By Yinka Olatunbosun
The energy in her music vibrates through the soul of her listener. Nina Shezz is loaded with the potential to bring to the African gospel what Kirk Franklin did to the American gospel- a revolution.
With good music distribution online, her music has been accessible since 2021 when she dropped her first single ‘Without You,’ produced by renowned gospel artist, Frank Edwards. Then, Nina was just a young enthusiastic church girl who stood in for the church choir lead and became an instant star.
Nurturing a childhood ambition to become a medical doctor, her focus shifted to music and decided to use her music to heal.
Convinced on the path to success, Nina spent more hours in the studio to deliver unconventional gospel sounds. Quite frankly, she avoided the jaded call-and-response technique that was characteristic of most African gospel songs and did it her way. Although her song ‘Without’ was a credential to her vocal strength, her EP would later consolidate her versatility, drawing upon popular music trends as influences.
Nina Shezz
Her music intersects between being inspirational and entertaining. For instance, “Wonderfully Made” is a powerful anthem for every girl or woman. The lyrics speak of a self-confident woman who doesn’t need a man to validate herself. It’s a song that’s capable of moving a lonesome woman from the state of lethargy to unleash her positive energy.
Then comes the song “Turn by Turn” which opens with a pulsating instrumentation. Nina hits high pitches with ease as she did in most of the songs in her oeuvre.
Sometimes, she keeps the tempo high as palpable in songs like “Ayo” and “Doh Doh Doh.” The latter is an upbeat song of praise with Afrobeats influence, layered with rich base and chords. Highly rhythmic, the song is both uplifting and inspiring.
In the song “Unconditional Love,” Nina experiments with Amapiano that sounds like a club banger. With some measure of swag, Nina serenades dancing steps with her beautiful voice in “Eledumare.” The title betrays the latent heat that travels through the ears to the entire body as one listens to the lyrics that extols God’s loyalty to his faithfuls matched by crisp audio production. With a tinge of sung rap, Eledumare is multi-layered in rhythm. It starts as pop, pans a little to dancehall and well, assumes a full look of Afrobeats flavour in the end.
Expectedly, Nina’s language throughout the EP is a potpourri of slangs, pidgin English, English and Yoruba. It’s a classic city girl’s linguistic identity showing through her lyricism.
Nina Shezz’s gospel music journey is taking on a bolder, affirmative outlook that’s remarkably different from how she started. With Olly Mix working on most of the songs from her first EP, Nina seems open to working with producers that can help revolutionise her unique breed of African gospel music, perform a MaryMary trick by breaking shackles into mainstream popularity on music charts or like Andy Mineo, Lecrae, coming in hot on world stage.
