“Me and Mars, Flow In Tandem / Our Rhythm and blues e dey mad dem”, Barzini raps on the group’s latest video, highlighting their dynamic chemistry with a casual shrug at haters. “More Songs” is the first track off the group’s debut EP, “In Spirit”, a collection of tracks built as hip-hop, while the whole 8-track EP thrives best when Afro-fusion emerges (recommended listens: “No Okada”,“Slow-Mo”, “Shege” and the project’s title track, “In Spirit”) like a simple but clever magic trick. Combined with the use of trap-filtered electronic beats, bars like “Old school like pinging, Fela type flows we’re bringing”, show why Mars and Barzini is so effective as a hip-hop dynamic.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BfvFfNbnPL7/?taken-by=iambarzini

At it’s most impressive, Mars and Barzini is a splinter of Nigeria’s underappreciated of hip-hop from the early 2000s in the works of moderately successful groups like Junior and Pretty, Ruff Rugged and Raw, Trybesmen, and collaborations between Big Lo and 2Shotz amongst others. Like those forerunners from the naughties whose ultimate task was to make hip-hop more accessible, Mars and Barzini are also employing the use of comedy, pidgin-based rhymes and light social commentary channelled through a youthful often boyish point of view.

We may be chocking up sound shifts and genre evolutions to the rise of the digital age for a few more years to come, but there are just some stylistic compositions we may never hear in rotation like the old days. Thank God, we can have faith in Mars and Barzini to keep making good music by finding authentic inspiration from within obscurity and nostalgia.

See Mars and Barzini in “More Songs” below:

Toye is the Team lead at Native Nigeria. Tweet at him @ToyeSokunbi

Essentials: Mars and Barzini debut strong with ‘In Spirit’