Don Papi Chulo, better known by his other moniker, Egberipapa 1, has put out his first EP, a 9 track album lasting 29 minutes, which he calls Chulo Vibes.
Coming five years after his last body of work the LP Epiphany (2014), his sabattical and return with a mere EP is testimonial that even the old guns have left the LP to its own device.
In our new world order, streaming singles is fresh—and Timaya knows this better than every other practitioner. Since his arrival on the music scene in 2006, Timaya has always had one good song or the other hitting up our air waves.
This is 2019. 11 years after 2008 and he is still relevant.
Timaya is 38 years old and his journey, both musical and personal, is at once torturous and victorious. Gone are the thorny days of earning a pittance as Eedris Abdulkareem’s back-up singer. Gone are the days when he used to camp with his older lover, Empress Njamah. Gone, even, are the days of mildly dissonant but soulfully drawn songs like ‘Iyawo Mi’, his paean to his actress lover on his second album. Gone are the days of hangers-on, Dem Mama Soldiers, the minor South-South Boy Band, that never quite cut the mainstream.
These days, Timaya is rich. The Odi Massacre which he lent his voice to in protest on his debut True Story is at best a blurred memory. While Obasanjo, who ordered the hit on Odi, still fancies himself as some sort of a Nigerian elder statesman, Timaya is now isolated from the debacle and the far cry of Nigerian anguish.
Chulo Vibes is a squeaky clean album, production-wise but the song-writing is another matter. There is neither vigour nor rigour. There is no bite of militancy, there is no soulful wail or linguistic force.
Chulo Vibes should have been called Culo Vibes (Culo is Spanish for ass)—considering that majority of these songs concern themselves with the derriere.
‘Balance’ establishes what we have known for a while; Timaya has money in his pocket. With a bank account balance that keeps one’s heart rate balanced, partying is paramount. Timaya is interested in making us dance now that he has money and this is what Chulo Vibes is about.
The question then comes: have we not been dancing to Timaya for at least one decade. Yes, we have. But the music was not subtle. It was hard-hitting, teeth-grinding, sole-smashing, truth-spluttering music that could have been revolutionary, if there was real grit behind it. Timaya’s most sincere intention was to sing himself out of poverty.
And the man holds himself to no depth. On ‘I Can’t Kill Myself’, he borrows the groovy baseline from Fela’s Water No Get Enemy to address, rather briefly, his detractors’ critique of his failure to be top tier. In their defence, Timaya has not been top tier since 2008. In his defence, he has stayed as close to top tier as possible and for the longest time imaginable.
His original peers have been flushed out of the musical race, some of them now have their careers canonised in obscure timelines, but here is Timaya, who has continued to subtly evolve from the Dem Mama Soldier, from the Egberi Papa 1 of Bayelsa to Don Papi Chulo of the Chulo Vibes. His mastery of dancehall, highlife and his ability to scat with Ijaw phonemes has kept him relevant.
He is hot and amazing and happy where he is—and that is the positive truth he puts out with Chulo Vibes.