Bemyoda sings of life’s fragile moments

This kind of musical aspiration can feel alien in the Nigerian music scene where dance is the end of desire, but exceptions like Bemyoda’s Stark exist.

Benue-born Bemyoda belongs to the most alternative of alternative Nigerian musicians. This is both in how “alternative” has come to refer to artists and music existing far from mainstream Nigerian pop and also to describe music suffused with outside influences.

Recorded in four cities—Abuja, Lagos, Cleveland, Nashville—Stark carries as much of the artist’s peregrination within its sound as it does in lyrics, for Bemyoda is primarily interested in telling stories, both his own and that of others.

“I’m a long way from home / trying to belong to / systems I don’t care for / here everyone pretends,” he sings in ‘Long Way from home’, opening the album with a search for identity filled with bewilderment and melancholy. The song’s melancholy is not just because of his lyrics, but also because of Bemyoda’s high-pitched but gravelly voice.

In teasing out the stories of his songs, Bemyoda always seems to create a sonic negative space that is waiting for life’s rouge sounds to filter through and complete the recording. There’s a violin here, a cello there, a guitar everywhere, yet you wait to listen for an ambulance bringing the child as he sings “Child come back home”.

“I could’ve called it The Human Condition,” Bemyoda said about his album title, “but that name was already taken.”

This lack of appropriate nomenclature, however, doesn’t stop him from collecting stories of what it means to be human. Stark contains tales of neglect, longing, and betrayal. Faith is also present in ‘Dead Man Walking’ and its lyrics recall the Christian song ‘Holiness (Take my life)’, which is a modern take on old hymn ‘Spirit of the living God’. It’s an expression of penitence, a desire to be made brand new.

Bemyoda has drawn comparison to Asa, and they both share a desire to collect as many emotions as possible in song. In ‘Complicated’, Bemyoda sings about hidden evils that don’t necessarily involve bloodshed the way Asa sings of the things we should pay attention to in ‘Fire on the Mountain’. And in ‘Renegade Soldier’, he attempts to create an anthem for all who struggle to rise above the conditions of living fostered on them by a world that thrives on creating inequalities.

His 2015 EP Sketch: The reprise contained a variety of sounds, but Stark is more faithful to indie folk, which is a perfect vehicle. His words soar and dive with the deliberate strings and percussive elements of the music, and even when it becomes upbeat enough to make you shake your head—as in ‘The Way it is’—it is not too distracting as to make you dance and forget the words. “Make you listen to these words / don’t ignore all you hear,” he sings. But how do you forget this: “There’s no way you’re gonna get divinity from a human, no way wey you go get what only angels offer.”?

In art, the best attempts to capture life will always produce a simulacrum. You can convey life’s fragile moments in sound, but reality is always going to be starker. Perhaps, it was to compensate for this that Bemyoda premiered his album with an exhibition that paired songs with images. That aside, Bemyoda’s songs capture moments we forget or try to ignore in the morass of existence. It’s not a perfect representation of life—nothing is—but Stark is clear enough as to make a diligent listener see themselves or someone they once knew. That is quite an ambition fulfilled.

Buy Stark on iTunes

Artist: Bemyoda
Album: Stark
Label, Year: Quirk Theory, 2017