REVIEW: Lola Rae – One Time

There are more vacuums in Lola Rae’s discography than she admits as an unapologetically self-styled Nigerian pop singer with British-Ghanaian origins. In the last few years, she merely surfaces to float new material before going back under for another extended stretch of silence. As with many Indie artists, her long time career plans may not seem evident yet, but despite Rae’s one-single-per-blue-moon release format she has artistically slinked into a primadonna class only a few women have attained in Nigeria. One Time, her first single of 2016 is seven months late into the year but Lola Rae comes just in time to coast on the global rise of Caribbean-inspired sounds. The idea is pretty simple and probably too familiar; heavy bass thumps, reggae guitars and samples for backup vocals all set for your regular

sweaty Caribbean basement jam. Only here, Lola Rae solves a dilemma many Nigerian artists seeking West Indian inspirations have struggled with by sticking with English indented with Nigerian pidgin instead of horribly cross-mouthing the Jamaican patois as many have done (yes, we’re

looking at you Cynthia Morgan).

Lola Rae shows a songwriting strong suit here that is ambitious without taking itself too seriously. “This is for you and me/if you like what you see” she sultrily sings, with an air of insouciant confidence that rings almost like a fettered command instead of an offer of self. The true magic of One Time is in Lola Rae’s alternate ‘judi’ chorus, which smoothly slips in as an encore to a near-spiritual hook about “freedom on the dancefloor”, “rude gyals who get what they want”, and “dancing in the fire”. It’s lush, braggadocious, seductive and original all at once without any conflicting core elements.

The adjoining video for Rae’s latest material casually displays her performer influences with grips of Ciara’s androgyny and Rihanna’s thuggish sex appeal. Shots of daintily clad bodies grinding under chrome lighting and vibrant colours almost

too similar to Rihanna’s Work take most of the video’s screen time, but Lola Rae is nuanced enough to carry the weight of every scene convincingly—even when she reinvents Rihanna’s

chair-in-room scene from Pour It Up with a boyish charm. Lola Rae’s wants you to know where her style has come from but only to obscure it’s relevance for the rest of the video with her own overwhelming upgrade of all the same risque

tropes you thought you knew too well.

Songs that have Nigerian women celebrating their feminity and sensuality have always suffered from a cultural bias in the past. Such songs and music videos are critiqued with underpinnings of societal patriarchy and misogynist industry double-standards masked as public scrutiny. The last

attempt by Tiwa Savage with her “controversial” Wanted video, is still treated as a dismissible fail in an otherwise “good-girl” artistry. With One Time, Lola Rae threads the same path of eggshells but uses subtlety as a weapon of power without sacrificing her feminine lithe instead. When her act comes together, the result is a racy vignette of a basement party set in a slummy Nigerian apartment with Caribbean colours and minimalist graffiti.

There may be no major project to look forward to from Lola Rae anytime soon, but it is certain, she will be around for a while longer than most.

Onome Onokohwomo, popularly known as Yung6ix, he is the ‘most successful’ Nigerian rapper of recent time.
The Delta native confidently made the statement, ‘Un-politically I’m the most successful rapper in recent times out of Nigeria #FactsOnly’ in a tweet on Sunday, August 14.
- See more at: http://www.naijaloaded.com.ng/2016/08/14/yung6ix-think-successful-rapper-nigeria/#sthash.OIjztxED.dpuf

Onome Onokohwomo, popularly known as Yung6ix, he is the ‘most successful’ Nigerian rapper of recent time.
The Delta native confidently made the statement, ‘Un-politically I’m the most successful rapper in recent times out of Nigeria #FactsOnly’ in a tweet on Sunday, August 14.
- See more at: http://www.naijaloaded.com.ng/2016/08/14/yung6ix-think-successful-rapper-nigeria/#sthash.OIjztxED.dpuf