The London-based duo unveil the title track to their upcoming Blue Note-published album, recorded in Ghana with notorious producer, Killbeatz.
Co-written in Accra with KillBeatz during a late night production session, “Motherland Journey” uses the vocals of none other than Fela Kuti, as the estate of the music legend gave BLB their full blessing to release the song. The vocals are taken from the Afrobeat pioneer’s “Everything Scatter”, while the single represents the first time the duo have really honed in on incorporating their jazz sound and merging it with different African genres.
“‘Motherland Journey’ is a very special song to us especially having a legendary Fela Kuti feature on this track,” Blue Lab Beats explain. “When we got confirmation to have Fela Kuti‘s vocals from his publishers in Nigeria we were honestly blown away that he could really feature on our tracks. An absolute dream come true. When we got Poppy and Kaidi to play the horn line then we definitely got the song we wanted.”
An album that has been years in the making, Motherland Journey is “a celebration of pushing boundaries, taking risks and overcoming adversity”. It will feature recent singles “Labels” featuring Tiana Major9 and Kofi Stone, “Dat It” with Kiefer, “Sensual Loving” in collaboration with Ghetto Boy and “Blow You Away (Delilah)”.
Motherland Journey by Blue Lab Beats, out on February 25 via Blue Note.
