After going through King Promise’s ‘As Promised’ album one thing imprints on my mind throughout, highlife is not dying off anytime soon.
Read this and doubt but Highlife cannot be forgotten by Ghanaians, not after all that King Promise put in on his debut album.
As promised on As Promised, the 15 song album dives through a wave of highlife inspired tunes whiles cementing King Promise’s songwriting abilities and Killbeatz supreme music production skills.
You could skip one or two songs whiles listing and it will be understandable for you wouldn’t skip because it’s a bad song, but you will skip because it moves a bit away from the highlife genre.
That’s how profound the genre inspired the album. The duration of almost all the songs on the album also is around 3minutes long, perfect enough to make you repeat each song before you are done with the entire album.
Look, to debut with this quality, uniqueness, and kingship is rare; very rare and thus it could just be difficult for King Promise to match up to As Promised level with the next album he should release.
From the emotional intro which featured King Promise’s mom blessing him on his musical journey, the album moves into that awesome feature with Mr. Music Man Kojo Antwi; Bra.
Bra charms you with Kojo Antwi’s legendary vocals amid King Promise’s soothing delivery that makes this the best song to usher you into an album.
Dashing into the soca-flavoured Odo, your ears get hooked onto the song right from the start with King Promise’s songwriting skills and Raye’s soothing approach keeping you glued from its start to finish.
The first party song pops up in fourth. An upbeat song that should make the playlist of every nocturnal event, Commando explores King Promise’s ability to make you groove at an event while enjoying the words to the song also.
On My Lady, the Legacy Life Entertainment signed artist, doesn’t hold praising his lady. That should be one lucky lady for whom this song was written and delivered on a great produced beat.
One noticeable thing so far is the production on the songs so far. The attention to detail and creativity exudes in every song so far, bringing out top quality results throughout.
When My Lady is done fading, Selfish Part 2 serenades you with nostalgia from the original selfish but this time with Nigerian artist Simi adding a touch of flavour to it.
Simi took the song, cuddled it, and owned it to give a legendary status to, by far, one of the best King Promise songs. Whiles, you are still reeling from the perfectly produced Selfish Part 2, my favourite on the album, I Tried takes over all your senses leaving you asking yourself what just happened.
A pick from the 1980s, I Tried is a modernized version of Burger Highlife that tells the tale of how the songwriter tried everything he could to please his lover. This song can be lifted and placed in a playlist comprising of songs by Daddy Lumba, George Darko, Nana Acheampong, Mike Gyamfi, Felix Owusu, Kojo Antwi and you would not spot the difference in production years.
A young highlife legend in the making, King Promise could well be on his way to such feat if he can be placed in this list.
Titled Letter, the saxophone-laced song is the eighth song on the As Promised album. PaeDae (Omar Sterling) keeps it cool on HangOver whiles complimenting King Promise’s debonair approach to a song that perfectly fits for the rush hour traffic.
The famous collabo with Nigerian superstar Wizkid comes next. Tokyo is quite well known and as such you can be your judge. But did you notice how King Promise and Wizkid almost seem to sound vocally identical on this song? Much like Akon and Michael Jackson on Hold My Hand.
Well, whiles still enjoying Tokyo and pondering over that, Happiness fades in at track 11, celebrating the joy that someone gives to you. It a lovable tune that it wouldn’t go down well with the broken-hearted.
At last, something for the Nungua faithful. Obee Esh3 is a danceable song that is sure to be played at one of the many Homowo festivities. The song aptly fits the genre of music that most residents along the coastline of Accra enjoy jamming to.
You know, Abena is the song that makes you get why Kojo Antwi decided to feature on a King Promise song. A pure and exciting highlife tune Abena deserves any recognition it gets not only for its soulful calmness bit for its production too.
The penultimate song on the As Promised album is also the only dancehall song on it. Titled F.O.O.D (Fok Op Da Dancefloor), this song leaves you wondering, is there any genre King Promise cannot do? Calmly taking control of the genre with patches of patois here and there, King Promise aesthetically creates a flawless dancehall song that can rival top songs from our two peace ambassadors.
At the end of it all, we are reminded of who gave us this enormously talented highlife artist to bless and overwhelm us with his music on CCTV featuring Mugeez and Sarkodie.
The award-winning song is not new to any King Promise fan and such is the best way to end the 15-track debut As Promised album.
