Ya-B was already writing songs at a young age but began taking music seriously when he was schooling in Nigeria. After a 15 Minute Audition with Mr Kenny Ogungbe and Dayo “D1” Adeneye, he and his Lagos based rap group “TMT” were offered a spot on the most watched show in West Africa at the time “Primetime Jams”. By the time he was 15, at the turn of the century, he had shared the stage with Nigeria’s top recording artists including Eedris Abdulkareem, Lord of Ajasa, Eddie Montana, 2Face Idibia, Daddy Fresh, Tony Tetuila and the list goes on. Ya-B is often seen wearing New York Yankees caps despite that he is a native Chicagoan to represent the mesh of Nigerian and American Culture “The NY stands for Naija/Yankee” Ya-B explained. Upon his return, Ya-B recorded a slew of new material at Chicago indie label illregards Records, which earned the Chicago Rap scene’s attention. Slipping in Broken English and Yoruba language while still getting his point across to his fellow American Mc’s. He then went on to sign with a Chicago based Nigerian owned independent Label, Zoawe records in Fall 2005. While at Zoawe Ya-B worked with 1&15th Label C.E.O Chilly Patton and Lupe Fiasco on his certified classic debut mixtape “Ya-B Presentz: The Rap Lesson”. While recording “The Rap Lesson”, Ya-B linked up with 2Face Idibia and joined his tour for 5 city’s. After touring, he and 2Face with Universal Records recording artist B.Howard completed his next single which would be titled “The Finest”. Before long however, tragedy struck when in Spring 2007 Ya-B was shot 3 times while leaving an event in Chicago’s south loop. As fate would have it Ya-B pulled through and made what can only be described as a miraculous recovery. After which he vowed to make even more “Culture Packed Super-Powerful Music”. Backed by a slew of music industry heavy hitters and tastemakers, Ya-B partnered with Afro-Beat Productions to become instrumental in pushing a campaign for Afro fusion music currently unmatched in Chicago today.
BADA BYE BABY: Instrumental was good, the way he took the verse was also good for a GreenHorn, composure and delivery was nice too…lyrics was ok but can be better, just keep working on it ok…nice I like the bounce.
[audio:https://www.naijareview.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Bada-Bye-Baby-Album-Vsn.mp3]RATING:6/10