By JIM FUSILLI
Across the 15 tracks of her latest album, "Soul Is Heavy" (Decon), Nneka Egbuna demonstrates she's at ease with reggae, rock, soul and pop in almost equal measure. Her reedy voice is by turns sweet, vulnerable, brazen and triumphant, and her conviction palpable. She's showcasing her music during a brief U.S. tour this month.
Here's hoping this visit goes better than her 2010 trip for the annual South by Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas. Back then she was bitten by a mosquito just before departing her home in Lagos, Nigeria; by the time she landed, an infection had set in. Following minor surgery at a Texas hospital, she performed several shows, limping and grimacing in anguish; after one performance, she was seen sprawled on the floor backstage. Despite the obstacles, she impressed with her stage presence as she and her band unfurled songs from her album "Concrete Jungle," her first to be marketed in the U.S. After recovering, she joined the Lilith Fair tour later that year.
Born in Warri in the oil-rich Niger Delta to a Nigerian father and German mother, as a teen Ms. Egbuna, who performs as Nneka, relocated to study anthropology at the University of Hamburg.
"I didn't have an opportunity to listen to popular music as a child," the 31 year old said by phone from Ghana, where she was performing. "I didn't have a Walkman or CDs. There was no money for that." Later, she joined a church choir and also found the music of fellow Nigerians King Sunny Adé and Fela Kuti, as well as Western pop and R&B—"a mix of everything coming from the outside," she said, adding, "The emotion is the link between every type of music. That was my inspiration."
As her musical skills developed in Germany, she began to perform with DJ Farhot, an Afghanistan-born producer-composer who recorded Ms. Egbuna's first album in his basement. She also held several jobs—a janitor at a movie house and secretary at a driving school among them. "That was how I financed my studies." After performing for more than 2,000 people, she would bike home, sleep for a couple of hours and go off to work. "Nobody knew the girl on the stage was the same one who was cleaning toilets at the cinema.
"But, you see, this is what I tell people who are passionate about music: Look, this is life. You should work because that is the right thing. You should contribute to society and not remove yourself."
"Soul Is Heavy" was culled from some 50 songs Ms. Egbuna and her collaborators wrote since "Concrete Jungle." Once again she works with DJ Farhot, who contributed to eight compositions, including the opener "Lucifer (No Doubt)" in which she speaks from the point of view of one who believes more in the power of money than the power of the soul. "Oh no doubt, I am loving you more than I love myself," she sings over percolating reggae rhythms.
Love songs abound: "Shining Star" is pure soul-pop, while "V.I.P.," which in her lexicon stands for "Vagabond in Power," springs from a flamenco rumba guitar. "Valley" is a lovely soul ballad that leaps to a reggae lilt. But the politically minded "God Knows Why"—written with Black Thought, the singer from the Roots—uses a sample from, all of things, the 1969 film "Paint Your Wagon" as a springboard to a harsh yet swinging slice of hip-hop.
She infuses several other songs with her political perspectives. In the title track, Ms. Egbuna invokes the memory of Nigerian activists Isaac Boro and Ken Saro-Wiwa, as well as Jubo Jubogha—who founded Opobo, now a state in southern Nigeria—to address her homeland's social and economic woes. Using a colloquialism for Nigeria, she sings, "Naija, for too long we have surrendered to the ignorance of our self defense / In you we have failed / America, how far must we walk in calamity, in suppression / How long will it take for you to love Naija."
Hardly the stuff of mainstream pop. Thus, though she's been compared to Erykah Badu and Lauryn Hill, right now the political specificity of Ms. Egbuna's lyrical themes, as much as the variety of her music, is an obstacle to reaching mass audiences in the U.S.
But she's unlikely to tailor her organic approach. Provocation isn't just a gimmick to position herself and her music in the West. "Every track begins with my life," she said. "My personal life, my surroundings, they trigger me to write. That comes kind of naturally."
Mr. Fusilli is the Journal's rock and pop music critic. Email him at jfusilli@wsj.com or follow him on Twitter: @wsjrock
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