Music Review: Ndabula – Carol Nantongo ft B2C & Myko Ouma

This is one of the more interesting collaborations on the market now for a variety of reasons. Myko Ouma is an in-demand session musician – he is a fantastic guitarist obviously, but he also contributes by providing tips to the production and arrangement of the music.

Then there is the B2C group, a trio of absurdly talented musicians who really should be bigger on the music scene than they currently are. In terms of pure talent, I feel like they are at the top of the game pop musicians, but simply struggle with a management team that has a capacity to enable them achieve what they are capable of achieving.

Then there’s Carol Nantongo, a larger-than-life artiste who seems to have no problem attracting media attention (the most recent was an alleged social media scuffle over the affections of Eddy Kenzo which fizzled out when he got married to the State Minister of Energy).

She’s a singer with smooth sultry vocals, who is also able to hit some incredible high notes, the sort that work really well with local pop music.

Ndabula is arranged beautifully.

Whoever was on the boards had a great idea of what he was doing – it sounds like there a whole band in that studio session, performing with impressive control. The subdued percussive groove sets ideal, walking tempo against which the vocalists can showcase their singing. Love the acoustic bass on this as well, while Myko’s acoustic guitar riffs expertly through with some the chord work and runs.

Its impressive stuff, and refreshing because a lot of the time, the industry prefers to push material that sounds like an artiste is in the middle of a nervous breakdown.

Ndabula is unusually heartfelt, a sort of vocal celebration of sorts, which shouldn’t come as a surprise: you have some pretty competent singers on the track.

Ndabula has been around for a while, just over 12 months and has garnered about 1.6 million views on YouTube. It's proof that there’s still folks out there that like a soulful tune or two.