New Artist: Ntjamrosie

December 20, 2008
Posted by Musicman
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Ntjamrosie's mix of World, Pop, Soul and Jazz can be tagged with various labels. To make it easier she baptized it 'Bulu Soul', which sums all of this up in one phrase. With her roots in Southern Cameroon, Ntjamroise grew up with church music and traditional Cameroonian storytelling.As a young girl she moved to Maastricht, with a small detour she ended up in Rotterdam studying at the World Music Academy of the Rotterdam Conservatoire.Majoring in singing she consumed Bosa Novas, Boleros, Jazz Standards and more styles. It's not strange that all these styles are fused into Ntjamrosie's music. On Atouba (named after her late grandmother Bernadette Atouba) all these influences come together wrapped in a blanket of English, French and Bulu (dialect from Cameroon) lyrics. This all is produced by fellow labelmates & Rotterdammers Nelson & Djosa.

Ntjamrosie wants to touch people with her music, to do that you don't always have to understand the lyrics to be moved by the music. 'A hit records would be nice, but it's not the main goal in life' ; Ntjamrosie said. For instance the ode to her grandmother 'Bia Yon' is sung in traditional Bulu, but the heart felt passion can burst through any language barrier.The music on 'Atouba' is best represented on stage. With her liveband, Ntjamrosie has graced the stage in various venues and festivals; IJazz Festival, Seven Bridges Festival, Black Soil Film Festival, REMF, North Sea Jazz Around Town, Pure Jazz Festival, as well as 2 closing act performances for Erykah Badu in the Paradiso and an opening act for Bilal in the Melkweg.

Ntjamrosie - Atouba (2008)

With ‘Atouba’ Ntjamrosie presents a very special and personal album, all in her own unique style. Producers Nelson & Djosa provide a unique sound and together with Erik Ritfeld, Kofi Anonymous and Franck Biyong they make from ‘Atouba’ a solid and exciting album.

The mixture between African and Western musical influences is clearly noticeable and feels like the perfect
combination. The album is dedicated to Atouba Mvele Bernadatte, Ntjamrosie’s late grandmother.
She’s a constant factor and core throughout the whole album. ‘Atouba’ opens with audio excerpts of the funeral in Ntjamrosie’s native village of Nkeng in Cameroon. Her warm soulful sound kicks in with the sultry ‘Trick You’; ‘Insight’ the third song on the album grasps your attention and sucks you further in to ‘Atouba’.

The album doesn’t start out all to heavy with ‘Ensisim’, the light jazzy track with a dab of ‘bikutsi’, a rhythm that originates from the southern part of Cameroon, Furthermore this is also the first song sang in Bulu, Ntjamrosie’s native language. Of course ‘Patience’ can’t be absent, the first single is also the most danceable track on the album, it gets you ready to dive further into the world of ‘Atouba’. This happens with the heartfelt ‘’Squeeze the Breeze’ and with the identifiable Afrobeat/FutureJazz feel track ‘Ici la’. The Space funk of Nelson & Djosa, officially takes off with ‘We All Fear Inside’, that lands you back in tranquil atmospheres with ‘Ye Wo Yi Ma’ where Ntjamrosie mixes it up verbally with Bulu and French. Kut Te Fas starts out as a fairytale-like song, that makes you feel like you’re in Cameroon and morphs into a tune that makes you want to stomp your feet (the translation of Kut Te Fas).

Erik Ritfeld was responsible for producing ‘Atat’ which results into an unmistakable funk/jazz sound. ‘Soul Life Music’ is a fruitful collaboration with Franck Biyong, the well-known French-African singer and can be marked down as one of the high lights on the album, another vocal collaboration is ‘Chase Your Luck’ with Leandros Narcistos, this is another floor filler in the clubs.

Cooling down can be done to ‘Bia Yon’, which according to the Appletree crew is the gem on the album. This exquisite almost acoustic sounding track has also been part of the single release ‘Patience’ and along with ‘Squeeze the Breeze’ was part of the Mighty 8 Project, which highlighted Ntjamrosie along with seven other as the most promising Dutch female singers/rappers. ‘Bia Yon’ is written for her grandmother and literally means “We Cry”. The dreamy folk-sounding ‘Vouane Ma’ brings Ntjamrosie promising debut-album to an appropriate closure, but not before it gets sounded off by Sotu the Traveler’s remix of ‘Patience’, as a little gift for the listener, a cherry on top of the dessert called ‘Atouba’.
© Ntjamrosie.net

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New Artist: Ntjamrosie

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