Tag: Douala Cameroon

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Paris’ Nico and The Red Shoes Shares Euphoric “Time Is Love”

Led by a global citizen, who has spent stints living in Douala, Cameroon, Rome and elsewhere, the Paris-based outfit Nico and The Red Shoes has firmly established a sound that draws from and meshes several different influences and styles, including New Wave, electro pop, cyber pop, house music and more, paired with catchy melodies. 

With the release of 2015’s self-titled debut EP, the Parisian outfit emerged into the electro pop scene with material that drew from and meshed elements of New Wave and pop.

Earlier this year, the French electro pop project shared “Mathilda,” the first bit of new material in eight years — and the first single of their long-awaited and highly-anticipated full-length debut, Time Is Love. “Mathilda” is a sleek, slickly produced, Afrobeats-inspired, club friendly bit of pop built around glistening synths, skittering beats, tweeter and woofer rattling low end and remarkably catchy hooks paired with a bursts of funk guitar, a deep house-like breakdown and Nico’s soulful delivery. The result is a song that should make you get up and move.

Time Is Love‘s second and latest single, album title track “Time Is Love” is a late 80s/early 90s-inspired bit of dance pop built around twinkling synth arpeggios, a thumping backbeat, Nico’s plaintive delivery paired with rousingly anthemic, euphoria-inducing hooks.

“The song encapsulates the idea that true and meaningful expressions of love require an investment in time that is limited and precious to us,” the band explains. They add that Nico wrote the song during a moment of helplessness, when she thought she was going to lose her mother. “‘Time is love’ thus takes the opposite view of the expression ‘Time is money.’ This phrase encourages a perspective of love that involves shared moments, experiences and efforts to understand and be present for someone,” the Parisian outfit continues.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Nico and The Red Shoes Share Sleek and Slickly Produced Bop “Mathilda”

Led by a true global citizen, who has spent stints living in Douala, Cameroon, Rome and elsewhere, the Paris-based outfit Nico and The Red Shoes specializes in a sound that draws from and meshes several different influences, including New Wave, electro pop, cyber pop, house music and more, paired with catchy melodies.

The French outfit emerged into the scene with 2015’s self-titled debut EP, which featured material that meshed elements of New Wave and pop. “Mathilda,” the project’s latest single is part of the first batch of new material from the electro pop project in eight years — and will be part of their long-awaited and highly-anticipated full-length debut. Hopefully those details with be forthcoming. But in the meantime, let’s talk about the new single, right?

“Mathilda” is a sleek, slickly produced, Afrobeats-inspired, club friendly bit of pop built around glistening synths, bursts of funk guitar, skittering beats, tweeter and woofer rattling low end paired with a deep house like breakdown, remarkably catchy hooks and Nico’s soulful delivery. If this one doesn’t make you get up and dance, there’s something deeply wrong with you.

Directed by Andrew Superview and Valeria Michetti, the accompanying video is an Afrofuturist fever dream starring dancer Pierre Man’s wearing a robotic costume designed by Precy Numbi and wandering around various industrial and dilapidated locales.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

 

Jade Jana is an emerging, Yaounde, Cameroon-based singer and Afro pop artist. Deeply influenced by her maternal grandmother, who also an artist, a young Jade Jana found herself drawn to music at a very early age. As a child, she took part in public performances during religious ceremonies, eventually becoming the mascot of the children’s choir that her big sisters Aurelie, Rachel and Irene founded.

Her first time performing in a musical group came when her bass playing brother Martin asked a then-seven year old Jana to step in for the lead singer of his college band. Several years later, while a teenaged member of the local classical church choir, Jana started her first group VAST, which featured her best friend LilI Blandine. While a member of VAST, Jana met pianist Mbo’o Tchinda. Tchinda would become instrumental to a young Jana: Tchinda taught the rising Cameroonian singer the basics of jazz and blues.

Jana eventually relocated to Douala, where she met Calvin Yug and collaborated on S-Team’s full-length debut. Shortly after, she started a second group MARAKASS. MARAKASS played at Douala’s French Institute and made waves with “Te Wa Mbara,” which appeared in the 2006 compilation Francophonie du Midem. She then spent the next two years working on her own material, re-emerging in 2010 when she opened for Henri Dikongue.

Jana then collaborated with hip-hop act Afropeen Lyonnais Tchopdye, joining the act on a handful of French tour dates. She also collaborated with Lyonnais, appearing on Les Monstroplantes  — while touring with her own electro poppet Son Of Tube. With those experiences under her proverbial belt, the Cameroonian artist decides that it’s finally time to go solo, releasing material under her own name that thematically explores all the encounters that have one way or another influenced who she is today.

“Sassaye.” Jada Jana’s solo debut is an infectious and hook-driven track that draws from a variety of sources across the African Diaspora: there’s elements of soukouss, Cameroonian pop, Mandingo melodies and Caribbean groove and Jana’s sultry vocals. And while being a Pan African club banger, the track is simultaneously a bold and defiantly feminist anthem that calls out a specific type of man — a sort of fuckboi. “A sassaye is an easy man, who gets bogged down in his game of seduction and who too often forgets his dignity,” Jana explains.