Arts & Entertainment

Asa: hot new music

By team ⋅ March 29, 2008 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment

The Independent, 9 March

The Franco-Nigerian singer explains why Lagos has got the funk.

One of the biggest stars in Nigeria right now is a masked singer known as Lagbaja, a Yoruban word that roughly translates as ‘somebody, nobody, anybody, everybody’. Asa, who was born in Paris but grew up from the age of two in the Nigerian capital of Lagos, thinks Lagbaja might be on to something. ‘I love his music and his costumes are a smart move’, she says. ‘That way, no one knows who you are.’

A craving for anonymity might seem odd coming from Asa, a hugely promising singer-songwriter who has just returned to Paris after a spell in London to launch her debut album and perform a stripped-back, funky-acoustic version of her single, ‘Fire on the Mountain’, on the BBC’s Later…With Jools Holland. But then Asa (pronounced as in ‘Brimful of…) is a compelling mix of such contradictory influences. While her father, a cameraman, was working in Lagos, his daughter grew up dipping into his rich collection of records and discovering traditional Yoruban music, pan-African artists and Western superstars.

All of this has given the 25-year-old’s music a Starbucks-friendly quality. Asa is all too aware that it is from Nigeria’s capital that she draws her strength. ‘I need to get back to Lagos soon. I need that energy, that struggle. I need more information to feed into my music. In many ways, all major cities are the same, everyone striving to be noticed. But Lagos is crazy, with many problems – from the abuse of children to the fact that it is a very strict, very religious society’, she says.

Asa plays the Carling Academy Islington, on 12 May, and the Club Academy, Manchester on 13 May. Her debut album is out now.