Category: EP – 4 tracks, runtime – 11 min
Genre: Afropop
Release Date: 14.February.2025
Rating: ★★★★★★★★☆☆ – 8.1/10
Njerae is a spectrum. And with any given project, she can have you landing anywhere on the scale; from an ultra-sleek commercial mood complete with electronic beats & synth-driven melodies, to organic ballads with a strong guitar presence and adventurous structure. If you know anything about the team back here, you’d not be surprised that we sorta dig the latter more, but hey, she doesn’t sound necessarily “bad” at either. Anyways, all this to say, this EP is more on the sleek synthetic end than the guitar-pop she sneaks out of the shell now & then.
Opening the joint with catchy number “Fight for You”, the concept’s an open book from the go. A bunch of borderline desperate love tunes, not veering as far as heartbreak, but not super-bright love tokens either. There’s no hint of guitars on the opener, just slightly overproduced beats, & effective boardroom-calculated lines about homegirl fighting for her love interest. Gotta admit, we bopped quite a bit to that vowellish refrain: “Aaha, iyaa-iya-aahaha”, feels awkward in written form😂 but it was quite the pull. Then enter “Beg for It”!
Ngl, yours truly did a massive eye roll at the opening line. As you’ll find out when you dig in, it’s rather cheesy, but hey poppy love song it is, that’s part of the course. It’s a feature, not a flaw. You know, formulaic lyrics with an extra hint of neediness about begging for reciprocation of love and all. Yay! Soundwise, there’s shadows of guitars that are teased sparingly. That miserliness, though, is balanced out by the piece’s decent catchiness. Not our fav, but neither a filler. We can roll with that. Talking of favs, “Decide”, the third track, took the slot.
For one, the guitar-work on the track is the most forward & compelling than on all its predecessors and even the closer. The beats are afro-styled, got no dog with that. We also dig the echoey touch to the harmonies that make for a boppy anthemic refrain. Don’t know what “Ikurui rieeda” means & we stubbornly won’t google up a translation, just for the mystery of it. But every time it came around, it had us moving, can’t spin it any other way. Banger!
And the closer? Well, emblematic of the project’s spirit; suave, hooky, lovestruck 2-minute straight shooter. The team did love the playfully leaky guitars, and spiralling synths simulating a stringy sound.
Can’t fault a lot about the project in and of itself. It’s mostly a case of preferring a certain act a certain way you knew them before. But evolution’s an artistic reality. So, we’ll swallow that pill, and wait for what Njerae has next in store. Bop on!
