Say What?

Two Man Ting is a Bristol-based duo who have been plugging away at the festival circuit. Jon Lewis and Jah-Man Aggrey play guitar and percussion respectively, but sound more like a small combo due to their clever use of tape loops and no small amount of enthusiastic musicality and inventiveness. At their best they perform a mix of palm wine, highlife and semi-acoustic reggae styles. Singing in English and Krio (Sierra Leone's lingua franca), they mix profound lyrics with some lighter-hearted ditties and lively dance tracks.

Occasionally their material seems a little trivial and lightweight, but I imagine that in the sunshine of a festival they pitch their song choices just right in order to give the public a smile and something to think about. On ‘Ask Me’, for example, Aggrey ponders why people only ask him about the war when they discover that he comes from Sierra Leone. And they must be the only group to successfully tackle Abdullah Ibrahim's ‘The Mountain/African Marketplace’ and The Clash's ‘Guns of Brixton’ in the same performance.