British Music group, NSG drops their awaited beautiful project titled "AREA BOYZ".
East London six-piece NSG (Nigeria Slash
Ghana) forge unsinkable anthems built on faith, companionship and adherence to the hustle.
Their spiritually informed Afroswing brings joy to the everyday, direct from a Hackney estate. On 2020's Roots, the group, representing two of West Africa's powerhouse nations, declared themselves diasporic vibe controllers. For this, their long-awaited debut album proper, NSG continue to confound the culture. "As much as it's an insult [in Nigeria] to be labelled one [an area boyl, yes, you'll very much see us in our area, representing," group member Papi Abz tells Apple Music about the album's title. "This was one of the few things that we actually all agreed on and it came from someone [on social platform X] trying to diss us. We'll change what it means to be an area boy. We're diamonds in the dirt -and if you go into every struggling council estate, you'll find a gem."
All six members step up to every song on this sprawling debut--blessed with production from talent including JAE5, Diztortion and Supa Dups.
This celebratory music connects Nigerian pidgin with amapiano ("NELLA ROSE"), psychedelic-fuelled anthems ("ZOMBIE") and a reunion with honorary "seventh member" Tion Wayne
("POCKET-WATCHING"). "NSG is bigger than the individual. We all understand that, and it helps us to play our parts," Abz says. "But sonically, we also understand the main ingredient in our pot is
'Afro'-music of the motherland. It's what we've all grown up on. The fusion, or other elements, that's solely down to what we enjoy and decide to experiment with."