Smokin’ Aces – Compozers

I just realised this post has been stuck in my drafts since last year.
How I never got around to posting it I can’t tell.
My guess is by now most of us might already know or heard about this group if not, hey better late than never, right?
So here we go

Some weeks ago a friend hit me up in a very exciting mood trying to tell me something.
After minutes of listening to my dude go on and on pouring his heart out sharing his excitement about a group he had just stumbled upon, I asked him if the group’s name was The Compozers just then you could feel the lad deflate.
The anti climax after i told him they had been around the block for a while now.
Honestly, I felt bad for being a kill joy in that moment so in order to avoid such a situation I’m putting up this post.

The Compozers are a UK based instrumental fusion band. The group is made up of four Ghanaian lads who came together to start something to showcase their talents.

Initially the group started out humbly playing at birthday parties and gradual build themselves up by doing instrumental covers of hit songs and upload them on to youtube.

Currently their stocks have risen as they shown thrown their videos how good they are. They are officially the carpet band for the Ghanaian musicican Fuse ODG (also London base).
The Compozers have shared platforms with some big hitters in the music industry at the BBC 2014 Radio 1Xtra concert with the likes of Sean Paul, Mary J Blige.

In 2015 they featured at the Ghana Music awards and gave a tribute to the musician Castro who was involved in a water ski incident.
The group also host their on programs which usual see huge turn outs, and their encore video sessions comprising mash ups of various African hit songs have been quality

These guys are making head way with their music and once you’ve seen this post up you can already tell that they’re ace!!!

Smokin’ Aces – Snarky Puppy

It’s about time we enjoyed some jazz people.

Now before I go on let me first say that if you do not enjoy jazz then it’s best to close this page and read the next post.

Normally, I get people telling me “oh, I like music so I like jazz too”, then they pull my head phones off and when they hear the jazz playing they frown and give me a quizzical look as to why and how I enjoy this kind of music.

Alright, since you insist on reading I’ll continue to do my blabbing but I don’t wanna read any complaints.

Family Dinner

If you haven’t heard of this group by now then I have to seriously question if you really like your jazz.

Snarky Puppy is a Brooklyn, New York- based instrumental fusion band brought together by Michael League.
The group is made up of a variety of instruments, from guitars, pianos, keyboards, woodwind, brass, percussion and strings.

Collectively they refer to themselves as “The Fam” and refer to their shows as Family Dinner.
Many of the members of the band were once students of the University of North Texas.
Individually the various musicians that make up the group are geniuses in their own right and have reached the pinnacle of the music industry.
Most of them play for top musicians both in secular and gospel genres.
They play for artistes such as Erykah Badu, Justin Timberlake, Marcus Miller, Kirk Franklin etc

Like most success stories the band started out with gigs in small bars in Texas for some years till they built up their reputation and auditioning to recruit other skilled and excellent musicians to join the crew.

Grammy 2014; Snarky Puppy- Best R&B performance

In 2014 the group won their first Grammy award for the Best R & B performance with Lalah Hathaway and in February this year they won their second Grammy this time round for the Best Contemporary Instrumental album after they teamed up with the world famous Dutch Metropole Orchestra which saw them topping music charts around the globe.

Aside my love for the group as a whole what really got me glued to them was piano players.
Yes, I know I’m being bias because I somewhat play the piano myself.
They have the melodic Bill Laurence and two other guys whom I call “Monsters” in Shaun Martin and Cory Henry.
These two have a perfect chemistry and when they touch the organ, piano or the synth it’s just awesome, awesome, awesome…!

They also have the infectious bassist M. League who’s also dope on the bass.

The brass sects, strings and percussion guys are all brilliant.

Saying they’re ace wouldn’t do them justice.
Just look at the solo from 05:06
These guys are monsters!!!

And oh, if you’re wondering why they chose the name “Snarky Puppy” it is because they chose to name the group after their pets which were predominantly puppies.
Cute innit?

Smokin’ Aces- Trey Mclaughlin

Trey!

I call this man the King of Gospel covers.
He and his group Sounds of Zamar (SoZ) are responsible for the gospel mash-ups that leave me bobbing my head on the streets with earphones plugged.

He along with his group take nice gospel songs and mash them up with other brilliant songs in ways you’d never thought possible.

The choir show their excellence with beautiful harmonisations and lovely blends which they execute perfectly.

Trey and his group do not only do mash ups they have an album of their own titled “Limitless” with their single “I will praise” doing well featuring on radio stations and billboard charts.
The Sounds of Zamar were also featured on Vashawn Mitchell’s “Triumphant” album.
They’ve also performed with artistes like William Mcdowell, James Fortune, Brian Courtney Wilson, Kiki Sheard etc.

Trey Mclaughlin & SoZ at a rehearsal session

If you are lover of gospel music, a chorister, music director or you should be all over Trey Mclaughlin’s YouTube channel.

He’s touched songs from Tasha Cobbs, Anthony Brown, Mary Mary, Kierra Sheard and a whole list of seasoned gospel artistes merged them into something special.

Like the previous post about special talents I have put on here Trey Mclaughlin is no different he’s ACE.

Check out some of his work below

Flaws- Kierra Sheard (Cover)

I look to you- Whitney Houston (Cover)

I worship you- Mary Mary (Cover)

Smokin’ Aces- World Of Pencils

Ok, so today I reveal one of my secrets to how I always have a beautiful laptop background, phone wallpaper and whatsapp display picture.

A big part of it has to do with WORLD OF PENCILS.
I stumbled on this by a tweet I saw years back and decided to check out the instagram account and I have been amazed ever since.
World of pencils as the name suggests is all about drawings- pencil, pen, charcoal and tattoo arts.
I love this account because it never falls short of keeping me entertained.

The account displays arts produced by various artists.

One thing I like about this account is that they hold nothing back from the spontaneous creativity of the featured artists.
The drawings exhibited range from serene and calm to deranged and vicious, from sweet ‘awwies’ to creepy, goofy and borderline scary.

As we’re now in an era of evidence- based governance, I will let their works do the talking.

The Joker

Cube!

Unreal drawing. Stunning!

I absolutely love this pic. The whole idea and the message it conveys

Demented Medling kidz (Scooby Doo)

Cool Spidey tattoo

Oscar winner Leo DiCaprio

Kung fu Panda

Red Skull

Good ol' Morgan Freeman

Spice up your instagram timeline by giving them a follow cos they’re ACE!

Smokin’ Aces- Adomaa Music

Afraba Ep cover

So I write this post to rave about a young lady who’s making waves with her music.

She’s known for her brilliant mashups like Baafira- Adonai and Evolution of GH Music.
Where she blesses and blends these original songs with her super cool afro jazz flare.
Think of it this way, the already beautiful Cinderella (Original soundtracks) being polished up by the Fairy God mother (Adomaa), giving Cindy the glass shoes befitting for a dance with the Prince at the royal banquet.

Baafira- Adonai mashup

Evo of GH Music

Now here’s where it gets really exciting. Adomaa had been working on coming up with something of hers- Afraba EP.
A mini album of a sorts, released on 31st Jan 2016.

However, before the release she dropped one of the songs Traffic jam and it was great.
From the lyrics to the beat, everything was nice and simple.

I particularly love the video clip- taxi roaming through the busy streets of Accra, where everyone is going about their daily business routine.
Our beloved power energy provider ECG couldn’t help but feature in it.
They just couldn’t resist the urge, they had to make an appearance.
Thankfully there was no power cut, no dum-sor y3nko!

And like Adomaa promised, her project Afraba EP came out 3 days ago and my word, it is QUALITY.

It has been trending on social media especially twitter.

Polls were even held to find the most popular song amongst the lot.

From the poll you can see the votes are evenly dispersed, a testament to how great each song is.

Through the songs Adomaa “the musical butterfly” shares her story about her journey in music and life in general.
Starting from “State of mind” to “Born Again”, “Hollow Spaces” through to “Sign Out”, backed with dope instrumentals, beautiful vocalisation and harmonisation backed by lovely concepts creating this brilliant work of art.
They even got Maame Dokono out of her story telling retirement to give it a nostalgic feel. Like Whaaaaaaaaaaaattt?!

The songs are brilliant and the great thing about it is Adomaa made all of them available free of charge.
All you have to do is click on the sound cloud link below, download, listen and SHARE it with friends and family.

https://m.soundcloud.com/adomaamusic/sets/afraba-the-ep

Spread joy to the world for freely you have received from the talent that is Adomaa (The musical butterfly).

I’d fully understand if you think I’m a part of her publicity team or taken some payola but NO! I’m not.

Her work is that good to cause me speak this highly of her.
Her quality music offers a refreshing escape from the cacophonous kakai-esque torture they call music, that our tympanic membranes are brutally subjected to, on our airwaves on daily basis.

I’m just a fan of good quality music and if I hear your song and I enjoy it I will talk about it and share it.
But I guess at this point you can call me an Adomaaniac.
I have been converted and baptised.

Adomaa is that good, she’s ACE!!!!!!!!

And for the life of me, I just can’t seem to get that instrumentation from “Sign Out” outta my head.
Charley edey disturb me waa especially the brass sect.

Where my Adomaa head scarf saf dey?