Review of Kdel’s Ojoro

CHIBUZO EMMANUEL

Kdel’s music hovers in the liminal space between somber introspection and impassioned contemplation. Which is to say that his music shimmers with the kind of time-honed discernment one would expect from a poet or a sage-like figure.

In 2022’s Gbadu, over guitar strummings that leap and float with the gracefulness of a ballet dancer and vivacious drums that call to mind a Nigerian party, he assumes a didactic tenor, advising young people to set their priorities straight. “Before you do for street, hope say your mama dey gbadu? Before you flex them girls hope say your papa dey gbadu?” Here he essentially riffs on the age-old maxim that says charity begins at home.

Before you splurge on women or acquaintances, make sure your parents and your family are okay, he urges.
The contemplative air of the song aside, the lyrical deftness which Kdel displays here is remarkable.
Over the hook, he sings: “See the life that we living/ All they really care is what you’re bringing/ Too many wrongs got me writing/ If I no dey sleep men I’m vibing.” A lesser writer would have expressed these thoughts through strident cliches and tired turns of phrases, Kdel instead delivers a double-entendre that hits with the precision and clarity of a one-two punch.

In Ojoro, the lead single from his forthcoming EP Prince of Awori, he’s equally at the height of his powers. Here the beat is even more poignant, more contemplative. Upholstering the song is a sprawling melody that glistens like a clear pool reflecting the amber glow of evening sunlight. Surfing this immaculate melody, he carefully excavates affecting stories of his humble beginnings, counterbalancing this with musings on money’s capacity for skewing the scales of justice. “Owo sha Lon sho ojoro,” he sings in the chorus. The Yoruba phrase roughly translates to “Money causes unfairness.”

The fragments of vivid detail he sprinkles across the song imbue it with a lived-in quality. When we hear him sing “Lagos to Abuja by road/ Sapa must go,” we can see him, in our mind’s eye, seated in one of the interstate buses that zip through highways across the country, staring outside the window as he dreams of better days. What this does is situate the listener in the story he’s telling, transforming them from a casual observer of the scene into a co-star in the narrative. To put it differently: the listener can put themselves in his shoes.

Kdel describes his forthcoming EP Prince of Awori as “deeply personal.” “This body of work says a lot about me-where I’m coming from, the vision, the pain; everything I’ve been through to be where I am,” he says. Kdel is a writer with a mission. Aside from the typical trappings of fame, with his music, he’s particularly deliberate about passing across messages. “I feel very accomplished when someone can tap into the kind of message I put out in my songs,” he says. Recalling a time when he played his imminent EP Prince of Awori to an artist based in Newcastle, he says: “The guy started crying because he could actually connect.” I’s this evocative quality of Kdel’s music that makes it compelling.
Listening, you can hear the tenderness in his voice as he delivers emotion-sodden lyrics. And so, the songs hit with a force and clarity that makes them come alive in your mind.