Niniola, in her usual fashion, takes listeners on a tour of Africa’s ever-evolving dance music landscape with her dynamic sophomore album, Colours And Sounds. Celebrated as the ‘Queen of Afro-House’ by world-famous media companies including Rolling Stone and endorsed by the likes of Beyoncé and Drake, she attempts to unite the continent and diaspora on the sound rich fifteen-track album, incorporating influences from South Africa’s hypnotic Amapiano sound to Jamaican dancehall and vintage Afrobeat.
While the musical flavors vary on the project, with diversity in production by music icon and Verzuz co-founder, Timbaland, Niniola’s long-time collaborator Sarz and fellow Nigerian beatmakers Kel-P and Nonso Amadi, Jamaica’s Teflon Zincfence, and South Africa’s Shuffle Muzik, Niniola holds it down. Her experience as a talent show contestant also reflects in the way she basks in the spotlight on singles like My Body, which she shares with Afro B, Oh Sharp, on which South Africa’s Busiswa brings gqom flavor to music icon Femi Kuti on Fantasy and Kenyan quartet Sauti Sol on the sunny, Kel P-produced So Serious.
When asked about the genesis of the project, Niniola said,
“My music is colorful and vibrant. It has traveled across borders and it’s being played by different ethnicities, whether black or white. Even though my root genre is Afro-House, I can do it all RnB, pop, folk. I am a girl of many Colours and Sounds.”
Colours And Sounds is accompanied by the video for the Shuffle Muzik-produced Look Like Me. The video, directed by Clarence Peters, finds Niniola inhabiting an array of colorful comic-book characters, reflecting the track’s theme of undiluted individualism and women’s’ empowerment.