By shelz.
While Nneka is a relatively new name to the folks around the nifty fifty, her work has been crossing borders and expanding minds overseas for years. Don’t be fooled by her diminutive stature or her delicate voice either, her material isn’t soft. When Nneka picked her battles, she picked several and many are explained on her latest release, Concrete Jungle. It’s an effortless blend of beauty and atrocity, politics and religion. Despite the enormity of her message, she amazingly manages to add a silver lining.
Elements of Concrete Jungle run the spectrum of influence from reggae and rock to spacey 80’s pop and Hip-Hop, but she still manages to make it cohesive. The content revolves around love and respect with plenty of scenarios depicting what happens when neither is present. For some, she may appear preachy, but these may be the same folks who can digest 15 tracks of crack rap with no concerns. The bottom line is most of us are never given the world stage and its accompanying attention. When the more thoughtful find themselves in that situation, they run with it. And run, Nneka does.
The album starts with “Showin Love,” a song about exactly that. Words about living in love top a mid-tempo groove that’s driven by a looped accordion riff and a smooth bassline. Nneka toggles between singing and rapping, giving light to both skills. She then moves into “The Uncomfortable Truth” with its slicing horns and organ groundwork. She touches on pretension and government double talk while suggesting again that love can change everything if it’s just given a chance.
“Mind vs. Heart” is an R&B song that delves into ideas of balance and destiny. Again love surfaces but this song covers self-love and self-forgiveness. It’s a lovely sentiment that’s wrapped in a lovely song. It starts with simple atmospherics and a drum pattern that morphs into a rapid, imploring cadence near the end a la The Roots “You Got Me.” Nneka’s delivery follows suit, spiraling upwards with the music’s rising level of passion. “Heartbeat” passionately tackles the mishandling of the citizens of her home, Nigeria, over a track derivative of the local sound while “Come With Me” revisits self-love and strength in the face of the plight she describes in “Heartbeat.”
Then there is “Kangpe” which loosely translates to “I’m cool,” which has a playful track and feature in Wesley Williams. Nneka makes use of a little home spun dialect on this song but still manages to communicate the concept of God giving you nothing you can’t handle. “Africans” has a traditional reggae track and tackles the idea of Nigerians wallowing in victim status.
“Suffri” goes for a world rock feel, almost reminiscent of Santana’s old school Afro-Cuban sound, but still maintains a tinge of what sounds like soca at times. The swirling organs and ping pong drum pattern are perfect. The divergent elements come together well and Nneka’s raspy vocals carry hints of Randy Crawford as she sings about empty claims of change and progress.
Concrete Jungle ends just as powerfully as it opened. “Walking” has the most conventional Hip-Hop track and producer DJ Farhot shows his sampling ability. This version doesn’t have the Jay Electronica feature but it’s still just as dope. Nneka revisits rock and goes Hip-Hop lyrical with “Focus,” a song about ignoring life’s traps and keeping on task and “God of Mercy” closes the album with a prayer and a thank you.
Concrete Jungle is a compilation, a gathering of Nneka’s best material so far. So this album, more so than the previous two, has the upper hand on quality. However, that quality can’t be denied. She and DJ Farhot have presented a melting pot of sounds yet have managed to make the project cohesive. She deals in cliché subject matter, but Concrete Jungle rises above the cliché. Nneka hands you a sermon but comes off as more passionate than preachy. It’s quite the accomplishment and hopefully as she continues to garner that world stage spotlight and run with it, folks will follow.
4.25 Out of 5
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