Qing Madi shines amidst the avoidable struggles of ‘I Am The Blueprint’ [Review]

In the opening track of Qing Madi’s debut LP ‘I Am The Blueprint’, she shares her dream of someday winning a Grammy.

While the coveted prize in music is now within the grasp of Nigerian superstars, her ambitions reflect her deep convictions in her talent and an unflinching belief that she can become whatever she wishes.

Although only 18, Qing Madi boasts of a talent forged from a very young age (6 as she told Apple Music in a recent interview) paired with the confidence of a star who knows exactly what she carries.

She elected to call her album ‘I Am The Blueprint’, which offers insights into how she sees herself as a star whose lofty steps will leave visible footprints for others to follow.

On her debut LP, She displayed this impressive talent albeit still developing, across 13 tracks, and for a good part of the album, she managed to.

The decision to not feature any act captures her belief that she can hold her own and perhaps allows her to maintain the center stage on her first big project.

In her interview with Apple Music, Qing Madi shared her love for R&B.

With an impressive vocal range and penmanship that surpasses her age, it’s obvious that Madi is most comfortable when she’s bearing her heart with calming melodies and hearty lyrics.

Hence it was unsurprising that she leaned almost entirely toward this side of her artistry on ‘I Am A Blueprint’.

In several interviews, Qing Madi has stated that she has little to no experience with romantic relationships and her hearty romance records her inspired by her vivid imagination.

She brings her colourful thoughts to life on this album where she crafts records that probe at the different sides of romantic endeavour.

She plays the smitten princess with her sweet melodies of ‘Ali Bomaye’ while channeling the hopeless romantic that holds nothing back on ‘Akanchanwa’ where the highlife strings and title offer some domestication.

The slow-burning start to the album continued down to the middle of the project where she maintained similar mid-tempo delivery and melodic sequences on ‘Feel Alright’ where she again goes all in for love.

While Madi displayed versatility by channeling some Dancehall Ragga flow on ‘Damn It All’, her bold attempt was stunted by limped production that maintained similar mid-tempo production instead of taking the album to a high point with a more vibrant arrangement.

The inability to break the opening monotony becomes obvious by the sixth track ‘It’s Game’ where Madi delivers a classic R&B performance whose quality is likely to be lost on listeners navigating a flatlining project.

Her vocal performances and writing while impressive on ‘Pressure’, ‘Gimme Your Love’, and ‘Garden’ are left alone to do all the work no thanks to the absence of dynamic production that provides some variety even within the mid-tempo exploration.

The lack of dynamism and monotony in production does a major disservice to the album where the new songs play second fiddle to the pre-released records (Ali Bomaye, Akanchawa, Goosebump) whose quality was earlier experienced outside the project.

Songs like ‘Garden’ and ‘Dame It All’ could have had greater utility if the Afro-Carribean production was more vibrant.

With the absence of guest appearances to add some dynamism, the production and sequencing had to be impeccable but for the most part, Qing Madi’s ability to find pockets of melodies and swerve across genre lines was the only injection of excitement.