BY DENNIS ASIIMWE
I hope my review of this song is not tainted by the fact that I am glad Irene is releasing music again. It’s good to have those girl-next-door vocals back.
She went quiet for a while there, eh? After leaving Swangz Avenue and all? She’s been making a stir every time she makes in her career, I will give her that. I remember when Irene joined Swangz Avenue, abandoning her acoustic music career. The city was horrified. There were claims that she had sold out for the glam.
And then in 2017 she quit – that caught us off guard. She was the squeaky-clean singer that while not necessarily the face of the brand, gave them a more grounded feel.
In 2019 she signed up with Universal Records. It is hard to tell what happened with that relationship because it went quiet and all. She’s been releasing music since then but a little erratically, singles like Endagala, Mpima, and the curiously named Mpa Nkuwe. She probably needs a clear-the-air interview – there were media reports she had also quit Universal but these are hard to clarify.
Her latest single is Kampala, a track whose production style suggests a significant impact from the production styles of afro-pop from West Africa. Perhaps Universal Records left an impact on our Irene – they have headquarters in Ivory Coast.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDu8GR_6KLg
That Afro-pop production style often results in music that appears to be written for social media reels, which of course, grates on my teeth. However, Irene has always been the sort of singer that likes to carry and emphasize a melody and that tendency carries over onto this track.
While the instrumentation is typically lo-fi production, the melody is much more definitive, and this is where the song focuses its energies: on Irene’s singing. Her vocals sit comfortably on this sort of instrumentation, and the decision to go with a choral arrangement for the song’s hook.
The song seems to be easing us away from a style of music we have come to expect from Irene – I can only hope that Kampala is more of a transition phase than definitive. It works more as a transition bit of music – if Irene produced an album with 10 tracks executed with this production style I would bang my head on a wall listening to it.
My verdict on Kampala? It’s interesting, and shows that there is range to Irene as a recording artiste, and leaves you wanting more. Which is probably a good thing, I guess.
