Tochi Anueyiagu picks five tracks
Tochi Anueyiagu picks five tracks
"In Nigeria there’s this word 'gra gra' where you’re trying to make something happen, you’re forcing things. No. I’m just going with the flow.”
Tochi Anueyiagu is a yoga teacher, DJ and general tastemaker-about-town. We got to know each other in a yoga teacher training where Tochi won hearts with her grace, her sense of humor and her velvety speaking voice, all major assets for any yoga teacher.
Yoga teachers also need good music. During a training segment on the subtle art of yoga playlist-making both Tochi and my offerings were given a rather hard pass. Tochi’s because it was a little too interesting — “Those notes!” our teacher exclaimed. “That’s not going to work” — and mine because it “sounded like cows mooing.” We both adapted to the extent that we needed to, and Tochi’s yoga playlists are stylish and thoughtfully constructed, built around the energetic peaks and valleys of the yoga sequence.
In 2017 Tochi and her sister Ebele started Nolly Babes, an archive of Nigerian film. The Nolly Babes Instagram page, where the sisters share images from Nigerian films from the late ‘90s and early aughts, has a healthy follower count of close to 71 thousand. Last year they joined with Alfreda’s Cinema to host the Nolly Babes Film Festival at the Anthology Film Archive in the East Village.
Nolly Babes “sort of blew up,” says Tochi, who grew up in Lagos and moved to the states as a teen. Nigeria’s Nollywood is the second-largest film industry in the world in terms of the volume of output, just behind Bollywood, and the sisters are showcasing again-popular Y2K fashion through, as she describes it, a “very specific Nigerian lens.
“Nigerian culture is really at the forefront right now in terms of hip hop and R&B, a lot of hip-hop artists are doing really well,” Tochi says. “People were looking to our references, and we’ve been put on mood boards and [have done] creative consultation, and I think people just kind of liked our tastes.”
Tochi describes herself as the older “type A” sister, whereas Ebele is the “creative visionary.”
“She has better taste in music than me, she always has the cool songs …She’s always finding new music and I’m the one who finds a song that maybe you haven’t heard in awhile that will get you to dance, that will get you into the groove of it.”
That’s basically Tochi’s aim in a yoga studio too, to get students into the groove of it, to keep them in the moment. Her classes may follow a slightly different arc than a DJ set, but there’s a lot of overlap, both in the tracks she selects and the intention behind them.
“Music is about the feeling that it gives you,” she says. In a yoga class, as on the dance floor, you want to be motivated, you want to be encouraged,” she says. “[You want there to be] moments where you were smiling, moments when you were laughing to yourself, moments when you’re in the groove.”
Tochi shared five tracks she’s been moving to recently. Check them out below, and take class with Tochi at Fierce Grace NYC and/or VERAYOGA.
Fish Go Deep & Tracey K - “The Cure & the Cause”
“This is, like, early 2000s house music, it’s really good, it’s really fun. It just has that disco fun vibe and I can see people reacting to it when I play it. You just daaance, it’s got nice vocals, it’s got nice flow.
Growing up in Nigeria there was a lot of British influence [in the music I was exposed to]. That house music, garage, drum & bass, jungle. All that stuff. I grew up with a lot of that and I’m pretty sure that’s how I first heard this song. And in recent years, it became my go-to.
You just chill, you just bounce to it. It makes you feel sexy, I love songs that make you feel sexy, you don’t have to do too much.”
Victoria Monét - “Alright”
“She used to write for Ariana Grande and she’s had a renaissance as an artist herself. Compared to a lot of pop stars that are coming out now she’s a little older, she has kids. It’s nice because I think she was in the shadows for so long and now she has a hit. Kaytranada produced it, who’s really hot right now. It’s just such a good song.”
Goldfish - “Last Tango in Paradise”
“This is really jazzy, it’s really fun. I like to start a class with this. It’s got a little drum and bass in it. It’s no lyrics, no words.
In Nigeria there’s this word “gra gra” where you’re trying to make something happen, you’re forcing things. No. I’m just going with the flow.”
Tems - “Wickedest”
“She’s my favorite artist right now, she’s from Nigeria, she had that song with Wizkid that was like [sings] “time is of the essence” which was really popular a few summers ago. She’s kind of taking up the space Rihanna left behind. She’s got that vibe, that cool, chill girl vibe and she’d got a bit of an accent when she sings: Like with Rihanna, you can hear the island girl in her sometimes. [This song is] upbeat, it’s fun, you’re going to shake your butt to it. That’s, I think, the most high energy song I have on here. And this I will play in a class and in my DJ set and it will get the bodies moving. I love her.”
Mulatu Astake - “Tezeta (Nostalgia)”
I’ll put on an Ethiopian jazz playlist when I’m getting ready or when I’m just looking for a chill vibe. This has really interesting instruments played in a really soulful way, it feels African, it feels like home, but it’s also kind of American jazz-sounding.