Nana Adjoa

Cov lus los ntawm Zachary Weg

Cov kos duab-pop ntawm Dutch-Ghanaian suab paj nruag, Nana Adjoa, yog rau tag nrho cov strivers thiab fighters ntawm cov hnub nyuaj. Raws li nws ntseeg siab thiab sublime debut album, Loj npau suav ntsaum, qhia tawm, lub lig-nees nkaum multi-instrumentalist thiab singer muaj ib tug yuav luag telepathic kev nkag siab ntawm dab tsi resonates sib sib zog nqus nrog tib neeg, ntev, thiab zuam. Los ntawm vivid lyrics uas mus ncaj qha mus rau lub plawv thiab wonderfully unpredictable instrumentation, Adjoa ua tsis muaj dab tsi tsawg tshaj li portray lub plawv dhia nyob rau hauv tag nrho nws precious messiness.

Tsa nyob rau hauv lub Netherlands qhov twg, raws li nws hais hauv xov tooj, nws thiab nws cov phooj ywg "ua suab nrov" nyob rau hauv txawv bands thaum lub sij hawm lawv cov tub ntxhais hluas, tus artist mus rau lub prestigious Conservatorium van Amsterdam jazz kev pab cuam tab sis xav tias me ntsis constrained los ntawm nws cov kev cai. Tom qab, N. w, then, s, Down at the Root, t 2017 a 2018. u, she instantly gripped the listener with her raspy voice on such songs as the country-tinged "n" k "a," g (2015). More significantly, m, u (2018) s, crashing through it with a madcap army of frenzied drums, r, a. u, undoubtedly, h.

Loj npau suav ntsaum a, s, announce the arrival of one of the most pensive yet spontaneous, purely exciting artists in contemporary music. The album is just under forty minutes, but Adjoa has a lot to say here. Speaking about the origins of the album, she says, “I had been in LA and it kind of made me feel like a small person in a big world. Also, when I was in the studio, I collected a lot of images and all of these pictures were either one small person in a very big space or a lot of small people all together like the Olympic Games, pictures of people trying to achieve something.” The songwriter does mine such simultaneously urgent and ageless motifs as identity, patriotism, and desire. "You know your Lord and how he's awaited,/You know this revolt of yours will never get old or antiquated," Adjoa sings on the stunning guitar-fuzzed opener, "National Song," Thiab, in just this sharp couplet, she has related the history of distressed urbanites around the world, through the decades.

"I think these themes have been on everybody's mind," she reflects. "w, being of two backgrounds, my father being from Ghana, my mother from the Netherlands, I've always been interested in my parents' backgrounds in order to understand who I am." Big Dreaming Ants could undoubtedly be heard as Adjoa actualizing herself on record. While on a track like the sonorous "No Room," she yearns to "imagine my way out of this cubicle life," on one such as the anthemic "She's Stronger," she aims to be the one who "hauls it all on her own" and be a fiercer version of herself. Throughout the album, which is a kind of spiritual successor to Wilco's bombshell Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002) with its purposefully unpolished luminosity, Adjoa doesn't claim to have all of the answers. Instead, she rewards the audience with vital questions: who are you? What do you stand for? What do you believe in?
As an electric guitar swirls under a sky of soaring strings on Big Ants Dreaming closer, "I Want to Change," Adjoa sings of "a butterfly in a cage" Thiab "raw resurrection." This is what the artist has given: freedom, warmth, air—the chance to fly.