Seye Odebiyi – “Yoruba Medley” – fiery musicality and an expressive notion of groove

Based in Toronto, Canada by way of London, England, and from Ile-Ife, Nigeria, producer and artist Seye Odebiyi, is a multi-genre creative who fuses styles in different genres, mixing rhythms, and instruments to either create a new sound, or pay homage to an existing one. “What I do not want to do is to sound like everything else,” exclaims Seye. On his latest single “Yoruba Medley”, he does just that, despite the fact that he is leaning on the sounds he grew up with during his childhood. That sound is as expansive as you might imagine, bringing in elements of bossanova and samba, and mixing it all together to create a style all their own. What helps tie all of this together is Seye Odebiyi on the mic.

If you’ve spent the time with his music, you know what a thoughtful and creative singer-songwriter Seye Odebiyi is, but in recent years he’s pushed himself to become even more than that. Over the course of the single, he is singing and delivering great melodic hooks, and he’s breaking off moments of rich harmony without losing any momentum with the music.

Seye has got a great singing voice with a rich tone to his delivery, and his flow is versatile and creative as can be, and he always finds just the right way to fit his words into his arrangements to create this dynamic push and pull that always demands your focus.

In lesser hands, a song like “Yoruba Medley”, could feel self-indulgent and passé. With Seye Odebiyi, he is giving you so much passion and creativity and taking you through so many movements without losing sight of the overall optimistic sound of the track, you just revel in its glory and hum along during the climatic moments. The song feels like the culmination of a great artistic, cultural and nostalgic endeavor that takes a musically ambitious and challenging single and makes it fun and accessible to listen to.

The production adds a tapestry of instrumentation, as Seye Odebiyi pulls musically from his roots, and draws inspiration from several sources. The result is uniformly excellent, a fruitful mix of instrumental smoothness, a bouncy beat, dynamic and angular rhythms, and effortless vocals.

“Yoruba Medley” is a showcase of Seye’s fiery musicality and expressive notion of groove. It oozes something awesome and atmospheric under looping drums patterns reinforced by keyboard bends and clean guitar strums.

“Yoruba Medley” never feels didactic; the mood is laidback, the music swings loose, and is all the more effective for it. The single’s strength lies in its bonding through intuition and verve as well as its sure-footed facility for harnessing, blooming and elevating its ingredients.

Seye Odebiyi is undertaking his creative role, and offering listener a record filled with motifs meant to enlighten, delivered over a rhythm meant to enliven, and making a case for recognizing and respecting the spectrum of classic music styles.

“Yoruba Medley” is a perfect introduction to Seye Odebiyi’s ability to bring varying musical parts into modern harmony, but also a good jumping off point to backtrack to his excellent earlier work.