ALBUM REVIEW: Iyanya (@Iyanya) - Applaudise
Artiste – Iyanya
Album – Applaudise
Album – Applaudise
Features – Banky W, Efya, Sarkodie, Dammy Krane, Mystro, Seyi Shay, Tekno, Selebobo, Harrysong, Lil Kesh, Olamide, Kcee, MC Galaxy, Patoranking, Don Jazzy, Victoria Kimani, Diamond Platnumz
Producers – Mystro, London Boys, DJ Coublon, Princeton, Selebobo, Dr Amir, Spellz, Tee-Y Mix, Black Jersey, Mr Chido
Label – TripleMG (2015)
Running Time – 1 hour+
Since the national acceptance of Iyanya’s breakout single, Kukere,
it won’t be wrong for anyone to think he had finally arrived having
endured years of obscurity when he was making music. Actual good music.
Several other similar sounding singles followed, I mean he had every
right to usurp his new found fame and it eventually led to his debut,
sorry, first commercial album Iyanya vs Desire – a collection of things
that could be consumed but had no potential of giving satisfaction.
Suffice to say he had messed up his second chance at making a debut
album the second time.
Enter Mr Oreo, the smooth R&B flava became the anthem of local
black mans with a subliminal message of loving yourself regardless of
your physical odds. Iyanya showed impressive vocal flows and lyrical
versatility. He still hadn’t lost it! But was losing himself in bits
having OD’ed on his desire to become Africa’s Dwayne Johnson. He would
never have gotten the role of “The Thing” in the next Fantastic Four
franchise, yet this new focus hampered my objective perception of his
music especially since he rollercoastered into a series of vocal
features, on all of which he failed to make a spectacular appearance.
Applaudise took Mr Oreo to his local roots,
connecting him with musical tones that serenades with depth while
affording him the pleasure of doing his signature wiggle. DJ Coublon
produced it and also happens to be the man behind his other two widely
successful singles. This left so much to be expected with the
realization that he had titled his sophomore album eponymously. He
starts off, taking it back to basic with the R&B cut, Wambi
on which he expends appreciable vocal effort, slaying the track with a
dexterity I thought he’d lost. The pace continues with the Banky W
featured Baby Daddy. Mr W might be king but that “physically you badder” line has gotten really old. Nonetheless, this link up with producers, London Boys is unequivocally fly!
Mama (Nne) – a tribute to mothers, is a
delightful mid-tempo number saccharined with local kicks and percussion
that induces you into a sway. Bless you DJ Coublon! Ghanaian
counterparts, Efya and Sarkodie join on Macoma. This attempt at breaking the market wouldn’t do much, if anything at all for Iyanya. Awade with Dammy Krane is another defected attempt at Fuji,
some fans may relish it perhaps because of Iyanya’s command of the
Yoruba dialect but I’ll say avoid at all cost. In similar manner, that
misnomer with Lil Kesh called Okamfo should be totally avoided. Iyanya wasn’t thinking obviously and the scathing indictment of a song made me already resent Turn It Up
which featured Olamide. But to my dismay, it’s actually the album’s
other sought-after track. Iyanya and Olamide just found an amazing way
to work it and it’s only a matter of time before it dominates the clubs.
Bless you Spellz for this one!
Seyi Shay who is utterly famed for keeping it 100 with her vocal features stepped her bar some notches down on Again.
It should have been one of the album’s top numbers with the most
effective feature after Banky W but something just went wrong here.
Victoria Kimani redeems the diva image on Yoga.
Although very typical, having sampled an all too familiar beat, they
kept in check within the tenets of good R&B music. If you’re looking
to just dance, Ocho, Egwu and Psychology would do it for you. There’s barely content in the mix, only good production put to beautiful waste. Psychology is hither to the stand out track here, many thanks to Mr Songz. Commotion
is painfully weak, considering it’s a Tee-Y Mix production and it
doesn’t convey any thought at all… not even by mistake. Skip please!
Then Mogbe with Patoranking, it was too much of a mess that I hit the skip button so hard, my thumb hurt.
The instrumental for Loko is perhaps the
producer, Black Jersey’s signature sound. It plays relative to something
he’d done before for 2 other fast rising artistes, I think. Decent
filler notwithstanding. Ufan samples on
tuneful sounds and a beautiful rhythm. Alongside Kcee and MC Galaxy,
their synergy concocts this sonorous love number on which they all
faired very well. Gift is still Iyanya and Don Jazzy’s winning number, although quite very silly in context and then Nakupenda
wraps up the LP finally. Sounding like one of them Okoye brothers’ work
and featuring the talented Tanzanian songstar, Diamond Platnumz, it
tilts the body of work into a slightly alternative genre yet under the
afro pop/R&B umbrella. I think Diamond totally owned this song off
Iyanya but unlike Macoma, Nakupenda proffers him with a better prospect at expanding frontiers of his music market in the African terrain.
The stellar effort expended in putting Applaudise (The Album)
together, is badly watered down by the other excuse of songs used
solely for the purpose of beefing up the tracklist. Regardless, you can
extrapolate the fine works of DJ Coublon especially and other producers
who created the magical framework of the album as with the likes of Don
Jazzy, Banky W, Harrysong, Diamond Platnumz and may be Olamide who
topped it off with spectacular vocal features. By now, it is obvious
that Iyanya’s lyrical artistry
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