In the past few months we have heard a wave of songs crafted with uber-minimal production and focus on vocals over instrumentals. This trend was culminated by the combined success of Tekno’s “Pana”, Runtown’s “Mad Over You” and Mr Eazi’s “Skin Tight”, the reactionary result being the proliferation of a hybrid of high-life and neo-Afropop sound wave, everyone (literally everyone) has tapped for inspiration and re-purposed as a new music in the past weeks.

Minz comes in at the peak of popularity for this crisp style of Afropop with “Story”, a low synth-based single, peppered with guitar strums, soft kicks and steel-pan drums. Minz’s voice is aided by auto-tune but it doesn’t take away much from how he glides over the lush instrumentals, eases into a meek chorus and welds everything together with adlibs, that colour every grey line with bright mumble melody.

“Story” falls into the same category with every woman-adulating song you have heard in the last few years. Minz praises his lover’s features with comparisons to jewelry and promises to remain in the relationship against all odds. The seemingly undying quality of his love is limited by an unwillingness to give his love to a dodgy woman. But the calm tone he sings with, makes one wonder if this a type of reverse psychology flirting or if Minz really has no time for a woman that talks too much.

Minz’s “Story” will immediately draw comparisons with everything you have probably heard on the radio in the past couple of months. However, Minz’s save is that none of the songs that come to mind will boast of songwriting and producer credits. Agreed, with “Story” the newcomer is tapping into pre-existing wave, but nothing says he cannot make it wholly his own.

Hear Minz’ “Story” via Apple Music below.

Featured Image: Instagram/@MinzNSE

Listen to Minz’s Odoyewu here