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2LP+CD
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COMP 480LP
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Emilie Nana, a Lyon-born, Geneva-based artist of Cameroonian descent, has immersed herself in a creative outpouring since 2012. With her debut album, The Meeting Legacy, she pulls together an eclectic selection of 11 tracks, including "I'm Childish, So What!", which first caught the attention of the music community in July 2015. The only track on the album with French-language vocals, it evokes a loopy, no-rules feel and is an absolute imaginative jewel. The album opens with "Off The Street," crashing through the implications of a girls night out before the warm, playful "Music," which bears influences from early-'90s Janet Jackson and Prince. "Nothing On Our Shoulders" features Toma Izzo and finds Nana signaling her soul to the audience with semi-audible sounds, in a uniquely authentic and direct approach to the interpretation of her being. It's the last track in the unofficial first part of this two-part album, before the second part begins with the title-track. "The Meeting Legacy" draws from Elaine Brown, an American prison activist, writer, singer, and former Black Panther Party chairwoman. The bass and vocals on this slow-stalking symbol of struggle poignantly position this track before "Black Like Me," a warm, melodic creation, with the simplest of lyrics and marimbas bobbling in the background, that embodies Nana's lived experience while serving as a musical interpretation of journalist John Howard Griffin's 1961 book Black Like Me. The Meeting Legacy is the outpouring of Nana's delicate yet vibrant being, successfully striving to transcend the rules that often limit art. Reimagining her life, Nana offers various perspectives on subculture, struggle, and social influences. Having spent four years producing this prized work, Emilie Nana delivers an album that matches her unique, playful, yet mature spirit, summing up her soul in The Meeting Legacy. Emilie Nana is also DJ and has been spinning regularly since 2008, with various residencies in Geneva.
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