Nabiswa Does It Again With Half A Jay & Other Stories
It would be inaccurate to call Nabiswa (Son Of The Sun) an upcoming artist because right now he’s proving to be a force to be reckoned with! Last year he gave us three projects to feast our ears on as we adjusted to our new normal due to the pandemic. This year on 4/20, he blessed us with Half A Jay & Other Stories - his first release of the year, and it is admittedly some of his best work so far.
The album starts off with more melodic tracks glazed with subtle drums and hums that deliver bountiful experiences for the listener to relish in. You really can’t deny the sauce that Nabiswa possesses. Each song is a story of it’s own, but still somehow feel like a culmination of a bigger picture - a clever wordplay on the set book Half A Day & Other Stories that my fellow millennial 8-4-4 Kenyan babies studied for their finals.
‘Expressway’ and ‘Upcountry’ both sound like a road trip to a quick weekend getaway like Naivasha or Tigoni, and the followup ‘Sunday Hangover’ proved just that! The repetitive chants in his songs notably make them not only catchy, but retable and spiritual in many ways. He proves that consistency and simplicity go a long way. Vocals are akin to all other instruments used on this masterful body of work. Vocalists Brandy Maina and Chokoraa Mjanja of Le Band almost go unnoticeable on such a song because of how sublime the layering and mixing is.
He clearly took his time with this one because the deeper you get into it, the more immersed you feel in the music. In projects like Son Of Piano, he teased us with his subversive amapiano approach, but with this one, he sonically goes several steps further. I suspect that he recorded some ambient, raw, natural sounds to use on some of the songs - and the more you listen, the more those subtleties stand out. Other than that, there’s a very Kenyan feel to it that I can’t quite explain. It might be the references he uses or his remix of ‘Bar’ by Nviiri The Storyteller featuring Femi One, but either way you can’t help but feel the East African touch it has. If you were on the verge of turning into an amapiano hater, I’d encourage you to hold onto that thought, because this genre of music is here to stay!
This is an alluring body of work that is guaranteed to be an enjoyable experience for any mood, at any time of the day, and on any day of the week.
Go stream Half A Jay & Other Stories on all major platforms now.
