December 8th, 2008
New music: Asa
Actually, I’m not sure whether this counts as a fresh discovery or not… I heard it on Trevor Nelson’s excellent Radio 2 show last week and, while he said it was a new release, Wikipedia reckons it came out in 2007.
Either way, the song is superb. It’s called No-one Knows and it’s by Asa (pronounced Asha) – born in Paris, raised in Nigeria, styled by Lauren Hill. She sings in both the West African dialect Yoruba and English, producing a funkyreggaesoul sound that’s not a million miles away from Corrine Bailey Rae (in fact, Leeds and Lagos are only about 3,200 miles apart).
Her album is already out, but I’m guessing it’s going to get a renewed push in 2009, given that Nelson was “bigging her up” on Radio 2.
Now there’s a sentence I never thought I’d type.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgIj11y_3xA]
Asa – No-one Knows (acoustic on Jools Holland)
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_0nvx1bHWs]
