General overview:

Akwai Suna Album is the debut album of gospel singer, Dr. S.M Abel. It was launched and released on the 21^st of November, 2021. The album has 10 tracks, with a total length of 2,707 seconds (45 minutes 12 secconds). The genre of music is basically Contemporary Christian Music (CCM). He featured a lot of other known gospel artists in the album, including Philippa, AB vocals, Dido, Degeneral, Mals and Leeyah.

All the songs in the album seemed to address believers in Christ, reminding them of their positions in Christ, encouraging and challenging them to live their lives to the fullest, in a way that God has called them to live.

Here’s a brief summary of the individual tracks:

• ‘Everything’ talks about the fact that all of creation finds purpose in God
•  ‘We Realise’ is an encouragement to Christians that the pains/ sufferings they face cannot be compared to the great benefits they get just by being believers in Christ. The chorus, however, is a prayer to God to wash us from sin.
• ‘Calling’ is a reminder to believers that each of them has a calling/gift given to them by God and they have to deliberately yield to that calling and use those gifts.
• ‘Genius’ is a wakeup call to believers that they are not ordinary and so they should live with that consciousness.
• ‘Guide’ is a reminder to believers that God’s word was given to them for guidance.
• ‘Haske’ is a song that tells believers to be confident and fearless because Jesus is their light.
• ‘Akwai Suna’ is an encouragement to believers that the name of Jesus is not like every other name and that there is great power in the name of Jesus.
• ‘Sujada’ is a song of worship and praise to God who answers the prayers of His children.

Strongest points of the album:

• Great production: One of the first things that greatly appealed to me as I listened to the Akwai Suna album was the use of live instruments and skilled musicians in the production. The sweetness of hearing skilled musicians play their instruments as opposed to using only virtual instruments is a great plus to this album. Also, the choice of instruments, in the various tracks, were quite commendable
• Great mixing and mastering: Next to the production is the quality of the mix. There was clarity in the mix, the levels were balanced, the instruments were well positioned across the stereo space, and none of the frequencies were clashing with another. I must commend whoever mixed and mastered this album.
• Great song composition. Another beautiful thing about this album was that all the songs had beautiful melody. I mean, even if they were sung with just a piano or guitar, and no other instrument, they would still be sweet to the ears. There was also dynamics in some of the songs.
• The musical versatility of Dr. Abel is quite commendable. The Akwai Suna album had songs of different sub-genres of CCM. There were the slow worship songs, the very fast- paced ones, Raggae, rock. And all through the album, Dr. Abel proved that he was in deed musically versatile; he even attempted rap in one of the songs.
• Also his vocal delivery was awesome. He has a good voice, suitable especially for his style of music. And he chose the right key for each song that enabled him maximize the strength of his voice.
• The other artists featured in the album were amazingly good. Each of them added an extra sauce to the overall sweetness of the music.
• All the songs have a positive message. This is another plus to this album. Every song had a clear message it communicated and all the messages were positive and uplifting.
• Last but not the least, the back up vocals were quite good.

Things that could have been improved:

• The album title did not quite reflect the overall message of the songs in the album. The songs served as an encouragement and in some cases, a challenge to believers in Christ that there is more to being Christians and they should live their lives to the fullest.
• The song ‘Calling’, though with powerful messages, the lyrics of the verses were not well arranged to be pleasing to the ears. Thankfully, the (hook) chorus covered for it.
• Also, remixed version of the song ‘We Realise’ had two different messages contained in the verse and chorus respectively. The chorus is supposed to be like a summary of the message of the song, not give a different message of it’s own.
• The mix and mastering of tracks 9 and 10 were quite noticeably different from the rest of the album.

Conclusion:

Overall, I would say this is a very good album, especially considering that it is Dr. Abel’s debut album. I enjoyed listening to it from the start to the end. On a scale of 1 to 10, I would score this album 8/10.

Here’s a link to download the entire album and listen for yourself.