Northants Afrobeat star Great Adamz to perform at Latitude festival
Northants Afrobeat singer-songwriter Great Adamz will be representing the county at the Latitude Festival next week.
Adamz, who released his debut album Blessed Boy at the end of last year, will be performing on the venue’s Lavish Lounge stage.
He said: “Latitude is a stage I have wanted to play for a long time. I was in the studio in London when I get a text from BBC Introducing host Kerrie Cosh and she said ‘check your emails’.
“I did and saw I have been shortlisted to perform and I was super excited and happy.
“It’s absolutely brilliant - l want to represent Northampton very well. We have such an amazing community and a very diverse set of people.
“This is an opportunity to show people how great our music scene is and I’m absolutely excited.”
Since its release, Blessed Boy has clocked up more than six million streams across digital platforms. The album reached number two on the iTunes chart in Nigeria and former single Fantastic has been viewed more than 1.2 million times on YouTube.
The video to latest single Funke has already been viewed almost half a million times on the platform since its release last week.
Adamz said: “It’s been an incredible journey - performing at The Music Barn festival this year, getting my first play on BBC 6Music for Introducing Track of The Week - there’s been a lot of positives happening.”
At Lattitude, Great Adamz will be joined by the 99 Band whose musicians are also all Northampton based.
He added: “I have an incredible band now called the 99 Band, we have a mixture of British and Nigerians in the band.
“One thing that is incredible is 90 per cent of band members are studying or have studied at the University of Northampton including myself.”
Joining Great Adamz on stage will be guitarist Lucio Baxter, sax players IfeoluwaJoshua Awonugba and Raheem Babatubde, bassist Oghenekaro Ovie, drummer Goodluck Ogaga Agbele, singer Chinenye Mbakwe, keyboard player Munyaradzi Hapatongwe and dancer Jessica Nwabuisi.
Latitude Festival takes place from Thursday, July 24, to Sunday, July 27, at Henham Park in Suffolk.
This year it will be headlined by Sting, Fatboy Slim and Snow Patrol with the likes of Basement Jaxx, Kaiser Chiefs, Elbow, Maribou State, Air and Billy Bragg also set to perform.
Talking about his set, Great Adamz said: “It’s a big set - 45 minutes. It’s going to be something they have never seen before. It will be energetic and Inspiring.”
Great Adamz also recently won the Golden Stars ‘Artist of the Year (Diaspora)’ award and the DAC ‘Special Recognition In Music’ award.
Aside from playing at Latitude, Great Adamz is due to play further dates in London and Birmingham in August.
The former will see him perform at Up The Creek comedy club for Nigeria comedian Seyi Law.
Adamz also has more collaborations in the pipeline with fellow Northants musician Maddox Jones and Nigerian rapper Erigga Paperboi.
He adds: “It’s going to be a brilliant next few months ahead.”
For more information, visit https://www.instagram.com/greatadamz