We Speak Afrobeats
Der Oscar Effekt Returns with His Most Personal Album Yet
Cameroon-born, Germany-based artist Der Oscar Effekt is back and he’s bringing the feels with him. His single “Fool” is the main spark of his most personal project yet, three stone fireside, vol. 1.
If you’ve ever heard his music, you know: Der Oscar Effekt doesn’t just make songs, he builds moods. His sound is a delicious mix of Afrofusion, Makossa, Bikutsi, African folk, and hip-hop, simmered together until it’s pure vibe. It’s music that makes you nod your head and think a little deeper.
What makes him even more inspiring? He’s doing all this while balancing a full-time career as a project manager. His motto — #9to5isnoexcuse — isn’t just a hashtag; it’s a lifestyle. It’s proof that creativity doesn’t wait for perfect timing, it thrives in between deadlines, dinner plans, and dreams.
The album’s name, three stone fireside, comes from a scene that anyone who’s grown up around African family life will recognize — the three-stone fireside, the heart of the home. It’s where stories are told, laughter is loud, food tastes better, and wisdom gets passed down like secret recipes.
For Der Oscar Effekt, that image carries a lifetime of meaning: warmth, belonging, and connection.
“Even though I live far from home, that sense of togetherness never left me”, he says. “This album is my way of translating that energy into sound — intimate, reflective, and communal.”
We Speak Afrobeats
Danny Polo tastes the forbidden fruit with ‘Cruella’
With Cruella, Colombian-Dominican artist Danny Polo turns temptation into liberation. Mixing Jersey Club grit with Afrobeats sensuality, the Capitol Records signee offers a confessional track where holiness meets sin… and the forbidden becomes art.
Colombian-Dominican artist Danny Polo returns with Cruella, his most daring release yet! Layering the pulse of Jersey Club with the sensual rhythm of Afrobeats, this new single feels like both confession and celebration; a track that dances between holiness and sin, seduction and surrender. It’s not Halloween yet but its tolling church bells and ominous synths set a haunting tone that perfectly mirrors the song’s central tension: the magnetic pull of temptation.
“Cruella came from a moment when I wanted to experiment with the forbidden,” Danny shares. “I grew up very religious, and my whole life I had been told what was good and what was bad. I felt the need to try that other side.”
That “other side” became not just a lyrical theme but a creative awakening. Born in New Jersey — the birthplace of Jersey Club — and raised within a deeply spiritual household, Danny has always balanced two worlds. “I wanted the song to sound like a dangerous woman,” he explains, “like that energy that pulls you in and doesn’t let you go.”
Directed by Conner Wilson and shot by Ethan Wilson, the Cruella music video expands on that theme. Both the singer and Ethan grew up in religious communities: Danny in the Seventh-day Adventist Church, Ethan in the Mormon Church. They even served as missionaries. That shared background gave the visuals a deeply personal dimension. “The video reflects my own journey from being a devout Christian to realizing the world outside wasn’t as terrifying as I’d been warned,” Danny says. “Embracing what I’d once been taught to fear proved liberating.”
After a whirlwind year of releases and a growing online buzz — including a signature on Capitol Records US and a recent feature on the popular On The Radar Instagram series — Cruella seems to mark a new chapter for Danny Polo: darker, freer and more vulnerable than ever.
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