By Ayomide Tayo
Album- Footprints
Artist- Duncan Mighty
Guest Appearances- Wande Coal, Timaya, Shaggy, Otuu Sax, Sandaz Black
Record Label- Aire Mighty (2012)
Duncan Mighty- The Port-Harcourt Giant Moves On
Duncan Mighty is perhaps the most famous anonymous artist in the whole of Nigeria. The man who calls himself ‘Wene Mighty’ has dropped some of the biggest hits in recent memory but yet his face isn’t splattered everywhere like those of pop fledglings who barely have a regional hit.
Looking at his career so far, Duncan Mighty prefers his music to organically spread rather than force feed his songs on the masses. While his songs are known nationwide, Duncan Mighty is more than a monster down South- the city of Port Harcourt to be precise. As he sang in one of his hit tracks- he is a Port Harcourt boy through and through. Embedded in the DNA of his music is the spirit of the garden city of Port Harcourt.
His latest LP is another representation of the music that originated from the city close to the Bonny River deep in Nigeria’s Niger-Delta region. The most surprising thing about Duncan Mighty is that he’s a calmer and more commanding version of another South South act- Timaya. Where Timaya grunts and shouts, Wene Mighty croons, hardly raising his voice.
While he is an ambassador of Niger-Delta music, Duncan Mighty is also reggae/ragga/dancehall inclined. There are several cuts on the album that show that Wene Mighty also gets inspiration from musicians from the tiny island-nation of Jamaica. ‘Drive Me Crazy’ is one of such songs. ‘Light Ooh’ is a reggae Gospel song which seeks to motivate people in seeing the light of the Lord. ‘Ghetto Youth’ is also on the inspirational tip as Duncan Mighty blends dancehall and Hip Hop to motivate children leaving in the slums of Nigeria. And on another dancehall inspired track ‘Didiamkpor’ Duncan Mighty actually sings ‘Drogba know say I play pass Messi’.
Lyrically this album doesn’t differ from what is regarded as standard fare in Nigerian pop music- easy rhyming and thin-layered lines. There is no mystery, sense of art or poetry in Duncan Mighty’s lyrics. It seems he writes down what comes to his heart first and records it straight without trying to embellish or garnish it. Sometimes he manages to drop a few humourous lines. On ‘She’s My Beautiful’ Wene Mighty sings ‘she love me tender. She leave my pant, dey wear my boxer’. If the song isn’t groovy you might be tempted to skip the track.
‘We Go Dey Dey’ featuring Wande Coal is one of the brightest spots of the album. Even though Wande Coal rehashes a couple of his old tracks on this song it gets the LP going. The guitar gives the song a little bit of edge and ginger. ‘Whine It’ featuring Shaggy has nothing really special to it. The Jamaican dancehall act probably has nothing to offer the world of music anymore seeing that the best part of this song is when Duncan Mighty sings ‘this Ikebe wan thrown somersault’.
There are a few moments when Footprints feels bland and uninspiring. Tracks such as ‘Hustlers Anthem’, ‘Manuchim-Soh’, ‘Owhornu-Ogwu’ slows down the lengthy album which boasts of 18 tracks.
Footprints is a raw, sometimes unprocessed body of work by one of South-South’s biggest acts.
While the project might be perceived as rough while compared to the shiny and glistening pop music on our radio today, Footprints is a direct and honest LP. It takes a courageous man to leave his footprints on the sand of time. Bold enough to do music for him and his people, Wene Mighty’s footprints are being etched on the sands of Nigerian music.
