The Month of February is synonymous with Love and has been since this writer could mutter up words to form a syllable. It is the Month of Valentine, the special season where Lovers set their creek aflame trying to outdo the other in affectionate giving.
Love is often iterated as a ”beautiful thing”; a non-solitary emotive expression, if you asked this writer. For love in itself wanes without the passionate expressions of lovers; expressions such as a beautiful heartfelt ballad that tells a surreal tale of undying commitment using sweet-sweet melodies and provocative rhythms as a conduit of impressionable passion. Such is the power of music in the matters of Love.
Music heightens emotions, and one doesn’t need to exhibit melomaniac traits to know this. In the case of lovers, the perfect love song lifts the mood from a high to a very high, taking the ambience from what it is to what it should be; magical.
As fabricated as it seems, many people aren’t yet cognizant of the powerful effects of music in mood alleviation (in the context of Romantic mood). That is where this article suffices as this writer sought the opinion of the Co-founder of Josplay/ African Music Library, Jideofor Okoro who is a reputable and qualified music professional leading a team of Software Engineers, Musicologists, Metadata/ Product Experts, and Machine Learning Experts with the ultimate aim of creating Africa’s music technology backbone – a foremost structure urgently needed.
Jideofor, alongside fellow co-founder, Emmanuel Ogala with the assistance of an enthusiastic and capable team are building a monumental, first of its kind African Music Library that implements up-to date AI technologies in the documentation of African Music.
In this article, the musical expert who is vast in the business of music curation breaks down the perfect love song citing a song that he deems worthy – Chike’s ‘Forever’ featuring M.I Abaga.
Ordinarily, love songs will focus mainly on a certain love incident, either a break-up, make-up, pleasure or just beautiful lovey dovey moments, as a way to tease out the strong emotion from the listeners. But this song is different. The artists somehow managed to capture an entire lifetime between lovers.
Chike’s first verse made strong references to a potential break up, followed by a possible make up, trust, comfort, then the promise to be together forever.
The killer verse remains that of MI where he takes the listener through a mental journey of an intentional wedding ceremony, followed by expected realistic events that could happen within the first 5 and 10 years of the marriage, including having 2 kids and facing harsh weathers.
I completely appreciate the part where he goes to reassure his partner of his unending love, when he said “my girl, I can’t promise you that’ll never hurt you, but I promise to support you, even when I don’t have the words to…” MI ended his verse with more assurances of his love through old age and the after life. What can be more romantic.
Maybe because I’m such a helpless realist, I feel this song was created for intentional lovers who are willing to ride it out for real. Like I’ll always tell people, not to get into the lyrics of the song if they aren’t ready for forever. I strongly believe it could lead to some level of depression if they feel their marriage is failing.
The instrumentation was minimal, featuring a perfect combination of dark chords from the piano and subtle kicks, projecting the voices further.
Overall, Chike and MI delivered a masterpiece on this one.
