There isn’t a lot to be cheerful about in Nigeria at this very moment, music that’s fun and chirpy is a direct contradiction to the general mood of the country. It’s a bit like telling morbid jokes at someone’s wake and then turning up at their funeral wearing a red suit.
That may be true but in times of struggle, you can also get a different outlook by listening to music that’s unapologetically happy. You’re reminded that someone, somewhere is having a good time. Even if that someone isn’t you, you can live happily vicariously through them.
In the case of Odunsi (the Engine), that person isn’t just having a good time, he’s actually having the time of his life. The singer’s debut EP Time of Our Lives (TOOL) describes the life and times of a young, up and coming 19-year old.
Odunsi occupies the curious musical space that he describes as “Afro-fusion”; there’s a lot of rapping but it’s not quite hip-hop, there’s a lot of singing and melody but it’s not quite R&B. Basically there’s a lot of everything but not nearly enough of anything to just call it one thing. Are you confused? Stay with me here, I get that way with the music too sometimes.
Odunsi comes from the same school as LSMK, I mean that both musically and in the literal sense. He went to the same secondary school as the artiste and cites him as one of the artistes he looks up to, little wonder then that his musical DNA isn’t too far from LSMK’s. The older, more eclectic singer wasn’t featured on this 7-song EP but another one of Odunsi’s music mentors was, the inimitable Black Magic. If I’m honest, Odunsi could have held his own on the raga-inspired promotion for infidelity that is “Lover man” but it’s good to have a high-profile guest feature on the project to get it some attention.
Speaking of which, TOOL doesn’t get any higher or brighter than the joyous “Happy Hour”. Synth clumps, fist pumps and ladies in thick pumps, Odunsi and Afro-EDM exponent Okuntakinte paint a picture of nightime bliss that you’ll surely need more than 60 minutes after work to get into. This is the kind of song that sounds pleasantly different after 12 am than it did before. When moving around town at such an ungodly hour, an “Uber” becomes everybody’s favorite designated driver. The track isn’t all about early morning drop-offs with jump-offs though, Odunsi artfully uses the 21st Century taxi service as a reference for saying that nothing will get in the way of him spending quality time with his lady. Unashamedly, between Falila, Vanessa and Aisha he can’t seem to make his mind up who that lady is on the playful “Vanilla Freestyle”.
The exuberance of TOOL however, won’t be everybody’s cup of tea. Niche sounds like Odunsi’s are able to go viral today because SoundCloud is doing for gifted artistes in 2016 what YouTube did for gifted cover singers in the late 2000’s – connecting them directly to an audience ready to listen. However, the worry with the SoundCloud generation of artistes is that because the majority of them in Nigeria exist as a small, close-knit community of singers and producers, they end up sounding a lot like each other at times.
One thing that sets Odunsi apart from the pack slightly is his tendency to infuse strong indigenous elements into his music. The defiant “Shiwawu” interpolates Fatai Rolling Dollar’s “Won Kere Si Number Wa”, while the brilliant duet “Farabale” has a verse from highly-rated vocalist Dami Oniru and a half-Yoruba, half-English chorus, delivered by Odunsi himself –
Don’t be stressing cos, you’re my lady oh /
Baby oh, ko ma si eni kan /
Don’t be stressing, ko ma si eni kan /
Another thing is that rather than being dour and introspective like most of his peers come off at times, save for “Shiwawu”, Odunsi seems like he recorded the entire EP with a wide grin on his face. I don’t know whether those qualities will be enough to make The Engine a household name in the near future but the purity of his happiness will give you a musical escape from the goings-on in the country, that is, if you’re like me and you’re really in need of one.
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