Asa......The Naija Soul

Africa, like a bubbling melting pot at the heart of today’s most exciting musical movements… Africa, like a cry of rebellion ringing in your ears… Africa, like an enduring mark on all the television screens of the world…
Africa, like…

Asa was born in Paris. Her early life in the City of Light left the little girl with only the vaguest of (happy) memories, since she was no more than two years old when her family returned to live in Nigeria. Paris was just one stage in the life of her courageous and hard-working parents. But her fate was tied up with the city : it was to Paris that Asa returned twenty years later and where her life as an artist took wing.

Asa grew up in Lagos, a city teeming with people and buzzing with energy but also home to a deep-rooted spirituality. Islam thrives shoulder to shoulder with Christianity in an atmosphere of tolerance, the young imitate America, and the turbulent city moves endlessly in an infernal and yet harmonious ballet of love and hate, laughter and violence, poverty and wealth.

“Lagos is the New York of Nigeria. If you want to get anywhere in music, that’s where you’ll find the best opportunities, as well as the worst pitfalls.”

Asa was the only girl in the family and had to share her parents, not often present, with three brothers. At a tender age she began to look after the house during her father and mother’s frequent absences. That is when Asa started to sing. The desire to sing came to her and didn’t go away, carving out a permanent place in her soul. So Asa sang her heart out. She preferred singing to talking, improvising endlessly — until her mother made her stop ! Over the years her father had built up a fine collection of records featuring soul classics and Nigerian music.

The little girl grew up to the sounds of artists including Marvin Gaye, Fela Kuti, Bob Marley, Aretha Franklin, Sunny Ade, Ebenezer Obey and Lagbaja and went on to draw inspiration from them. Asa was a lonely child. The family, her brothers, Africa….and yet : she didn’t fit into the usual clichés and was often sad, feeling out of place in childhood, even more so in the world of adolescence. She was different, and music became an escape route as well as a daydream. Asa would sometimes go to the park with her bothers to sing and dance, but more often took refuge in an imaginary universe that was her’s alone. Decked out in a wig borrowed from the maternal treasure chest, a tube of cream serving as her mike, revelling in the freedom of no one watching her, she sang Michael Jackson and Bob Marley hits and greeted an imaginary crowd…