B Wise – Review

James Iheakanwa already made an impact on the Triple J community, receiving praise all over his Unearthed page by both fans, and those working for the radio including Lewi McKirdy calling B Wise’s direction a “fresh new flow from a great budding MC out of the cultural melting pot of south west Sydney.”

B Wise is in the process of constructing his debut album with tracks being produced by some of Australia’s best, such as Nic Martin, Pro/Gram, Momo and Raph Lauren. He’s already dropped a couple of tracks to hint at what we might be able to expect off the album.

Like You takes on an R & B style in it’s flavour and comes with a pretty exciting film clip. This song has a summer vibe about it, making it perfect to bring up the warmth in these colder days. The intro to this track appears unique and gets pretty catchy to listen to. Admittedly, I’ve found myself restarting this song quite a few times just to hear it.

Prince Akeem is his latest track which tells of a fairly sad childhood yet ironically is an upbeat track. My recommendation? Hit that play button before reading any further and see if you can pick up what the story behind this track is. Done that?

If you’ve seen Eddie Murphy’s movie Coming to America, you’ve probably already released that this track is named after his character, and if so you probably already worked out the story behind the track.

The son of a country girl from New South Wales and a man from Nigeria, due to the colour of his skin Wise suffered bullying throughout his childhood. Have you ever tried to explain racism and prejudice to a 7 year old? Neither have I, and nor did B Wise’s parents. Instead they choose to tell a small white lie that the other kids were jealous of Wise’s Nigerian royalty heritage. This lead to a sense of African pride and courage, a feeling Wise still carries with him today and the story behind ‘Prince Akeem’.

If you’re in Sydney this Saturday, head along to Spectrum and check out B Wise’s first headline show: ‘B Wise & Friends’