Wednesday May 12th The People Live presents Wunmi @ the New Parish 579 18th Street, Oakland. Doors open @ 9pm $10 advance.
UPDATE: Wunmi at New Parish was great. She is fun to watch on stage as she is an excellent dancer and has got some attitude. She was very charming and playful with the audience. It was great! She chastised the audience for standing around and not dancing telling the audience something along the lines of ‘they told me this was house party! what are doing just standing there, not dancing?’ Hysterical!
In our defense, some of us were dancing but at some point i had to stop and watch Wunmi sing, dance and do her thing. She has a really great engaging stage presence and personality. She came on stage wearing a silver lame cape type thing and rocking a cool look with her hair braided and shaped to a mohawk look.
Her band provided an awesome sound seamlessly going from afrobeat to house and dub sometimes in the span of one song. She sang a really good cover of the Police’s Message in a Bottle. She shared with the audience that The Police was one of her favorite bands growing up in London. I think one of my favorites that night was “Crossover”. The video is below.
As always with a show in Oakland, there were a lot of artists in the audience. At one point she asked local artist Valentino to join her on stage. While he was up on the stage, she took the opportunity to get down with audience and dance. There was, of course, a professional dancer or two. A circle of dancers formed and each one danced showing off their moves whether they were African dance, house or breaker. It was damn entertaining. In short, it was a dynamic show. The Crossover video below does not do her justice. Her live show is full of energy. If you enjoy this music, you don’t want to miss the opportunity to see her the next time she comes through town which is hopefully soon.
