With B Young fitting into the Afro Swing/Hip Hop movement, he has established himself as one of the UK leading lights with his recent releases.

Otherwise known as Bertan Jafer, the Hackney born artist is finding more and more attention on his music. His first releases in 2017 saw a huge momentum gain on Youtube, with ‘Been Wavey’ racking up an impressive 11 million views and his 2018 follow up Jumanji hitting the UK chart at number 13 and 5 on the UK R&B chart. 

Smooth acoustic guitars bring you into his latest track 'Wine', giving a real fresh sound. The vocal effects on B Young’s voice are becoming so characteristic of Afro Swing and the more I hear them the more I quite like them. It is clear, despite the reverb infused voice, that B Young has an impressive voice, that I imagine could move between genres easily. What I like about ‘Wine’ is it’s simplicity. The guitar stays throughout and is joined from time to time with the beat underneath, but ‘Wine’ relies on the creation of a well crafted song that flows beautifully through each section and is an easy listening, emotionally charged song that has a lot going for it. 

I have not heard of B Young before listening to ‘Wine’ and I didn’t know what to expect. What I found is someone who is brave enough to release a track that in comparison to a lot of other tracks out there, is quite bare and let his talent as a vocalist and songwriter shine through. The release works and if like me, you’re new to B Young, I think you’ll find yourself looking into other work of his and you’ll hear that he is a massive talent and certainly one to keep an eye on.

 Afro Swing     Hip-hop 

Author: Phil Arnold

Phil Arnold is a musician, producer and music reviewer from Devon, in the South West of England. Whilst not writing music reviews, Phil also writes and records under the name of Ugbrooke.