Netta for her Collaboration with Afrobeats Superstar Mr Eazi has Revisited Her Childhood In Nigeria.
Global superstar and pop genius Netta at the close of August dropped “Playground Politica”, the next entry in a one-of-a-kind discography that showcases the colorful vision, musical ingenuity, and undeniable heart of one of the world’s most exciting musical mad scientists. The Eurovision champ was recently praised by The Hollywood Reporter for “her humorous lyrics, quirk-pop persona and over-the-top fashion”, and today’s track, an Afrobeat fusion jam that features beloved Nigerian artist Mr Eazi, is an important and earnest moment in her groundbreaking career.
Related: Mr Eazi Reunites With DJ Neptune On “Walangolo” Featuring Konshens. LISTEN
“Playground Politica” is a candy-coated pop gem brimming with celebratory pizzaz that is also the most personal track of Netta’s career, being the first time she has shared a reflection on her adolescence growing up in Nigeria. It is a beautiful look at the life lessons she learned in Nigeria, tinged with a fittingly childlike aesthetic. Also out today is the joyous music video for “Playground Politica” which Netta filmed in Nigeria earlier this year with Mr Eazi.
Before winning Eurovision with her monster smash hit “Toy” and earning 100s of MILLIONS of plays and streams across her entire catalog, Netta spent her formative early years (6.5 years to be exact) in Nigeria where she attended an international school which shaped her early human experiences in a very special way. All the kids were from different countries & cultures and “Everyone was different so no one was different,” she said. Everyone was encouraged to “shine their own unique light.”
“Playground Politica” captures the essence of Nigeria as her happy place, something she used to think about when she moved back to Israel and felt picked on by her peers, with the track title referring to the hierarchical nature of classrooms which she felt on the losing end of: “I was the fat unibrow kid with an accent that didn’t fit in.”
The old Israel nursery rhyme “Nadneda” is featured in the song, which translates to “swing away, swing away, down, up, up and down”. This intentionally was chosen as Netta often found refuge on the swingset when she felt teased, “almost as if the swing could go back in time to take me back to Nigeria.”
Mr Eazi’s appearance on the track is more than just a feature. He, like Netta, also grew up outside of his home country and attended an international school. “We couldn’t help but feel like in a parallel universe we could be in class together.”
Netta has become one of the trailblazing global pop innovators in modern music, turning the genre into a colorful funhouse of fizzy experimentation. Since winning the Eurovision Song Contest in 2018 with “Toy”, she performed on NBC’s TODAY, dropped her ‘Goody Bag’ EP, was a guest on Switched On Pop discussing her personal journey as an artist and what it takes to make the perfect Eurovision song, performed for Billboard, and was spotlighted by Consequence of Sound who said she has “dominated stages around the world and seen her music spread like wildfire”, BUST who called her the “soulful singer creating escapist videos you didn’t know you needed” and Hey Alma who praised her as a “role model”. During the pandemic she also released a covers EP (‘The Best Of Netta’s Office – Vol. 1’) which, inspired by her YouTube performance series of the same name, included mind-altering interpretations of songs like Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-Changin’”, “Barbie Girl” by Aqua, and the Mary Poppins staple “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious”.
LISTEN to “Playground Politica” HERE and watch its video below:
