Osaru: News

WINSTON-SALEM, NC (12/05/09) – Home with the Keys is Osaru’s latest release and a follow-up to Home; his successful debut CD released in 2008. Home with the Keys is a musical evolution for Osaru and the result of requests for instrumental versions of the tracks off of Home. In his latest project, Home with the Keys, Osaru creates a smooth jazz journey through the course of ten-tracks, unlocking a melodic menagerie of muse.

Home with the Keys exhibits Osaru’s songwriting ability and finesse on the keyboard. “The album summarizes my comfortable relationship with the keys. I feel ‘at home’ on the instrument,” says Osaru. The keyboard allows him to tap into the unbounded creative potential of each song. Like a master painter, Osaru’s keyboard is his easel while the sheet music is his canvas. He “paints” with a unique aural ambience. Within each track a new soundscape emerges, with an unsullied innovative style.

Home with the Keys contains all-original tracks that were all written, arranged and mixed by Osaru into a plethora of various styles that display influences from Kenny G and George Benson to Earl Klugh and Steve Cole. The album opens with “Made up my Mind,” with its unique urban-based background vocals and hauntingly seductive sax. With a Baby Face styled backbeat, “Home” mesmerizes with subliminal and sublime riffs. Hints of R and B overlay jazzy melodic hooks in “Downtown” and “Last Night.” “Let’s Begin” cleverly flaunts Osaru’s talent in arrangement and composition with a vibrant mix or urban funk and jazz.

“I wanted to keep the listener guessing. There’s a story behind each song that I had to ensure was maximally expressed,” states Osaru. Indeed, with its blend of slow jams and mid-tempo cuts there is a song that fits every human emotion. Osaru’s jazz journey is a twisting and surprising one with unpredictable creative intersections on each avenue of style and leads directly to Home with the Keys.

David Erik, ASCAP
Creative Director
DreamStar Music™

Osaru has arrived Home in style.

Rarely does one come across anything genuinely new in music. All the many genres have been mixed together and blended so much that originality often looks as if it has fallen by the wayside. This is not the case with Osaru on his debut album, Home.

His is a unique vocal style, a one-off musical vision and an out of the ordinary personal story. Unlike many of his musical peers, Osaru has spent years honing his talents before cutting a record, and the maturity shows.

Having learnt African percussion at the age of 8, church organ at 9 and subsequently discovering the joys of the keyboard and bass guitar, Osaru went on to play music in three separate continents. His inspirations coming from the worlds of soul, jazz, R&B, hip hop, reggae and even traditional African music. Only after such an extensive musical education, and while simultaneously working as a physician in North Carolina, has Osaru decided to share his gifts with the world.

Listening to the quality and diversity of Home, you will agree that it was certainly worth the wait. The album combines hip hop and R&B beats with jazzy instrumentation and even elements of classical music. This all comes together to form a whole that is satisfyingly head-nodding at first, but deeper and more interesting the more you listen.

There is something here for everyone, without the quality ever being compromised. From the dance floor inspired Start the Dancing to the slow, contemplative soul of the title track Home, Osaru is adept at supplying every musical need.

There is music for getting into the groove at the club, in the shape of I Know and Made Up My Mind, and there is also music for those quieter moments – The 'Piano version' of Pretty Lady and '24' spring to mind here. However, most of all, this is music for lovers of great music who do not want to be constrained by the narrow boundaries of genre.

The best news is that this is only the beginning. Although Home has only just hit the shops, Osaru is already working on his next album, which he promises to deliver in the next Year. If it’s anything like this one, it can’t come soon enough.
Home is available now on CD Baby.