January 29th 2011
THE SECRET BEHIND YORI-YORI

Bracket no longer need an introduction, the Enugu born duo brought together by music at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, have locked down music charts for months, this has also given them a ticket to perform at major events in the last one year. The magic and sudden turn around for them is their hit song Yori Yori which remains the most popular of their tracks from their second album release titled ‘Least Expected’. Other hit tracks in the album includes “No Time’ and ‘Ada Owerri’’

Emphasizing the word, ‘Sweetness’ as meaning of Yori yori, Nwachukwu Ozioko a.k.a Vast and Ali Obumneme a.k.a Smash says It’s a slang that is used to convey one’s feelings when he sees what he likes. “That feeling is what we tried to describe in ‘Yori Yori’. We created the slang but lately, we’ve discovered that ‘Yori yori’ actually means something in Igbo language which is ‘sweetness’. We never knew until recently.

We didn’t plan for the song. When the third member ‘Bistop’ left the group for academic reasons, it became a big challenge for us who decided to stay back. So, we were looking at a commercial song that would be a bit dance able, and at the same time, we wanted something unique. We didn’t know ‘Yori Yori’ would get so big”.

Vast, one of the duo describes how he got the lyrics for the song “ One day, I was coming back from lectures, when some lines came into my head and I recorded it on my phone. Initially, we were going to entitle it ‘My Love’ but people kept saying they liked that flavour ‘Yori yori’. So, we took the advice and entitled the song ‘Yori Yori’. It was the chorus that first came. Then we took our time and wrote the verses. Meanwhile, we had other songs we had already done and were contemplating to release as singles before ‘Yori Yori’ came. It sounded like a single, and that’s why we released it first”.

Today, we’re surprised at what is happening. Everywhere we go, everybody is ‘yori yori’ . Interestingly, if you listen to the album, there’s a track titled, ‘Ma ro nu mo’. That’s the song we thought was going to blow in Lagos because of the way Yoruba is spoken here.
Commenting on the wide acceptance the song has attracted one of the duo says “I’ve heard different things from different people. Some will tell you it’s the intro. For some its the rhyme; some, the chorus; some say the lyrics is tight; some even say it’s the outro. So, one can’t really judge where the sweetness is coming from.

We were looking at passing a love message. We didn’t sing the song for any particular girl. It is directed at every girl out there”. Bracket says the wave making album has been doing well in the market. “We never expected all of these just like we entitled the album ‘Least Expected’. The album title was given by a friend and that has been our experience. We’ve gotten positive calls from London, America, Dublin about how much people like the album”.

They further speak about their dream for their music. “It’s the topmost top, and by the grace of God, we’ll get there. We just arrived in the industry; we’ve not even started. We need to do songs that are even better than ‘Yori Yori’ so that people can say these guys are talented indeed. The Enugu state born duo who now resides in Lagos, debuted in 2006 with ‘Happy Day’ and has before then been into professional music for about 9 years.

By: Yetunde Omosa

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