Nneka

Nneka, full name Nneka Egbuna, is a hip hop and soul singer-songwriter, actress, activist and painter.

Born in Warri, a southeast Nigerian port city, Nneka had a very hard time during her youth. After her biological German mother left her when she was just two years old, it all got worse with an abusive stepmother taking over the mother role. Warri, a town full with ‘many different tribes and different types of music’, quickly inspired her to become a musician. When she fled in 1999 from Nigeria to the German town Hamburg to study anthropology, her dream started to become true. Nneka told Deutsche Welle:

Farhot brought hip hop into my life, and I, being African, introduced the African side to him. He is from Afghanistan and then us two in Germany, it was just an amazing mix.

When she met Farhot, their friendship soon evolved into a fruitful musical collaboration, and even till this day, they still work together. He produced her first demo tape, which was the key to get her signed to her first record label, Yo Mama Records. Five years later, her very first album came to life, carrying the name Victim of Thruth.

Her albums cover lighter and heavier topics, from daily life (like love, religion and loss) to more political themes. Most of her songs, like “Heartbeat”, have popped up in the charts through remixes, or through samples, like in the popular Rita Ora song, “R.I.P”. Nneka explained in The Girls Are:

It was an experience and it made the music accessible to a different type of audience, so it added some wings.

You’ll often find Nneka collaborating with other artists, like the all-female supergroup Les Amazones d’Afrique. Nneka is full of creativity and has a strong voice when it comes to activism. In The Girls Are, Nneka explained:

Moments come and go, but it is the now that is most important. Whatever I think is right in the now is what I should be doing.