BY ELLA TEMISAN
You know what happens when two artistes who have found their sounds, and are confident in their voices come together to make music? They create a magic, a classic, a vibe. This is what Terry Apala and Zoro have done with this new track they call “bread and beans”. A one-line summary of the song is that it is a vibey mix of Terry Apala trap/apala sounds and Zoro’s Igbo influenced hip-hop but what makes this song special?
This isn’t the first time Terry Apala is dabbling with high life sounds. In 2015, when Terry was still a new voice in the Nigerian music industry, he was featured in the remix of DJ Jimmy Jatt’s “Turn up” featuring Flavour. At that time, Terry had perhaps not mastered his sounds, his synergy didn’t quite blend with Flavour’s so that one is left feeling it was two different songs DJ Jimmy Jatt merged in one and that is what made this song with Zoro even better, the perfect blending of the genres, the synergy that flowed through the song.
Both artistes are talking in coded language about food, yes? But it is not actually food because neither Ayiri nor Tompolo nor the Mike Adenuga whom Terry Apala mentions in this song are food items, but rather he is satisfied with his relationship with these heavy wigs and that fills him with satisfaction as though he has eaten bread and beans. Zoro takes over in the next verse and more or less says the same thing. He is not fluent in English, he says as he is a core Igbo boy but in money language, that’s where he is fluent. Zoro goes on to brag about his team- they are like the Nigerian 94’ team- that is the best football team Nigeria’s has ever had since the country started playing international football and this is what Zoro likened his team to and for that he is satisfied.
Another feature that is a massive plus for this song is the blending of the instrumentals. Terry Apala opens with a hook of him doing his apala infused trap thing, the base guitar is consistent from the opening and it carries Terry Apala’s verse but when we get to Zoro’s verse, there’s a slight pause and a lead guitar is introduced to give Zoro the highlife vibes that fuels his sound, and at the end of his verse we go back to the heavy base and Terry Apala comes back. We have had a handful of good songs released this year, but “bread and beans” is the first really good vibey song of 2019. Credit to Terry Apala, Zoro and producers, Ozedikus and Altra play who made sure this song was well synergized.
https://youtu.be/N0yKYmXVQ-E
