John Orpheus' SAGA BOY is one of Exclaim!'s Most Anticipated Canadian Albums of 2021, and the Toronto artist has shared another new song from the effort.
"Fela Awoke (I Will Miss You)" finds Orpheus paying tribute to Fela Kuti, Bob Marley and his own grandmother, setting their stories of hope, history and Black resilience to music. You can watch him perform the track in an accompanying video below, directed by Patrick Hodgson.
"This song means everything to me. It tells a deeply personal story and it's reaching for something more profound than I've ever tried to say in a song. My people are Yoruba from West Africa and, when I grew up in Trinidad, we still spoke some words after 150 plus years," he explains in a statement. "So, as a grown musician, I always felt connected to Fela Kuti. In a year where life has been so fragile, this is my response. The lyrics are genuine. The hook is light and catchy. It's uniquely me but feels universal."
Arriving May 21 via The Confidence Emperors, the 10-track SAGA BOY is John Orpheus' aural accompaniment to memoir Saga Boy: My Life of Blackness and Becoming, which arrived last month. The effort was written and co-produced with Mike Schlosser.
"Fela Awoke (I Will Miss You)" finds Orpheus paying tribute to Fela Kuti, Bob Marley and his own grandmother, setting their stories of hope, history and Black resilience to music. You can watch him perform the track in an accompanying video below, directed by Patrick Hodgson.
"This song means everything to me. It tells a deeply personal story and it's reaching for something more profound than I've ever tried to say in a song. My people are Yoruba from West Africa and, when I grew up in Trinidad, we still spoke some words after 150 plus years," he explains in a statement. "So, as a grown musician, I always felt connected to Fela Kuti. In a year where life has been so fragile, this is my response. The lyrics are genuine. The hook is light and catchy. It's uniquely me but feels universal."
Arriving May 21 via The Confidence Emperors, the 10-track SAGA BOY is John Orpheus' aural accompaniment to memoir Saga Boy: My Life of Blackness and Becoming, which arrived last month. The effort was written and co-produced with Mike Schlosser.
