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// Nneka
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Nigeria’s Soul Sister
The MOBO award winner for Best African Act 2009, young Nigerian soul singer Nneka talks to Mondomix about her music and her message.
When Shell’s new CEO Peter Voser opened his inbox back in July, he found a hefty report from Amnesty International documenting the ongoing injustice and abuses in Nigeria’s oil delta. Since the execution of writer and human rights activist Ken Saro-Wiwa in 1995, the issues he brought to the worldwide stage have dropped off the media’s radar. Yet while the voice of this fearless campaigner may have been silenced, others have picked up the baton for justice. One of those is a young singer by the name of Nneka Egbuna whose journey from the oil producing city of Warri to the bright lights of the MOBO Awards, where she recently won the award for Best African Act, has only increased her determination to make a stand and continue the fight. “Many Nigerians do not know their history,” she explains from Lagos. “Many do not know the truth about oil companies and how they have affected the Niger Delta. Ken Saro-Wiwa fought against that injustice.”
Brought up on a diet of “traditional music, urhobo, Yoruba, itsekiri and also foreign music” Nneka’s creative spirit was unleashed after travelling to Munich to study and hooking up with DJ Farhot. “He used to be a DJ, never really a producer until I met him,” she tells me. “We kind of started doing music together. He started off with a small computer in his parents’ basement where we recorded ‘Victim of Truth’.” The end result of this creative partnership was an album that took its cue from everyone from Fela Kuti and Bob Marley to Mos Def and Lauryn Hill, whose LP ‘The Miseducation Of…’ was most widely cited as an influence, including in a glowing review in The Times. While the soulful hip-hop production and Nneka’s lyrical flow do still recall the ex-Fugees vocalist, her follow up LP ‘No Longer At Ease’ (taking its name from a Chinua Achebe novel and including the powerful single ‘Heartbeat’) could only have come from a diasporic journey like that taken by the young singer. “Life is movement, and movement is music,” she states. “So [that journey] has affected me a lot, influenced me positively and negatively and changed my perception of certain things. It has also inspired me to write about issues that concern the world not just Africa alone.”
This sense of responsibility as an artist recalls another great Nigerian, but I wonder if the legacy of Fela Kuti continues to inspire the next generation of artists more than 12 years after his death. “Absolutely yes,” she responds. “In his simplicity, his honesty and explicit ways of expressing himself.” Aside from her politicised lyrics, Nneka’s involvement in the Remember Saro-Wiwa campaign has seen her shine a spotlight on the truth with a boldness and clarity that Fela would have appreciated. “A lot of Nigerians living in Nigeria and outside Nigeria are ignorant of the magnitude of Saro-Wiwa’s works,” she proclaims. “It is important for me to fight against this corruption, injustice, hypocrisy and superficiality.” But Nneka is not an artist to hide behind soundbites and posturing and when she sings “Can't you feel my heart is beating. Can't you feel the pain you're causing,” it’s clear here is an artist reaching out with both truth and honesty. And when I conclude by asking her what her hopes are for the future of Nigeria, her response is a call for unity. “That we are together. Oneness is the power.”
Nneka
No Longer at Ease is out now on Yo Mama
Nneka plays ULU on 04 Nov
www.remembersarowiwa.com
www.myspace.com/nnekaworld
Andy Thomas
ken saro-wiwa chinua achebe society
// ALSO
- 80s World Music Classics
- Black Man’s Cry - The Inspiration Of Fela Kuti
- Mali Denhou
- Art Melody's futuristic African hip hop
- Nigerian soul sensation Nneka live at Cargo 23 July
- Oliver Mtukudzi, Oliver Mtukudzi - African Soul Rebel
- Tony Allen, Afrobeat ace
- Joe Bataan & James Pants live at Cargo 11 June plus dates in Leeds and Birmingham
- Ian McDonald, Ian McDonald - Developing worlds
// ALL NNEKA' VIDEOS
// DISCOGRAPHY
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No Longer at Ease (Album)
Victim of Truth (Album)// LINKS
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