I just came across these guys on Boing Boing. Naturally 7 (english site) are an R&B/Hip Hop/Gospel band based in Germany. I generally don’t care about that kind of music, but these guys have really impressed me – they do not play any instruments. They are an a-capella band and if you heard them and didn’t know then you wouldn’t any the wiser! Here’s from their site:
When I arrived at the studio on West 52nd Street in March 2003 to see Naturally 7 perform live I didn’t yet realise that it would have been easier to write a feasible episode of Sex And The City. That’s because after a set lasting half an hour, the ten invited guests (including Blue Note President Bruce Lundvall) just stood there, open mouthed. And I had a problem: I thought, no-one is going to believe me. There they stand, seven black guys, and they make more noise than Nelly, R. Kelly, Dru Hill, Jaheim (and whatever the rest of the crooners and R&B artists call themselves), but they don’t play ANY INSTRUMENTS! Their entire music, the rhythms & beats, the bass, the keyboard effects and up-beat soul voices that just pull at your heart strings, the sort of sound I had hardly ever heard in fifteen years – they manage to produce that sound with nothing more than their very versatile voices. Did someone say “a-cappella”? Oh, come on! “This is as much acappella as Stevie Wonder is a pop singer.” But who would believe me?
When you visit the german site you can listen to clips off their album. Apparently the video of their ‘Phil Collins – In the Air Tonight’ cover is quite a hit on MTV Europe at the moment. Here’s a live rendition recorded on a Paris metro:
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