With 5 projects and a host of single releases that earned her performance spots on prestigious stages like the New Afrikan Shrine, Nigerian soul singer and songwriter, Maka has been meticulously honing her sound as one of the notable voices from her home city of Lagos. Today, Maka follows up on her acclaimed 2019 LP, ‘It’s Not You, It’s Me’ with her debut single for 2020, “Waiting For You”.
Enlisting production from Xblaze, a veteran hip-hop producer who has worked with Modenine, “Waiting For You” pairs 808 drum riffs with vaporwave synths. Maka’s bold declaration of love on the song ensures that while the beat looks past hip-hop to something more akin to the ambient soundscape, none of the daredevil instinct of hip-hop is lost in the shift. That said, “Waiting For You” transcends the genre packaging and urges you to take the music on its own terms. The sound is held together by Maka’s soulful voice as she shows her willingness to follow melody and tune above and beyond genre format.
Singing “I know I’m a boss but a boss needs love and some affection” over the adventurous mix of synth- pop and folksy hip-hop, Maka shows how women can be confident without being angry. She challenges her love interest for being shy and then goes on to show him how it’s done by offering vulnerable confessions of her own; “I just need your love”.
By embodying her full self as an assertive woman in a world that wants women to remain silent while men do all the chasing, Maka’s bold declaration of love simultaneously reads as individual and universal.
You can check out “Waiting For You” below:
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