The soft jazz and neo-soul chords glide coolly over a hip-hop beat on the laid back and absolutely lovely Fanti Love Song from the album No. 1 Mango Street, the video of which M3NSA has just been released.
Fanti, for anyone curious about languages, is how the Akan dialect otherwise known as Fante is actually spelt. We didn't know this until M3NSA set us straight.
Anyway, Fanti Love Song is just one of the gems strewn across the 14-track international debut album of the UK-based Ghanaian musician (and one half of the FOKN Bois) we usually do the disservice of pigeonholing as a hip-hop artist.
We love hip-hop, and it is thread that runs through the album, but what M3NSA does on a lot of the tracks is use elements of hip-hop as the springboard for making good music that mixes a variety of styles, soul, funk, jazz, afrobeat and afro-pop, with each track somehow anchored in Ghanaian culture or heritage. And, like Fanti Love Song, it all feels effortless, as things usually look or sound when someone is in command of their subject and material.
As you can tell, we dig the album as much as we do this new video. If you like good music, check it out at iTunes, Amazon, or wherever else you buy your music.
And, of course, listen out for tracks from No. 1 Mango Street on This Is Africa hit radio.
Incidentally, M3NSA is supporting Asa at Koko in Camden on the 25th of this month, so if you're in London on a couple of weeks from now you know where you need to be on that Tuesday night.
