “Africans”, “Your Request”, “Warrior”, and the aching “God of Mercy”, reveal just what a fabulous potential Nneka has. When she explains her journey from selling akara and beans in the Warri markets to the alternative music circuits in Europe, you can feel that strength of character mixed up with disarming honesty. “I want to change Africa, that’s why I open my mouth and sing,” she told me in a recent exchange in Paris. “There is so much to do in education and with the youth. And even if I share my time between Nigeria and Hamburg, I still feel 100% engaged in helping my fellow-Nigerians.”

Repeatedly, Nneka insists on the therapeutic nature of her music. “Back home I was living in misery and running away from the truth,” she confides. “That’s why I call my album Victim of Truth. I’ve been comfortable in a bunch of lies (…) And the title is all about the hypocrisy, corruption, injustices and so-called democracy I had to live with when I was growing up in Warri.” It was only when Nneka fled to Germany (the country of her mother) - “for personal reasons”, she says, with a hint of tragedy - that she started to come into contact with her true self.

Since then, she has allied her voice and startlingly mature writing skills with DJ/producer Farhot. They have worked out a modus vivendi which explains some of the compromises Nneka has made to bring out her debut album. “It was a fifty-fifty album. All the texts were mine but most of the arrangements were Farhot’s. The next CD will be all me, and I will doubtlessly use the afrobeat and reggae that I so love.”

Victim of Truth, however, is already a big chunk of Nneka. This slip of a woman is not afraid to bare herself to the scrutiny of the world and her songs are an introspective plunge into her doubts and fears…as well as her hopes and faith. “I have always confronted the sins I committed, as well as seeing the weaknesses in others”. She recounts how “Material Things” was inspired by a tour as a warm-up vocalists for one of the established singers in France. “I was shocked! I couldn’t believe how grown-up people behaved, how they changed into spoilt kids. We call that shacking in our country. “Material Things” is all about shacking, you understand?”

I am not sure I did, but the disarming way Nneka recounted the genesis of her lyrics was enough for me to devour the 16 stories she recounts here. Her fearless honesty was also in evidence at the New Morning club the following day. In front of a full house of devoted fans, she broke down and cried, swept away by the emotion of a rare communion between artist and public. “I’ve come from so far, you know? Back home I didn’t know if I would be able to eat tomorrow. And I was let down so often. My passion? I suppose it comes from deception, pain and a form of culture clash. Thank god music is there. It’s like a branch that has never let me down. With music I can tell the truth without being flogged for it.”

April 2007


Daniel Brown

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