Follow Us on Google
Ayoola Emmanuel Jolayemi, popularly known as Kormbat, began writing spoken word poetry to cope with a difficult period in his life.
This frantic desire to find healing from the pains within him, became the womb that birthed a poet, who speaks about the pain within people and in the world. Add topics like mental health and redemption, developmental issues like plastic pollution and poverty, and several prestigious poetry performances and media mentions, and you have the Kormbat brand – an activist dedicated to using poetry to combat pains.
“Blown: The Journey”, Kormbat’s debut album, solidifies this mission by combining developmental advocacy and soul food, all while resting securely on a bedrock of 11 tracks of thought-provoking poetry.
The album opens with The Greatest Sacrifice, an ode to his creator, which takes his listeners on a journey that chronicles the ills of his messiah. With carefully crafted, sonically pleasing lines that rhyme at every pause, Kormbat’s words plunge at our hearts in melodic rhythms, “he put his life on the line, so that we can have a lifeline”. Here is a strong story being told, one that charges at your heart. Poverty, one of the best pieces in the album by critical analysis, weaves together metaphors, wordplay, and punchlines. Each line elicits strong reactions in the listener, leaving him or her with a feeling of being dragged on both ends of a rope. On one end, the listener is lost in appreciation of his skill and on the other, he or she is saddened by the facts the poet shares about the extremity of conditions due to poverty.
The lead and most streamed single in the album, Plastic Pollution, is the 6th track that serves as the bridge, which ties the two halves of the album together – a perfect climax to the project. Using a mix of statistics, research results, pop culture references and witty wordplay, the album stresses a message that is loud and clear, “Scientists say matter can neither be created nor destroyed but when we conserve plastics in mass, the truth of the matter is what we create now destroys…”
“Blown: The Journey” is a remarkable piece of work that delivers on the artiste’s core strength of wordplay and performance art. The album feels like a journey, a charge, a courtroom, a show, and a conversation – all blending to bring awareness to the gospel – while also educating its listeners on urgent developmental issues.
“Blown: The Journey” has established Kormbat as a passionate poet who’s here to stay. I await his sophomore album and look forward to seeing how he can reflect his growth as an artiste and developmental professional.
