A REVIEW OF SULTRY SINGER OLGHA NK’S “COLD” VIDEO

By Nkiacha Atemnkeng

Olgha NK’s “Cold” is a new video which is really cool! Unlike many African artists who prefer to turn up the heat in their hits with fast-paced, groovy songs, Olgha instead plunges to the depths of the human heart with her new release aptly titled, “Cold” and touches something there.

The tune is a moody yet beautiful song, with low mellifluous vocals sung exclusively in Pidgin English. It starts with a slow tempo, twinkling solo and bass guitar whiffs that virtually crawl along the piano track. The song is beautified by Olgha’s soothing voice and improvisatory wailing and moaning. It then picks up in tempo a little as it progresses, but its dragging, soulful harmony still remains intact through out. “Cold” has a simple and easy-to-sing-along-with hook that hooks the listener with the singer’s vocal sashaying prowess, although it can be over powering at some points.

The video elucidates more on the song’s lyrics, specifically about the repercussions of the Anglophone crisis. It documents a happy family turned sour, because of the events happening around them – a shooting incident lurking in the corner, that injures the father in the video’s child. It is an unfortunate act that renders the kids to be stay at home kids who cannot attend school any longer. They watch television with their parents in poignant manner (with Olgha playing the role of the mother). Dem di really feel cold as violence engulfs everything around them. Literally, of course. The very simple video captures the state of depression in which the country is in effectively.

The soul of “Cold” is its powerful message to the cold-blooded perpetrators of the Anglophone crisis, which has proved to be devastating to the civilian population of the English-speaking regions, as well as the economy of the entire country. It is a message which can be summed up in one of the song’s most memorable wails, “Di ting need for change!”

About The Author:

Nkiacha Atemnkeng is a Cameroonian Writer and Music Journalist. His work has been published in The Africa Report, Culture Trip, Bakwa, Saraba and Gyara magazines. He is a Goethe Institut/Sylt Foundation writing residency fellow.

Find him on Twitter: @nkiacha