Ondara

His face is not yet known to all. Yet, with his eyes illuminated with hope, this young Kenyan, who emigrated to the United States, carries a folklore full of emotions. His voice takes us to our guts. In short, he has everything to appear, in a more or less near future, in the court of the greatest, where the master is Bob Dylan.

He is one of the rising stars of folk music. He's got Bob and Neil Young running through his veins, a bit of Curtis Harding and Michael Kiwanuka in his voice and something a la BB.King jeune: that's probably for his inspired look, black hat screwed on his head. So, no need to have been in the middle of his fine discography to understand that we're dealing with an ace of aces. First of all, we hear this vocal timbre that caresses our eardrums, as if to take us by the hand. J.S. Ondara thus tells us his epic journey from Nairobi to Minneapolis, where he landed one fine winter day in the freezing cold.

Here, the texts are elegantly tied up, as if open to free interpretation, and the melodies are finely spiced up. This is absolute class. Yes, this angel-faced kid, who almost looks like he's apologizing for being here, at least when you see him from afar, dazzles with his precocious talent. Because when he goes on stage, it's a great man who steps forward. He embodies the American dream. But J.S. Ondara is not satisfied with that.

With his guitar, he tells beautiful stories, brings out his wildest utopias and grows up, again and again, to break the glass ceiling. The bets are already open: J.S. Ondara will put folk back on the rails of modernity. In any case, its singularity should bewitch us for a long time to come. But, really, where does this genius come from that makes him different from all the others? We don't know. Perhaps he has the answer: "I'm Kenyan, so there must be some unconscious influences from the music there".