During the Groove Chorus Concert at the Forge Warehouse in Sheffield earlier this year, Jeremiah Abiola looks out at the audience beaming with smiles in front of him. He waves his hands before reciprocating with a smile. Abiola, sporting blue jeans bottom and top with a white turtleneck sweatshirt, excites the happy crowd with his dulcet voice.
The warehouse is awash with muted blue light and white LED ropes that give a calm, romantic appeal. But the event isn’t meant for a seedy club; neither is it a church service. It somehow blurs the line between both, because the Groove Chorus are known for reintroducing classic songs back to the audience’s memory.
The Groove Chorus, standing behind Abiola, sings the song’s chorus. It’s about emotional strength, self-respect, and letting go of a painful relationship, after years of suffering and hoping things would change for the better.
Abiola continues immediately after the Groove Chorus stops. Singing the second verse, he addresses a toxic lover who “feels misunderstood”. But now things have changed; he is tired of enduring his toxicity. “On being used, I could write the book,” He sings, his voice almost choking with emotion. “But you don’t wanna hear about it / ‘Cause I’ve been losing sleep,” he adds, to show his partner’s disdain for taking responsibility for his bad behaviour.
The song Abiola performs is “Strong Enough”, originally sung by the American singer Cher. It was part of her awesome disco-esque, auto-tuned-driven 1998 multi-platinum 22nd studio album, Believe. Abiola’s rendition of the classic hit dance-pop song throws listeners right back into the dance music revolution of the 80s, complete with rising synths and well-chosen horn blasts from the instrumentalists, as well as stratospheric vocals by the Groove Chorus.
Abiola’s rendition is well-accepted by the audience. As the camera pans around the warehouse, one can see them singing at the top of their voices, vigorously dancing and waving their hands. Some are even screaming to show how much they enjoy the performance. Based on the age of the audience, one can guess that Abiola’s rendition reminds them of when they were younger and, perhaps, life was simpler.
Taking the song from the second verse, instead of the first, deprived the performance of the narrative build-up in the original song. The audience is thrown straight into the resentment without giving them the prior knowledge of what led to it.
Beyond swapping the narrator’s gender, Abiola offers no fresh interpretative angle on the perpetually female-centric song. He plays it note by note, relying on his vocal delivery to dictate the difference, but not reimagining the arrangement or phrasing. Even the voice he relies on to create a difference falters, cracking as he attempts a higher note and momentarily breaks the emotional spell he begins with.
Abiola’s performance of Cher’s hit song is faithful and technically assured, making the audience excited. But it’s hard to separate how much of the crowd’s engagement is for Abiola himself and how much is for the song’s own history. Nostalgia, perhaps, plays a huge role in their acceptance of Abiola’s rendition.
