So my new album Lease of Life is now out and available here on www.rasheedmusic.com but I for one – as a fan of artists and as a singer/ songwriter myself – love hearing artists themselves themselves talking about their work and what inspires it. With that in mind we just created this film about the album, the songs on it and what inspired it. Enjoy.

All that I’d like to add is my sincere thanks to my good friend, Marcin Steciuk who filmed and directed this and all the promo videos. Also huge thanks to the brilliant John Hamilton of EQ Studios my producer/collaborator who is just brilliant to work with. He made this album very special musically. Thanks too to Rene Coffey who did another brilliant job on producing ‘Time to Heal’ one of the tracks on the album and featured in this promo film.

About the album

This exciting new Rasheed album charts the ups, downs, joys and heartaches of life. Starting with the catchy, up-tempo In Life, the affecting Get Back Up Again and the uplifting Take Flight this collection is a journey through the rich and varied emotions and experiences in life. Love, loss, disappointment and possibility are all explored and fittingly Rasheed then delivers Something Good and Disappointment Guaranteed right after one another – as life so often does. Our journey continues with beautiful Walking Out on Love, the aptly quirky The Mystery and the jazzy You’re No Good For Me – all leading us In the Wilderness. But not for long; Time to Heal lifts the tempo again. It’s the one song not produced by Rasheed’s long time musical collaborator / arranger John Hamilton – with Rene Coffey doing nifty job on production duties on this poignant track. In all Rasheed treats us to 14 tracks on this outing – without a filler in sight. True to form Rasheed rounds off the album with four impassioned, heartwarming songs: Don’t be Afraid to fall in love, I’ll Love You All My Life, The Future is Now and Love is Gonna Get You. They wrap up the collection beautifully optimistically and to remind us of the magic of life – which as the album title reminds us – we only have for a while.

All songs written / sung by Rasheed Ogunlaru. © Rasheed Ogunlaru 2015. All songs produced by John Hamilton and Recorded at EQ Studios London except “A Time to Heal” produced by Rene Coffey.

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Thanks  

I would like to start with a huge vote of thanks for John Hamilton, my producer and long-time musical collaborator. It’s John’s musicianship that you really hear on this album. John plays most of the instruments throughout the collection: keyboards, guitar and bass with myself on support on selected keyboards. Thanks too to Rene Coffey for her outstanding work producing ‘Time to Heal’. Thanks to Ajamu for the cover photography and to Steve Bryne for the graphic design.

I’m very grateful too to Marcin Steciuk for the wonderful work in producing several videos for the album all of which you can enjoy here on my YouTube Channel. Finally I’d like to thank everyone who has supported my music and helped me along on my musical journey over the years including Marcus Fellowes, Marshall Franklin Ravel, Janet Kumah, John Gibbons, Yinka Sapara, Robert Bicknell and Kweku Aacht. But extra special thanks are due to Kevin Arnold with whom I wrote and recorded a rich set of songs in my early years – when I was seeking a recording deal –  of which I am very proud and which made me the songwriter I am. I would finally like to thank my late great singing teacher, Mark Hayden.

Listen and download

You can hear four selected tracks from the album (and then three from the last one) right here on the “Listen to songs” music player feature on the site. You can also hear the whole album on the my YouTube Channel and you can download the album right here on the website. Enjoy.

Watch Rasheed sing songs Lease of Life

Right at the end of last year I decided to do an intimate little gig – my first live show in many years – in order to present some of the songs from the album. You can enjoy the segment with the new songs right here:

So here’s the video for “Love is Gonna Get You” which is one of the last songs I wrote for my forthcoming collection ‘Lease of Life.’ We filmed the video abroad in the Canary Islands and it was fun. Once again Marcin did a great job on this video. As with all but one song from the collection this was produced by John Hamilton at EQ Studios. John is always a joy to work with and I’m really pleased with this song which is the last song on ‘Lease of Life’.  John and I got a sound that I really feel works capturing the melody of the track. I love the deep buzzy bass – which I had a lot to do with. John did a great job  on bringing the horn sound to life which I knew would be one of the signatures of this song. When I first wrote this song I just knew that that sound had to be part of it. Anyway I hope you enjoy the song and the video.