Asa

by

Aṣa

Edit

Tracklisting for this CD is as follows;

1. Jailer

2. 360

3. Bi'ban ké

4. Subway

5. Fire on the mountain

6. Eyé àdaba

7. No one knows

8. Awé

9. Peace

10. So beautiful

11. Iba

Asa (pronounced Asha) is a 25 year old Nigerian guitarist/songstress with an amazing smoky smooth voice (a bit like Macy Gray or Erykah Badu) and a folk/soul/jazz style akin to Tracy Chapman, India.Arie, Norah Jones, or even Lauryn Hill on her MTv Unplugged disc. I discovered her eponymous debut only last week (after my brother had raved about it) and it is fantastic; breezy acoustic guitar driven music with lovely harmonies, and largely philosophical lyrics. Her enunciation is crisp and clear, and the musicianship and production is top notch! She grew up listening to Marvin Gaye, Fela Kuti, and Bob Marley (among others), has played with artistes like Tony allen, Les Nubians, and Manu Dibango, and has opened for John Legend, Akon and Beyoncé.

Sung mainly in English, with some singing in Yoruba, the songs touch on injustice (the acoustic, reggae tinged bouncy "Jailer"), uncertainties of life ("No one knows", with ethereal harmonies and ever so faint scratching set to a bubbly bass line), alarm at the state of society (the light acoustic "Fire on the mountain" with lyrics like "Hey Mr soldier man /Tomorrow is the day you go to war /But you are fighting for another man's cause /And you don't even know him /What did he say to make you so blind ?" - It has a slight Bob Marley feel), and love (the tender jazzy "Subway").

"360" is an ambient sounding acoustic ballad. Similar is "Bi'ban ké", a love song done in English and Yoruba. The fittingly titled "Eyé àdaba" (dove in Yoruba) is a soft ballad with calming strings. "Awé" is a soaring jazzy ballad with finger snaps, while "Peace" is reggae tinged.

Standouts to me are the closing pair of songs; the ode to her mother "So beautiful" (outstandingly sung in English and Yoruba, it is a tempo shifting acoustic ballad/Highlife tune sprinkled ever so lightly with talking drums) is so heartfelt, and "Iba" (a tender acoustic ballad sung in Yoruba, with a soothing vocal performance) closes this perfect disc. I do not speak Yoruba, but no understanding is needed with music this beautiful.

These songs are awesome; words alone cannot do justice to them. I haven't been this excited about music in a bit. Asa is definitely going to go places, and I urge everyone to go get this CD, you'll definitely be in awe. I look forward to much more from her.

It's not really fair since it's extremely rare for me to find a song that even hints of reggae that I'll listen to, but a pretty girl gave me a stack of CD's of people I'd never heard of before, so I had to give it a listen. Or at least try to. I got through the first 2 1/2 songs before, with the exception of No One Knows and Fire On the Mountain, I could only listen to about half of every song that came after.

Asa certainly can sing and while it did deviate from the typical reggae sound and instrumentation, neither were enough to make this stand out as anything more than just another reggae-esque record to me. No One Knows almost did it with its slight hints at funk, but it really never rose above the mediocrity of the rest of the record. I also was able to listen to Fire On the Mountain, but only so I could listen to the ridiculous lyrics. None of it felt personal and none of it felt real. It seemed like maybe she listened to Marley and thought, "hey, I should write something about social ills."

Some of the lack of feeling may just be the result of over-production. The girl's got talent, but there's just so much going on, and it's all so clean and polished that whoever Asa is never really shines through. I don't really care how pretty you can make a song sound if I can't feel what made you need to write the song in the first place. The only time I can imagine listening to this album again is if I inadvertently wander into one of those New Age shops that sells incense and recordings of whales while this is playing in-house.

Deleting from my iTunes now...