By Ayomide Tayo
Artiste- Oritsefemi
Album- The Musical Taliban
Guest Appearances- Akpororo, Abiz, Reminisce, Snow White, Vector, Da Ugly
Producers- Da Piano, T Piano, Obodo, Young D, Del B, 911, G Wiz, DJ Rymos,
Record Label- Arogun Menite Sounds (2013)
Duration- 1 hour 15 minutes
Ghetto music was popular in the mid to late 90’s with artistes such as Daddy Showkey, Daddy Fresh, Baba Fryo and others putting ghetto music made in the slums of Ajegunle on the map. Accompanied by simple lyrics, conscious and political content and unique dance steps, the genre became highly popular.
By the turn of the millennium Ghetto music had petered, giving way to pop music with huge foreign influence. Yes, African China almost revived the genre of music but his rape controversy slowed down his output considerably. Today Oritsefemi is one act that is still peddling this brand of music. Sadly while he is one of the last he is far from the best.
His new album, the oddly titled The Musical Taliban does little to push ghetto music forward and provide us with enough concrete evidence that the artiste has enough hot songs to blow the game up.
There is no concept gripping this album as a tight body of work, everything sounds loose. The production is uninspiring and underwhelming despite the list of experienced producers on the album- Da Piano, Young D, Del B and others. The lyrics don’t help the album and makes it feel scattered and lackluster.
Oritsefemi doesn’t neglect the conscious and political content of ghetto music. On ‘Religious War’ he sings about the religious killings in the country. This song could have been more than decent but the auto-tune chokes the life out of it. And the reckless use of the pitch-altering software does more harm than good on this LP. ‘Better’ survives the auto-tune onslaught and is one of the few cuts on the 19 track album that comes through.
While the ghetto music of the 90s leaned towards ragga, Oritsefemi’s pushes his towards the so-called Naija pop. ‘Omo Toh Shun’ will have its admirers no doubt especially as fast food lyrics has now become the leading staple in Nigeria’s music cuisine. ‘Shayemi’ featuring Abiz follows the trend. Minus the sub-par rap verse, this can be accepted. These songs and a couple of songs hint at the possibility of Oritsefemi becoming a full time Naija pop artist, that is if he works hard at it. You get the feeling that most of the songs were made up on the spot rather than from prolonged thinking.
‘Idle man is a devil workshop/Person wey no work e no go chop/and if you hustle hard you will get to the top’ sings Oritsefemi on Better (remix). These are simple but effective lines that could have made the album better if Oritsefemi had used them more often. Vector delivers another wordplay rich verse on the song making ‘Better’ and its original versions stand out cuts.
The Musical Taliban runs for an hour and fifteen minutes. It is a hard body of work to digest. Thanks to its pitfalls, it is a gruelling listen. Oritsefemi might still be repping Ghetto music but he isn’t doing much to push it forward.
There are no bombs on this album but just like the Taliban it is frightfully bad.
