Ntjam Rosie

Since the release of the critically acclaimed album ‘Elle’ in 2010, Cameroon-born Ntjam Rosie (1983) has been building a loyal following in the Netherlands and abroad.

In February 2020 her sixth studio album “Family and Friends” was released and again well received. The second single “Sailing Out”, a self-encouraging song to being bolder was picked up by two Brazilian producers, resulting in a catchy dance remix that was released on the renowned Spinnin’ records label. In April 2022 she will be releasing the home recorded solo EP, “Home Cooking” (o-tone music / Edel Kultur). Currently she is also working on “Elle: reworked”, be released within the coming year.

Recently she has been touring theaters in the Netherlands and Belgium with the controversial production “Dear Winnie”, a co-production by the NNT and the Flemish KVS. Previously Ntjam Rosie has toured Dutch theaters with the Artvark Saxophone Quartet (Homelands), was featured in Urban Myth’s “We hadden liefde, we hadden wapens” and in her own theater production “Breaking Beats”.

Ntjam Rosie has played on many stages and jazz festivals in the Netherlands – including the North Sea Jazz Festival – and has toured in over 20 countries. She has appeared numerous times on Dutch national radio and TV programs.

„Rosie’s albums are always an intriguing progression […] this woman is always up to something new and interesting. We can rely on her for that.” ECHOES Magazine, UK

“At once funky, melodic, lyrical and marvellously hypnotic. […] It’s really all very, very good, but amongst the stand-outs are perhaps the featherlight “Eh Eh”, which has echoes of Sade, especially about Rosie’s lead vocal,  and the shuffling neo-soul-jazz pieces “Incomparable” and “Free Your Mind”, where she comes on more Badu-like […]. Frankly, we’re going to list the lot here if we’re not careful. She even finds time to sound like Grace Jones on the lively closer “Never Give Up”.” Echoes, UK

“A brilliant album.” Echoes, UK

“The outstanding soul release of the year” Echoes, UK

Album “Home Cooking”

Since the release of the critically acclaimed album “Elle” in 2010, Ntjam Rosie, born in Cameroon in 1983, has built a loyal fan base in the Netherlands and abroad. For Ntjam Rosie, music was literally everything in her life. But over the years, her partnership and role as a mother made her realise that there is more to life than music. This awareness is apparent on the 2020 album “Family & Friends” – a musical cocktail of soul, pop, jazz, R&B, but with more funk and groovy Afro influences than on her previous album “Breaking Cycles” from 2017.

For her latest album “Home Cooking” (release April 29th 2022 / o-tone music), she drew even more inspiration from her home country Cameroon. The album feels like a homecoming: back to the roots. In the midst of the pandemic, she plucked up the courage, overcame her fear and recorded an album completely alone from her home. And this forced stillness, the pause, gave her inner voice the space to unfold and return back to her roots. Rosie decided to “cook up” a body of work based on the feeling she knows from her home country. “But my heart longs for the life I left behind…” she sings in the song EFAS ME NGA SÓ. It is about the feeling of longing for and the feeling of being at home, legacy, loss and intimacy. It conveys a feeling of warmth and familiar security. The 11 songs go deep: warm harmonies, acoustic sounds, earthy rhythms and melancholic, playful vocal infelctions. Linked by interludes that explain where she comes from. She breaks away from her rather poppy, soul-infused sound of recent albums, and finds herself in a very personal, world-music sound universe.

Ntjam Rosie does not strive for perfection in her music, but for vulnerability. We thus come to enjoy the wonderfully rootsy album inspired by her grandmother’s voice, her family and the deliciousness that is home cooked food, all based on how Rosie feels in her home country of Cameroon. Music is like food, it heals the soul.

Album “Elle (Reworked)”

In the Netherlands Ntjam Rosie is already a star, she has played on various stages and festivals – among others on the North Sea Jazz Festival – she can also often be seen on Dutch radio and television. With her unique live shows she already thrilled the jazz world on tours in 20 different countries. Her last 3 albums were released via o-tone music – in 2018 she started with “Breaking Cycles”, in February 2020 her sixth studio album “Family and Friends” was released, which was again very well received, and in December 2021 the self-recorded solo EP “Home Cooking” followed. Among other things, her authentic style has already earned her one of the coveted spots at the Jazzopen in Stuttgart.

Born in Cameroon in 1983, Ntjam Rosie’s musical career took off with the release of her critically acclaimed second album Elle in 2010, which helped her build a loyal fan base in the Netherlands and abroad. Twelve years later, the album still reflects her idiosyncratic vision of jazz and soul and is a prime example of her signature sound. At the time, she felt she had to prove herself, to be heard and seen. At that point in her career, her main concern was to explore and find new ways, a new sound, new energy.

Since then, she has been able to break away from this way of thinking and enjoys creating a new musical aesthetic in line with the spirit of the times. To this end, she decided to team up with the four young talents of SMANDEM. To reinterpret a selection of Elle songs and bring them into today’s sound world of Soul and RnB with jazz accents. The result is energetic, fresh and sassy. Elle (Reworked) will be released in April 2023, when it can hit clubs in the Netherlands and Germany on its release tour.