Ch! Nonso: Bringing the sounds of Afro-soul to Aotearoa

Afro-soul artist Ch! Nonso (Emmanuel Chinonso Nwachukwu) wants music to make you move, but also make you feel something.

“It had to have rhythm, it had to make you dance, but it also had to pull at your heartstrings. It had to tug at something; it had to make you think beyond the music," he says of the music he makes.

The Nigerian born artist, who was a nominee for a Silver Scroll last year, says his voice comes a rich stew of musical genres.

Here Now presented by Kadambari Raghukumar is about the journeys people make to New Zealand, their identities and perspectives, all of which shape their life here.

“Highlife music, Igbo cultural, traditional folk music. And then from the Caribbean, it was calypso, a little bit of a little bit of reggae dancehall, definitely soul. R&B and a whole lot of hip hop in my formative years.

“... a whole mix of all of those were playing on the radio throughout my childhood and formative years. And I just soaked them all in.”

That rich diversity of musical influence was a product of Nigeria’s febrile political and social climate in the 1980s, in which Ch! Nonso grew up.

Following the oil boom of the 1970s, the country was transitioning through various military regimes. Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti was at his peak of political defiance in the 1980s.

And it was a social setting where the middle class was growing, but political uncertainty was high and there were austerity measures weighing down on the people.

“It's a very interesting sort of relationship between the political, socio-political backdrop against which the music was emerging and the activism that was also in some of the music then growing up,” he says.

Those conflicts shaped the sounds emerging from the west African nation, he told RNZ Podacst Here Now.

“Just the struggle of all of that, even though I was too young to really understand it then, was shaping my understanding of music, was shaping what I thought good music was.

Eight years ago, Ch! Nonso left Lagos and came to Auckland, and after a hiatus from music he suddenly had time on his hands, he says.

“All of a sudden, all that extra time from not sitting in Lagos traffic for hours was now available.”

He met musician Ben McNicoll, and Ijebu Pleasure Club was born.

“I wasn't really thinking, it wasn't a planned sort of thing. But once I got back on that horse, it felt right to stay on it.”

The band which has played festivals throughout the country is, he says, a meld of the music from his African youth.

“The concept of the band was built around the legend of Fela Kuti. So, adapting Afrobeat music that he pioneered and then just doing mash-ups really of those and 80s pop music, that sort of thing. That was the vibe of it.”

He's now gone on to make his own music as a solo artist, releasing singles and EPs.

And while making a living in Aotearoa as a musician is not easy, he’s determined to keep bringing this form of “culturally alien” music to New Zealand audiences, he says.

Keeping that music alive, and ensuring his son remains in touch with his cultural heritage, also drives Ch! Nonso.

“My son, for example, is growing up here without steady physical access to my part of his heritage.

“And to an extent, this is it, this is the legacy that he is looking up to. This is, besides the fact that we speak Igbo, also a way of saying that you are a part of this space too.”

This keeps him going even when it, “feels like you are literally trying to empty up an ocean with a tablespoon".

“It can feel that daunting sometimes, but, yeah, that drive, I guess, is the motivation to keep going.”