music
Nneka
Pop music is a 'here today, gone tomorrow' world. A starburst of YouTube notoriety and then oblivion. Or at least it is for most.
But when your journey has been as long and extraordinary as Nneka's - when you’ve travelled 16 000 kilometres and are still only just starting out - then instant celebrity is the last thing on your mind.
When your heart is as big as your Afro, when your talents stretch from teardrop soul-singing to freestyle rapping to a first-class degree from a top Continental university, when you've got so much to say about so much, then you are in it for the long haul.
Every year since her musical career took off in 2005, this Afro-German warrior princess has built on her successes, stretched her muscles, and widened her range to incorprate an inspirational mix of hot loops, black consciousness and 21st-century soul music - and a big splash of Bob Marley in the recipe, a measure of Nina Simone and a lick of Erykah Badu.
The daughter of a Nigerian father and a German mother, Nneka Egbuna was born in Warri, Oil City in the Delta region of Nigeria at the height of its new found wealth in the mid '70s.
For 19 years she soaked up the sounds and rhythms of one of the most musical nations on the planet, a country where expressing yourself through song is just a part of everyday life, a country that has music in its very DNA, where the influence of giants like Afrobeat revolutionary Fela Kuti is never far away.
But at the age of 19 this modest and hard-working young girl made the big decision to leave behind the African way of life. To further her education, she moved not just to Europe but to Northern Europe, to the industrial seaport of Hamburg in Germany. For the young Nneka, it was a dramatic change, and there remains an intangible quality in her voice that speaks of being a long, long way from home.
"The cultural differences between Germany and Nigeria were extreme," she says. "The way they dress, the way they carry themselves, their religion. So many things that were important to me are not important to them. For two years I was overwhelmed."
For all its innate musicality, Nigerian culture perhaps prizes education higher than any other achievement, and while Nneka was making her first demos and beginning to make waves as a performer, she was determined not to waste the stack of A-levels that she already had under her belt. Enrolled at Hamburg University, she continued to study for a degree in anthropology – no mean feat when you’re in demand at clubs and festivals from Paris to Lisbon, from Vienna to Madrid; and count Lenny Kravitz and Lauryn Hill among your fans.
It's a testament to the strength of Nneka's talent that her success so far is based on word of mouth, on the quality of her albums and the intensity of her live performance. She is not a big-label product, forced down people's throats by marketing dollars. Her audience now numbers hundreds of thousands across two continents, for Nneka now divides her time between homes in Lagos and Hamburg.
Those listeners are people who have tracked her down, because there will always be a demand for music that does more than just entertain, but touches something universal. As she puts it herself: "I do it in a sweet way - but I sing to speak the truth."