Latest in the line of musical talents hailing from Lagos is Demixxx, an Afro-fusion artiste who is pushing to become one of the revelations of 2021. Born Ofoma Chika Samuel and a graduate of Business Education from the University of Nigeria, Demixx has been in the game for a while now. His core fans will remember some of his less popular songs such as “No Bad Vibes” (featuring Davolee) and “Olala” from as far back as 2019. His stock has however taken a step up in 2021 following the signing of a record deal.
In late January, Ace Artiste Management announced the addition of Demixxx to their roster. About a week later, his first official single under their imprint, “Me And You”, was released to positive reviews. The love medley resonated very well with the audience and the accompanying music video has garnered over 28,000 views on YouTube thus far.
“My Pain” – the track under review – serves as the follow up to aforementioned track. Featuring Street music legend, Small Doctor, this Afrobeat track sees Demixxx detailing the struggle of the average Nigerian amidst prayers for better things to come. The instrumental is built with simplistic Afrobeat sounds and drums, with no elements of genre fusions that is popular with the audience these days. The songs starts of with Demixxx taking the first verse. “No food, no water, no clothes to wear, my people the die in fear” he sings – with social consciousness – of the terrible situation of things in Nigeria, setting the tone for the track. The short verse moves into a hook of prayers before Small Doctor comes on to do his thing. Demixxx wraps up the song at the 2:40 mark following a repeat of the hook.
The delivery of lyrics in English and Yoruba speaks well of Demixxx’s versatility and his wordings are good enough to convey his message clearly. He keeps his use of adlibs to a minimum too, removing the annoyance of made up words that one too many artistes use to fill up large spaces in their recordings. Small Doctor adds his famed touch of class to the song without doing too much, and his selection as a featured artiste on this song was a good call by the team that A&R’d this track.
However, the major minus to this song is that it doesn’t really have any particular aspect to make it stand out. The instrumental is not inspiring and the hook comes off rather flatly. The production work falls a bit short in terms of immersing listeners in the experience. It is not a bad song by any stretch of the imagination though. It is good and enjoyable, but ultimately it is cliche.