Reviewed by Stephen Adams

This CD is billed as a “collection of the finest spiritual music being created by today’s contemporary artists,” with the uniting point of the project being not only the faith shared by each artist, but also their Nigerian origin. Being someone of Nigerian roots, I approached this CD with interest. Some of the groups on here show some potential, while others seem to settle for middle-of-the-road material with very dated production. Bands such as Kush, despite one or two dodgy vocal moments and passé “yeah-yeah” vocals, sound promising due to the delicate voice of the main vocalist and the soulful production. The cool African jazz of Agboola Shadare’s “Ebube” wouldn’t be out of place on Jools Holland’s BBC2 show and reminded me of growing up in Nigeria, while Kunle Ajayi’s saxophone rendition of “Bless The Lord O My Soul” is spine-tingling at times. However, the problem comes with either weak songs (Adeniji’s “The Word” with its mix of jazz and R&B sensibilities would have been very promising if not ruined by a weak female rap), or artists such as Men In Christ who are described as being a mix of “R&B…praise and worship gospel with a hip-hop flair”, and yet are represented here by an extremely dated middle-of-the-road ballad and weak singing. Better and stronger song selection would help any further volumes. More funky African jazz and heartfelt praise and worship and less dated karaoke attempts at R&B would help.

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.

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