Naomi Wachira – African Girl

US-based Kenyan artist Naomi Wachira has been on our sights for quite some time now. Her music is usually a soulful mix of acoustic guitar riffs , backing percussion, simple but deep-reaching lyrics and a vocal range that brings to mind Nigeria’s Asa. Her vocal presence is always a key part of her work, as evidenced by this amazing cover of A Change Is Gonna ComeShe recently released three track debut EP last year entitled African Girl (Listen to it on SoundCloud and buy it on Bandcamp). However, she might be most well known for he collaboration with Rabbit called Waiting where her musical style no doubt influenced the production of the track. She’s recently released the music video to African Girl which I assume should operate as her first single.

In as much as African Girl is a very personal and nostalgic track for Naomi Wachira who is looking back at her roots and beginnings somewhere in Kijabe several years back, it fits in well with all African women starting to define their futures whether it means making a journey to another country/continent or just leaving the comforts of home and parents. In it’s own simple and stripped down way, the track manages to have something for everyone to pick out and hold on to. As expected, the vocals and guitar work on this track is above par, with Naomi switching it up with some Kikuyu lyrics at the bridge.

Staying in line keeping everything simple, the music video basically revolves around Naomi chilling with friends, and looking though photographs of her family with the city somewhere in the faded background. Yeah.

THE BOTTOM LINE

All of the tracks in the African Girl EP are really, really good, the sad part being that it contains only three tracks. We can only hope all this awesomeness gets the right attention and somehow a collaboration with Asa, or someone equally talented comes to pass.