Muyiwa & Riversongz Announces Major Show “Eko Ile: The Concert” in London

After selling over 200,000 ALBUMS, recording seven studio albums, selling out six headline concerts and performing on television amongst numerous other accomplishments; Muyiwa & Riversongz have announced that they will be bringing Eko Ile: The Concert to the 4500 capacity London venue, Transformation House on 28th October 2016.

Scheduled as a must-see part of the Black History Month calendar, EKO ILE: THE CONCERT will be a dynamic show that tells the story of Muyiwa’s journey from Lagos to London. EKO ILE which literally translates to “Lagos I love,” is a love letter to the two cities and cultures that helped shape his identity – Lagos and London.

EKO ILE: THE CONCERT will explore the parallels between the two cities and the forces that made him the man that he is. The concert will be both a musical and visual spectacle with Muyiwa taking centre stage in-front of a 10-piece band, choir, backing singers and an immersive set design.

Muyiwa says: “Eko Ile is without a doubt the most personal and honest record that I have ever made. This is my story, warts and all. With the concert we want to take the record and bring it to life in a whole other way. We want to truly bring Lagos to London.
“With this album and show on the 28th October we want to bring the whole of Africa out. We want to see every Nigerian, Ghanaian, Kenyan, Zimbabwean out to celebrate with us. Whichever country you are from you will be able to relate to this story” says Muyiwa.

EKO ILE, the 2015 album release on which the show is based, is a hybrid record of world music, Afro-beat and Gospel influences that tell the universal story of a boy’s journey to manhood and the transition from Nigeria to Great Britain.

Muyiwa says, “From a musical perspective, it is our most complete album and I hope it shows a maturity in our song writing. I wrote much of the album in Ghana and Nigeria which gives the record a very different feel.”

The album incorporates a wealth of music styles from across the African continent including highlife music reminiscent of fellow countryman,Fela Kuti. Muyiwa’s refreshing take on African praise and reggae features singing in his native Nigerian tongue, Yoruba, along with a peppering of Swahili, Zulu and Pidgin English.

Over the last 15 years Muyiwa has reached an unprecedented position within the African and Gospel Music world. He is one of the most recognizable figures that has managed to build a following that straddles Music, TV and Radio both as an artist and as a broadcaster at home and around the globe. His audience reach is unprecedented:

70,000,000 people via his worldwide TV show, ‘Turning Point’

2,000,000 via his radio broadcasts on Premier Radio and Premier Gospel

40,000 via social media.

EKO ILE: THE CONCERT coincides with Muyiwa’s return for the 3rd year running as a judge on the new series of the hit BBC ONE show, ‘Choir Of The Year’. It caps off a busy 2016 that has seen him give a standout performance at this year ‘Gospel Proms’ at the Royal Albert Hall, become an ambassador for the Diana Awards, film videos in Canada, the US and Africa for the global series, “Turning Point International’, and launch and present the highly successful, ‘Premier Gospel Awards’.

NEWS: Muyiwa To Release New Album ‘Eko Ile’ Out October 30. Available For Pre-Order NOW!

The UK’s most prolific gospel artist Muyiwa has announced the release of his first all-African album Èko Ilé out on October 30, 2015, with a UK tour announcement to follow. The dynamic 10-track offering follows the success of Live at the Apollo (2012), the live CD and DVD recorded at his sold-out Hammersmith Apollo show with Riversongz, his charismatic Afro-gospel band.

Eko Ile is a return to his roots. Translating to ‘Lagos my home’ which harks to a Nigerian folk song of the same name- Muyiwa channels a myriad of African music styles via gospel. Written alongside Kwame Yeboah (Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Ms. Dynamite) and Eddie Martin (Whitney Houston, Neyo, Chris Brown), the album is a journey from east to west of the continent, stopping off at highlife reminiscent of fellow countryman Fela Kuti, refreshed takes on traditional African praise, and African reggae. It makes sense then, that the album was predominantly recorded in Ghana, that it frequently features Muyiwa’s native Nigerian tongue of Yoruba and that it’s mixed with Swahili, Zulu, and Pidgin English.

The ode to Africa sidesteps the tried and tested formula of ‘all-big, all-bright’ gospel and instead takes the listener on an emotional journey of highs and lows that’s God-inspired, but everyone can relate to. “It’s not about agreeing with my religion,” he says. “If you just lost your job, there’s hope… If your child has lost his way, there’s hope. That’s what I sell.” Muyiwa’s songs and spoken-word stories recount his search for freedom, identity and hints at his own loss. Nigeria – and Africa as a whole – is painted as a land of civil wars, corruption and crime and more personally, it’s the country of his father’s unfortunate assassination and his mother’s untimely death six years later. Despite this, his faith overrides them with themes of hope, gratitude, solidarity and colourful celebration. It’s the African way.

The “UK Face of Gospel” has come a long way from the Forest Gate council flat where he taught himself the piano. After studying Music at Westminster University, he landed himself positions at Channel 4 and subsequently Sony’s International Promotions, where he ultimately fell into voiceover work. In 2003, he began his recording career with Restoration, which gave him a focus for the “unspeakable grief and pain” of his parents’ passing, and established him as UK gospel’s first crossover artist. He has since sold upwards of 200,000 albums, including his last studio album with Riversongz, Declaring His Name All Around the World (2011).

The album, produced by Grammy winning producer Kevin Bond (Donnie McClurkin, Kirk Franklin, Yolanda Adams), stormed to No. 5 in Amazon’s World Music best-sellers chart. In 2010 Muyiwa became the first UK Gospel act to sell out the Indigo O2 London, while in 2012 he performed to a sold out crowd at London’s Hammersmith Apollo. While his deep rich voice has reached millions in Europe, Africa and the USA, he has popularised the genre with his role as Premier Christian Radio’s Gospel station manager and has won numerous awards, including Best Presenter at the Oasis Awards (2006), Best Radio Show and Best Contribution to Gospel Music at the Gospel Music Awards (2009).




Pre order album on Amazon | iTunes (coming soon) | Proper Music

Source: DBM Staff