ID CABASA – ID.entity
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There are only a handful of headlines that would truly awe Nigerians these days and ANOTHER POPULAR PRODUCER DIVING INTO A SINGING CAREER, certainly isn’t one of them. ID Cabasa is not the first successful producer to leave his chair behind the boards and queue up behind the microphone. The LASU graduate of Economics certainly won’t be the last.
Rather intelligently, ID makes IDentity semi-enjoyable by overfilling it with real musicians, a record breaking 24 of them in total, and together they state a better case for Cabasa’s relatively virgin singing career. The only problem with inviting the entire population of Akoka and environs to IDentity is that, besides his consistent production, ID loses the ability to determine the true quality of his own album. As a result, the outcome of IDentity is left squarely in the hands of its collaborators. The album is enjoyable in the very few instances that they are in the mood, but unravels when they take their foot off the gas. Banky was certainly in the mood, the inspirational Alu Jo Repete is a beautifully rendered inspirational song and even ID turned up a 5 star display here. Lagos underground Hip Hop mainstay, Kage introduces ID Cabasa to High Life the way the Easterners do it and ID proves to be a quick learner, delivering the album’s standout song the love-themed Ofe Owerri in the process.
Speaking of languages, IDentity spends nearly as much time in Yoruba as it does in English. ID takes a leaf from his paddy 9ice’s book of proverbs and recites idioms and wise sayings at the slightest of provocations. The only difference between Mr. Alapomeji’s convoluted metaphors and ID’s mundane variety is that unlike 9ice, Cabasa lacks the depth or vocals to make them worth listening to over and again. In that regard, when ID’s music goes left, it really goes left. The following songs should be striped of their titles and be simply known as – WTF? (What the F***?).You Are featuring Snow, Supo and 2 Phat = poor man’s version of Sean Kingston = WTF? Underrated featuring Kayefi, Monimo, Eva =God Pass Dem featuring AB = filler songs = the reason why Nigerian’s skip buying whole albums and just buy mix CDs instead = WTF? And just because it’s for a good cause doesn’t permit the overcrowded Keep It Clean to be an atrocious song, WTF!
IDentity remixes not one but two of 9ice’s songs Gongo Ti So and Street Credibility. Fair enough, these remixes became mere skits but it actually gets you wondering how much of this album was actually ID’s idea. To call this album his IDentity would be misleading, I still can’t tell you anything about Cabasa’s true style of music. More fitting titles could have been ‘Akoka United’, ‘Coded Tunes compilation CD’ or ‘ID Cabasa & Friends’. Nice try, but not decent enough to make other artistes lose sleepless nights just yet.
ALBUM RATING 2.5/5