With two EP’s featuring most of the buzzier names in the New Age music movement and a whole catalogue of singles, Oma Mahmud has been one of the more prolific emerging artists; keeping himself very, very busy experimenting with his music and refining his sound. His Interlude EP released four months ago was his last major project and with just three songs, was sparser that we’d come to expect from an artist as prolific as Mahmud. But he seems to be returning to form, releasing his first single post EP called “Truth” with a feature from in-demand freestyle rapper BarelyAnyHook.

Mahmud describes “Truth” as world music, but its very Caribbean influenced heavy single bass veers clearly into the easily accessible dancehall trope that supergroups like Major Lazer have built their career on. A sax riff is looped through the entire song and interspersed with simple bass guitar and piano chords and a synth scaffold. Mahmud can write a mean chorus and is one of the few Nigerian artists who can really make autotune work for him as he tries to define his relationship with a potentially destructive lover. His decision to feature BarelyAnyHook was also ingenious, the rapper comes in on a stripped down bridge, drops some fire bars and elevates the song from a decent throwback to Afropop of the early 2000’s to a truly contemporary treatise on love.

Oma Mahmud has one last trick up his sleeve, tacking on a sax solo at the end of the song performed by Adegboyega. If you don’t wait for anything else, you certainly have to hold out for that and the vocal sample that follows.

Listen to “Truth” here.

Edwin eats his rice and cabbages. Tweet at him@edgothboy

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