Nayo, African Girl

It doesn't bode well, the fact that the amazon.co.uk customers who have ordered African Girl also bought the Leona Lewis album. But their easy-listening similarity stops where their personalities begin. Lagos-born Nayo Abidoye is a soignée chanteuse who has mastered the art of the sidelong glance and the come-hither purr, making her debut record just the thing for Sunday-morning hangovers. Be warned, though, that there's little evident African influence, other than on the a cappella 1+1, which enumerates the wrongs endured by Nigeria ("Let's talk about injustice, let's talk about imperialism," she sings, going out on a limb for the only time on an album otherwise devoted to brooding about chaps with names like Mr So & So). It's Nayo's stints in America and Britain that have truly shaped her music. But that is no bad thing, if you're after songs that take up at the cocktail-noir point where Sade's Smooth Operator left off.