In an industry that rarely rewards sonic ingenuity and innovation, Terry Apala has persevered and continued to deliver great music in a climate that doesn’t appreciate him.
It was a random Saturday afternoon at home. I had just finished doing the laundry and had radiating pain, coursing through my lower back. The type that emanates from long spells of sitting on low stools, without back support. I crashed on my bed and let my back muscles unclench— the soft cushion of the bed melting underneath my back and soothing the pain. My elder brother was working on his PC and blasting loud music, through his speakers as usual. His playlist was pretty much familiar at this point, but this time a peculiar song came on.
It had a standard trap beat progression, so I expected a Migos artist voice to follow. It was late 2017, which was the peak of their dominance in mainstream rap but rather a Fuji-inflected voice came on and attacked the beat with impressive cadences coated in a Yoruba delivery and local lingual. It was like nothing I had ever heard before and I instantly asked my brother to put me on. The name of this special artist was Terry Apala and the title of the song, Champagne Shower.
This writer still remembers in very vivid details, his first encounter with Terry Apala’s music. Over the past few years, he’ll garner a little more recognition for himself as Champagne Shower found niche success and his cover for Ed Sheeran’s Shape Of You would go viral. He’s still not the mega star he deserves to be but now he has collaborated with notable artists like Wizkid, Olamide, DJ Tunez, Seyi Vibez and so many more. And now, at a time where street and indigenous music are at the heart of Afrobeats more than ever—he returns with his second project, which is just as brilliant as his first.
Terry is well aware of the industry’s new predisposition to accepting home-bred pop sounds than ever and he attests to it on the EP’s opener, Story—iterating the fact that he “wouldn’t take this moment for granted.” The drums are light here, but the baseline and classical guitars soar over his rich vocals. The song’s title is self explanatory, as Terry sings about his story and how much he has sacrificed all in the ploy of making music. As an intro, the song is excellent at setting the ambience of the project and offering a sign of things to come.
Sebebe turn things up a notch with cultural indented percussion and undertones of Juju synths. This song works to a tee due to the synergy between Terry and Spellz. Very few producers can capture the essence of genre fusion like Apala and Fuji into Afropop and Spellz is amongst the select few. The subject matter here isn’t as important as the sheer sound of it all, which sounds great. Terry sings about being promiscuous with women and money, but with a delivery like his and Spellz’s shift on the production, he might as well talk about peeling an orange and it’ll still work.
Bride Price is cut from the same sonic fabric of Sebebe and very few elements separate the two. The former has less kicks and has beats softer to the ears and it’s also infused with talking drums. Bella doesn’t have the same dynamism Terry maintains across the album, but his vocal texture also fits like a glove into the soundscape and it elevated the track.
Na You is yet another beautiful track replete with rhythmic guitar riffs, licentious drum rolls and rich vocals from three very different artists coalescing into an infectious ear worm. The A&Ring on this project is also stellar, because who would have thought an R&B artist like Wurld and an alternative artist on the other end of the cultural spectrum, like Wizard Chan would have worked so well on this feature.
Methuselah is the best song on this project. It is the ideal sonic territory for Terry and he absolutely delivers. On a drill beat, suffused with Reggae-type animated guitar strings—Terry glides with impressive trap flows, whilst waxing poetic in quite raunchy terms about the potency of his lover’s sensuality. There is very little to be said about songs like this, asides the fact they need to be experienced. Allow Me is more up the alley of the two songs that preceded Methuselah, only with less flattering drums and it’s actually a good song in itself but the fact that its coming right after a perfect song, it can’t help but pale in comparison.
FLEX closes out the EP and it’s the least diluted Apala fusion track that isn’t fused with anything else, so it’ll most definitely be an acquired taste but it’s a good song nonetheless. Like the opener, the closer is also self explanatory in its title as Terry sings about wanting to live life to the fullest and ‘flex.’ There are also intermittent chants that are stacked so perfectly well and layered precisely over his vocals, that simply takes the song to another level.
Terry Apala’s Black & White is a project that deserves it all. Arriving promptly at a time, where some of Afrobeats biggest stars are flying the flag on a global stage, utilizing indigenous music as their core ingredients—with the right promotion and placements, it could really excel in the mainstream because as far as quality is concerned, it could hardly be better for what it is.
Final Verdict:
Sonic Cohesion & Transitions: 1.6/2.0
Expansive Production: 1.5/2.0
Songwriting: 1.4/2.0
Delivery: 1.8/2.0
Optimal Track Sequencing: 1.5/2.0
Total: 7.8/10
