Album Review: Terry G - Book of Ginjah

New album s is filled with trademark styles- grunts, incomprehensible ramblings, cringing auto-tune delivery and ghetto parlance.

Terry G, the dreadlocked champion of nonsensical music is out with another LP- Book of Ginjah. And this book of his is filled with trademark styles- grunts, incomprehensible ramblings, cringing auto-tune delivery and ghetto parlance. 

The Book of Ginjah is 19 tracks deep with Terry Gzus handling majority of the production. The album starts on a hopeful note with ‘Jump Am Pass’. Terry G displays his church background on this song. It is a song with the worn out concept of ‘bad belle people’ but with his bell he starts a church praise session that makes people want to tackle their enemies. It is a strong album opener. 

Terry G shows his versatility on the Hip-Hop influenced ‘Can’t Stop Me’. If this Terry G shows up half of the time, he will undoubtedly be one of the best acts in Nigeria. On ‘Pull Off’ he goes the dancehall route and manages to pull off the experiment while keeping his identity intact. Terry G is on a roll here and with ‘I Be Like Your Teacher’ he scores another impressive track by channeling the spirit of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti. On this song Terry G talks about the hate he gets for publicly expressing his love for cannabis (dem cast my matter for inside newspaper…dem say me I go smoke igbo), his hit and run incident and beat jacking stories.

He goes full dancehall on ‘Shayo Yapa’ featuring Prince Baton. He tries his hands on a dirty electro sound on ‘Loose Control’. It’s energetic just like the creator of the music and might find a home in the night clubs. He shoots blanks on the Afrobeat inspired ‘Na Money Kill Am’ and the Auto-Tune drenched ‘Luv Affair’.

Terry G’s mastery of music saves him from his weaknesses. His lyrics are wishy washy and he is contempt on rehashing old sounds and concepts. What saves Book of Ginjah from being bogged down by songs that are poorly mixed and badly constructed is the infectious energy (or Ginjah) he puts in his music and the beats.

The ‘enemy’ concept is touched on again (ad nauseam!) on ‘Run Mad’ where Terry G sings ‘you can only run, run, run (hola!) run, run, pass Terry G, when you run mad’. The hook is catchy but the verses come off as boring. ‘Chop Chikean and Die’ (sic) is on the same subject matter. At this point you have to ask how many enemies Terry G has for him to dedicate all this time on his enemies. The songs offer nothing new and tell us what we already know about the man. He does a sequel of his 2011 hit ‘Trowey’. ‘Trowey’ Part 2 features his grunts, unique lingo and mumbling.

Terry G’s book is puzzling, confusing and frustrating. When Terry G shows potential to be more than he is he loses his head and goes back to doing average songs. The Book of Ginjah is a book (actually a puzzle) written by an enigma. It doesn’t have answers but more questions. Why does Terry G make this kind of music? The more you read his book, the less you know.