Ibeyi

One Liner: Twins!  Kind of a world music R&B and rap thing.

Wikipedia Genre: Soul, R&B, downtempo, electronic, experimental, trip hop
Home: France

Poster Position: 17
Weekend One Only.  Sunday.

Thoughts:  Wild stuff - not sure how to classify it at all.  The duo are fraternal twins who were born in Paris, but have lived in Cuba as well.  Their father was a Grammy winning musician, an apparently famous Cuban percussionist named Anga Diaz, who also played with the Buena Vista Social Club.  He passed when the girls were 11 years old, and they took up music and something called Yoruba folk music.  

Yoruba is a language spoken in West Africa, primarily a region in Nigeria.  Wikipedia says this: "Yoruba vocabulary is also used in the Afro-Brazilian religion known as Candomblé, in the Caribbean religion of Santería in the form of the liturgical Lucumí language and various Afro-American religions of North America.  Practitioners of these religions in the Americas no longer speak or understand the Yorùbá language, rather they use remnants of Yorùbá language for singing songs that for them are shrouded in mystery. Usage of a lexicon of Yorùbá words and short phrases during ritual is also common, but they have gone through changes due to the fact that Yorùbá is no longer a vernacular for them and fluency is not required."  Sweet, so when I listen to this I am practicing Santeria and am shrouded in mystery.

A 2014 EP has their most popular track (by a long ways!) called "River."  27.5 million streams.

That underwater shit gives me anxiety.  Like that "No Surprises" video for Radiohead.  Hate it.  Good voices - nice harmonies, and a tight groove to the simple backing song.  The breakdown at the end makes me think of Childish's "This is America."  The 2015 album also contains "River," but no other track on there cracks 6 million streams.

After that, they released 2017's Ash and then just recently 2022's Spell 31.  The top track from Ash is annoying, in that is is very AutoTune heavy, when they don't need that crap.  So I'll give you the top track from the new album instead.  "Lavender and Red Roses" has 1.3 million streams.

I feel like I have seen that video before.  I swear I recently saw a video of women crossing the desert and someone working in a well.  Also, weird that the last guy I just listened to had a new song about lavender.  Is that the new thing?

Random aside, they appeared in the short film for Beyonce's Lemonade as members of a farm utopia.  I should have watched the movie!

I have actually enjoyed this stuff - hard to pin them into a box, some of it is like R&B, some of it is rap, some of it is something I can't identify, but it is pretty the whole time.