Menina Morena - Lenna Baúle

A few weeks ago I got a text message from my friend, Lenna Baúle, urging me to contact her as soon as possible…so I waited a few minutes and called her.

“T! I finally have a venue…let’s make this happen!” she said excitedly over the phone. Lenna and I had been planning to organize a little gig together since last year.

I've told this story a few times about how I stumbled into Lenna's music. I don't recall the exact moment, because it was either her performance with a band at Franco or seeing her solo work, but either way I do remember the first reaction being, "chick is dope." We met randomly once….no, actually that’s not it, but since I’ve already said that, too late to change now…we met randomly about a year ago and chatted for what seemed like hours. I found out Lenna was in college doing a course on something to do with Botany and also trying to start up her solo music career. The 21 year old has been part of the critically acclaimed group called TP50, she’s worked with various artist as a back-up singer, and recently joined the band Nkhuvu with Stewart Sukuma.

After meeting each other we decided that we need to work together. Even it wasn’t work ‘work’; we needed to do something together. So we started with a concept, an acoustic concept. We wanted to do something simple that both of us could identify with. We’re both turning 22 in a few months and we’re both starting something new, we’re both going after our goals. And Music and photography is combination made for success, at least from where I’m sitting. It’s one of those “help me, help you.” types of situations.

After meeting with a few people….actually we met with one guy, a representative for Rua D’arte who seemed to know less about the music industry then we did, he wanted half the money from the entrance fee and he didn’t want to pay for the sound or the musicians. Crazy. Needless to say we never saw him again and never attempted to meet with anyone else.

So, now…just the two of us, we bring you Menina Morena.

The full project is finally here. I know somewhere someone is relieved to finally have this project out, considering it's been in the works for sometime now.

Lenna has a beautiful voice and in her EP Menina Morena she delivers what she calls "a collection of raw, unmixed demo's & songs, recorded and released in their unfinished & imperfect form." The words. The music. The sound. All beautiful in it's imperfect form. I dig that girl.

The EP will be on sale at the venue for 50mtn. A must have for your collection.

For the show, we called Ras Haitrm, an avid supporter of the arts who’s energy is indispensable on stage, and one of my all time favorite artist. I’m lucky that I’m surrounded by talented people, and luckier that they’re my friends, DK Vader, the dark lord himself, will be gracing us with his presence. The dude is extremely talented and I dig his work, and I can’t wait to see what comes of this union.

This is definitely something you can chill to, have that glass of red wine and cap off your evening. I encourage you all to do just that. Enjoy the show and the rest of your Sunday night.