FALANA

If you’re active on the corporate sponsor enabled social calendar, you might have come across Falana performing a set. Always, beautifully: LIVE. It is - sadly - an unusual and difficult way to break into the Nigerian music industry but Falana did it with grace and deceptively easily. Often by herself, sat on her percussive instrument, mic lowered almost to the floor, is how the country came to be introduced to this clear voiced artist. Drawing musical influences from a time spent in Havana, Cuba, she brings Southern American sensibilities to her sound, mixed with that je ne sais quoi African flavour. At once, this makes Falana a bit of anomaly, an artist that can belong anywhere and nowhere, fusing two sounds that are likely connected via histories of transatlantic slave trade. Of Falana’s songs, a crowd favourite is an update on Fela’s Lady which Falana - who I’ve seen perform it about three times - does it with heart and conviction each time. And yes, what a lady.