The much-anticipated twin albums from Africano musician Lagbaja are now ready for release.
Titled ‘Paradise’ and ‘Sharp Sharp’, the albums will be released into the Nigerian market on Monday May 4, 2009.
As is characteristic of Lagbaja, all tracks on both albums have various slants and characters, but the common denominator remains the traditional African drums. Lagbaja’s saxophones also feature prominently on the new recordings; and it’s the first time since ‘Cest Un African Thing’ (1996) that the saxophone is taking such prominence on Lagbaja’s studio recordings.
Listeners will hear Lagbaja doing remarkable sax solos on ‘Paradise’ and ‘Sharp Sharp’ – songs like ‘Bling Bling Panda’ and Sobolation have the saxophone blazing while tracks like ‘paradise’ and ‘sharp sharp’ actually have the saxophone in the intro section of the songs dueting with the lead vocals.
The traditional African drums- the mainframe of the Africano genre- is also conspicuously present throughout the entire album. And, interestingly, most of the songs were recorded live. Lagbaja is an advocate of Live music; believing musicians should play their instruments as opposed to the recent common practice of completely ceding music production to the computer.
The albums were recorded in Lagos at Motherlan’ Studios; and in the USA at Bennett Studios. All the songs were mixed in different US studios, including Studio Crash (Pennsylvania), Bennet Studios (NJ) and Studio 4 (Pennsylvania).
Apart from mixing several of the songs on the album, Grammy award-winning engineer Dave Kowalski also recorded the Salsa version of Lagbaja’s composition ‘Deja A Mi Gente Quedarse’ (Let my people stay) at Bennet Studios. The cut features some of the top Latin music players of the New York scene.
Other tracks on the albums are:
PARADISE: Sobolation, paradise, lulu fun won, Deja A Mi Gente Querdase (Spanish), Iro Whe, Iyawo tororo, Jenke and Kekekeke
SHARP SHARP: Bling Bling Panda, Sharp sharp, let my people stay, Eko mega city, Liar Liar, different cloth different season, dress with sense
The albums will be available in traffic and all retail outlets in Nigeria, as well as on www.lagbaja.com from Monday May 4.
Meanwhile, another album ‘Africano Party’ whose release has been pending since 2005, is also scheduled for release later this year.
More stuff coming...
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