Love songs from Tina Newman

ALTHOUGH music is reputed to be the food of love, as English poet and dramatist, William Shakespeare, would have us believe, there’s usually more sadness expressed in lyrics than love. Specifically, heartbreak is the more staple lyrical item sung in music than cherubic or amorous love. And, this is a source of worry for newcomer Tina Newman, who argues that the world lacks love just as more people daily pine for it.

  Hiphop, R&B and Nigerian brand of pop, Street-life are her special areas of music forte. The Enugu State-born Clementina Aziudeh has her singles, ‘Sugar babe’ already enjoying airplay in the country. ‘Nkaraka’ (God, you’re too much), a gospel track, featuring Sola Babs, also has its video on air.

  “I express myself through music because it cuts across,” she said in a recent chat. “I love to do music because it gives me joy; it’s how I feel about myself, someone and about Nigeria. I love to express myself through music. However, I just don’t restrict myself to gospel; I do things about love.”

  Tina Newman, whose full album is expected in June, also has tracks like ‘Sweet love’ and ‘Onye ori’ (he stole my heart away), said love is at the centre of her music offering.

  According to her, “Most of my music is about love just as I’m being loved. We lack so much love in this country and the world over. In ‘Sugar babe’, I sing about how people want love, how women should appreciate their men for the little love they get so they can get more. These days, a lot of ladies sing more about guys breaking their hearts. So I try to tell my man how much I love him so he can love me more in return.

  “I believe in talking about the positive part of life than in the negative. It’s not that women haven’t been heartbroken before, but there’s no point in highlighting the negative”.

  For Tina Newman also, music is the fastest way of getting people to share experience, to reach people, saying, “I use music to tell my story, someone’s else’s story and pass a message.”

  Among her favourite artistes, Tiwa Savage is a lady she loves so much, whose voice and performance she adores so much so that she believes she has her kind of quality. Waje, Flavour, Tuface and Chidinma are her other favourites, including the late South African Brnda Fasie, whom she says, “I used to watch her when I was small; she inspired me into music”.

  Tina Newman, who studied history and strategic studies for first degree, frowns at some of the lyrics dominating Nigeria’s airwaves and has determined to create something different, new and exciting in her music. As she put it, “I make out stories when I write lyrics. I have problems with what is going on right now lyrically. Sooner or later, there will be a change in what is going on. In ‘Sugar babe’, I’m telling a story of appreciation of men, and I’m not vulgar in my lyrics. My lyrics are about love. I kick against making noise and calling it music”.