Jazz singer Teni describes her music as afrosoul. Afro for the beat that inspires her sound and soul for the feeling it evokes. Teni's music often fuses driving, hypnotic afrobeat with a pure, soaring operatic jazz vocal like her song 'Lionheart," a powerful, personal declaration of triumph over adversity. Born in London of Nigerian origin, she seeks to express herself through a sound that is a melting pot of influences from jazz and West African afrobeat to the blues and '70's soul and funk, showing deep love for the past while delivering it in a style that is modern and truly one of a kind. Sounds like highly sophisticated afro-pop with even a couple of afro-infused dance songs featured on the album like the ethereal "Your Love Is The Key".

Teni spent ten years in Nigeria honing this sound while also working as a fashion designer building an ethical design house called the House of Makeda. With her ten piece band the Afro-Renaissance it evolved into music that is African influenced yet utterly universal. On first listen one hears the funk, afro-horns and sinuous guitars in the title track "Afrodisiac" and is immediately reminded of an early '90's Sade Adu. Teni's vocals are elegant and stripped back, filled with cool yearning, like still waters that run deep. The bass guitar, and the rhythm and tenor guitars anchor Teni's sensual sound and are constantly present throughout the album "Afrodisiac." Live jazz drums and west african percussion, saxophones, trombones and afro-keys are also featured though a couple of songs are completely electronic. This album is a diverse tapestry of sounds with the Indian tabla featured on the haunting torch song "When Will It Be."

She also on occasion performed with the Egypt 80, Fela Kuti's band and experimented with ways of making the traditional afrobeat sound she loved her own. She developed a great interest in musicology, drawing inspiration from jazz greats Sarah Vaughan, Billie Holiday and Nina Simone and sang the afro-blues. She was inspired by the spirituality and message of Bob Marley's music. Out of the blues came jazz, soul, reggae even and Teni's compositions reflect this with an eclectic album with many layers and colours that really takes you on a journey. In some songs her voice is closer to Nina than Sade. She invokes the gospel tinged soul of the 1960's on the siren song "Surrender".

Teni explains the need to create an "authentic musical experience" that was a true reflection of her roots and quite simply, where she's coming from. The home of Fela Kuti and afrobeat in Lagos Nigeria, Fela's Queens, where Sade Adu and Seal hailed from, where her father owned a jazz club, a place where the people loved Michael Jackson and Bob Marley as much as they loved indigenous musical greats like Sunny Ade and Victor Uwaifo. The people were spiritual, deeply loving Jesus Christ sometimes alongside their traditional gods and this spirituality permeates her self-produced music which was written and recorded entirely in Lagos. She also grew up in London, where she delved into the R&B and Hip-Hop of the 1990's, in Camden Town, the rock capital of the city where Amy Winehouse lived. Her mother loved Curtis Mayfield and Prince and she went to record stores with her father to buy music for his club. In London she discovered neo-soul and jazz, Dinah Washington and Robert Johnson. She bought Marvin Gaye records and immersed herself in the rich multi-cultural city where everyone came on tour. She is now back in London ready to forge a new path in the music world, hoping to take it by storm.   

Living in Africa exposed Teni to the often harsh realities of poverty and hardship though she was born the daughter of a High Chief and attended boarding school in England from a young age. Her full name "Teniade" means "belonging to the Crown." Firsthand, she experienced the corruption and injustice, she saw how the people suffered in a country where there was no constant electricity or security. She was one of those people. She also sang songs of struggle, of revolution drawing upon personal experience of her battle as a woman composer from a society where people from a certain class are not encouraged to become artists. Where she had to walk the rocky path alone, facing intense familial opposition, going to the wrong side of town to rehearse with her band at first in secret. It took her ten years to get to this point. With an album of truly classic, rootsy soulful music that is ten years in the making, Teni is set to leave her mark on music and inspire the new generation with an epic out of Africa sound that transcends genres from jazz and the blues to soul and reggae and has a strong, timeless message.