Above The Water starts with an MC asking us if we’re ready for one of these neo soul artists. Judging from the quality of Demetress “Nuwamba” Cook’s debut album he surely won’t be one out of many but a soul singer to reckon with in the future.
Nuwamba, which means “November” in the Nigerian language Hausa, takes us back in time with his mission to put the blues back into rhythm & blues. Those of you who are old enough may remember the days when R&B was a synonym for black music, i.e. soul and funk, and not just crappy formulaic pop. “A lot of the songs on this album are influenced by the blues, which I feel is one aspect of soul music that people don’t fully appreciate,” Nuwamba says. “The blues are the inner core of soul music.”
Demetress “Nuwamba” Cook’s music has a warm, organic sound. He has obviously studied all the eclectic masters in soul music’s history like Marvin, Curtis, Smokey or Stevie; luckily that didn’t prevent him to create his own style.
Nuwamba’s debut has it all, neo soul highlights like the Soul Mix of Tease, spiritual midtempo love songs like Heaven (which musicwise reminds me of Big Brooklyn Red from the Organic Soul 3 compilation) or food for thought like the funky title track Above The Water or the hip hop influenced Caught Up. When Words Are Spoken is a great spoken word track which shows that Nuwamba is not only a gifted singer. More food for thought comes with the hidden track, the so called Wise Words by Lyrical. Here we get some lamenting and criticism about the state of most Western societies that are in the stranglehold of neoliberalism with increasing surveillance and a reduction of fundamental rights or economic fascists like Lyrical puts it. Especially her remark “I hate to be here when the infrastructure crashes” has become a sad reality recently with numerous natural disaster like hurricanes, earthquakes and tsunamis.
Above The Water is a really impressive, musical and lyrical diverse album or in a nutshell one of the albums of the year 2005 that will stand the test of time.

Tracklisting of Above The Water: 1. Beginning Words/ 2. Smooth Intro/ 3. Tease (soulmix)/ 4. Forever/ 5. Savior/ 6. When Words Are Spoken/ 7. All Mine/ 8. Heaven/ 9. Put It Down/ 10. Above the Water/ 11. Caught Up/ 12. Sweetness/ 13. Tease (acoustic)/ 14. Take Me Away/ 15. Smooth Outro/ 16. Hidden Track (Wise Words By Lyrical)| released 2005 by Born Soulful Entertainment/Nuwamba

For more infos visit nuwamba.com, chocolatesoul.net and cdbaby.com.

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