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Eric Prydz is bringing his lauded HOLO show to New York City, with three performances happening Nov. 22, 24 and 25 at a yet-to-be-announced warehouse location in Brooklyn. Happening the days prior to and after Thanksgiving, each of these shows will offer a different musical performance. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See […]
Before their 1995 debut album Exit Planet Dust made them stars, The Chemical Brothers demonstrated why they were worth paying attention to with a knockout Essential Mix for BBC Radio.
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Hosted by Pete Tong and originally aired in March of 1995 — two years into the existence of the still ongoing Essential Mix series — the two-hour mix aired months before the album’s June release and now serves as a document of the rave sound then taking over the Brothers’ native U.K. and beyond.
Chemical Brothers fans can revisit this moment in dance history with the mix, which has been made available by BBC Sounds for the next month and a half.
An amalgamation of acid house, breaks, funk, hip-hop and ’90s dance classics, the mix features tracks by Craig Mack & The Notorious B.I.G., Bobby J, Beastie Boys, Josh Wink, The Beatles and, of course, The Chemical Brothers themselves. This mix marked the first of myriad times the pair delivered a Essential Mix for the series.
This re-release comes in conjunction with the Brothers’ latest album For That Beautiful Feeling, their tenth studio LP released September 8 via Republic Records. In an interview with Billboard about the album, the pair — Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons — discussed their new work, the state of the world, touring and their legacy, with Rowlands noting that “Our friendship is at the heart of it. That’s the thing that has enabled us.”
“Without being too trite, there’s a chemistry between us,” added Simons. “We’ve just grown up together. We know what makes each other tick, what makes each other upset… We like each other, it’s as simple as that.”
The Chemical Brothers will release a career retrospective book, Paused In Cosmic Reflection, on October 26.
Listen to The Chemical Brothers’ Essential Mix here.
This week in dance music: Kah-Lo wrote about the sometimes rocky path that led to the release of her debut album, Calvin Harris got hitched, we spoke with Peggy Gou about her viral hit “It Goes Like (Nanana),” Alesso signed with CAA, Gou signed with WME, on the 10-year anniversary of Avicii’s True we talked to the label exec who signed the album, and Splash House shared nine hours worth of sets from its August editions.
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The week marks some big releases as well. These are the best new dance tracks of the week.
RL Grime, Play
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The Label: Sable Valley
The Spiel: RL Grime returns with a mic drop of a new project, his third LP PLAY. His first album since 2019, PLAY is actually made up of three mini-albums: APEX, GRID and RUSH. Each contains seven tracks highlighting different sound styles, with APEX delivering the same peak-time body-pummeling bass we’ve known and loved the producer (born Henry Steinway) for since the Void days; GRID being comprised largely of slick, smart collabs with artists including 070 Shake and Baauer; and RUSH delving into more experimental “headphones” music that demonstrate the producer’s efficacy with what is for him a newer type of sound. RL Grime will tour the album starting in October, with 17 dates across the U.S. and Canada.
The Artist Says: “Currently sitting in a park reflecting on the last few years and wanted to get some random thoughts down,” the producer wrote this week on Instagram. “From feeling completely stuck and sitting at home with no drive to make music whatsoever, to where we are today, hours away from releasing my third album is something I’m still trying to wrap my head around. It’s hard not to get caught up in the relentless and ever impending content/virality race of the current music industry .. for a long time it weighed down on my creativity and ultimately pushed me away from engaging at all with social media. thankfully this album process set me on a trajectory to regain my confidence not only as a producer but more importantly as a person…want to extended an eternal thank you to everyone involved in this project.”
The Vibe: Three to choose from
TSHA, Ellie Goulding & Gregory Porter, “Somebody”
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The Label: Ninja Tune
The Spiel: TSHA checks in with a somber but resolute, and also resonant, collab with Ellie Goulding and Grammy-winning soul singer Gregory Porter. Over the London producer’s shuffling, tinny beat, Goulding references post-pandemic anxieties in singing “Feelin’ older than my years/ But ain’t it so when you’ve been staying home?” with her genuinely contemplative-sounding delivery juxtaposed with Porter’s earnest plea that “I really need somebody.”
The Artist Says: “The idea for this collaboration was sparked by Ellie sliding into my DM’s last year to reach out about a session. I of course jumped at the opportunity in a heartbeat – she’s someone that I’ve admired and respected for a long time, so to have the opportunity to work together was a complete no brainer for me. It’s been an absolute pleasure working together on ‘Somebody’, Ellie’s a real sweetheart and I’m so pleased with how the track has come together. The icing on the cake is the vocals that Gregory Porter has added, which for me really elevate the track and add another dimension to the music. Having a living legend like Gregory featuring on my music is a huge milestone moment for me.“
The Vibe: Lonely and pretty
Camelphat, Spiritual Milk
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The Label: When Stars Align
The Spiel: The Liverpool duo, Dave Whelan and Mike Di Scala, have always been adept at making music that’s simultaneously deep, complex and pristinely produced, and that fingerprint is all over their sophomore album, Spiritual Milk. Out via the pair’s own When Stars Align label, the 16-track LP features loads of guests, including Kölsch, Delilah Montague, Shimza, Jake Bugg, London Grammar and Anyma, who all bring different moods to an album that nonetheless feels cohesive and fundamentally Camelphat.
The Artists Say: “We’ve felt a lot less pressure delivering this record possibly due to the fact it’s on our label, but also we’re at a point in our career where we can possibly afford to be more expressive and less fearful about what other people think,” the duo say in a joint statement. “It has definitely come from the heart and feels honest both as writers and musicians. We’ve had fun with it, we’ve made music less with the dance floor in mind and more with our emotions. The whole thing came together surprisingly very easily.”
The Vibe: Raw, whole and yes, in moments kind of creamy
Diplo & Walker & Royce Feat. Channel Tres, “Diamond Therapy”
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The Label: Higher Ground
The Spiel: “See me as a ticket to foreign lands, I’m the pathway,” Channel Tres beckons on “Diamond Therapy,” three minutes of pure uncut tech house from Diplo and Walker & Royce. Together, the production trio lay a thumping, sometimes spare foundation for Tres to deliver lyrics about “diamond therapy, carat clarity” in his signature purr, with the hypnotic build leading to a crescendo of thick synth.
The Vibe: An actual gem
Chris Lake & Aluna, “More Baby”
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The Label: Astralwerks/Black Book Records
The Spiel: We know Chris Lake and Aluna work well together, with their recently released “Beggin’” currently sitting at No. 11 on Dance Mix Show/Airplay. Today, the duo double down with “More Baby,” which Lake previewed during his massive b2b set with FISHER at Coachella this past April, and on which Aluna repeats the titular demand over a bouncy, elastic track co-produced by her, Lake and the duo Parisi, known for their work with Swedish House Mafia, Fred Again… and Black Eyed Peas.
The Vibe: Yes please, more please
Most 10-year-olds don’t get poolside bacchanals for their birthday, but Splash House celebrated a decade of music, revelry and pool floaties with a pair of back-to-back bashes last month in Palm Springs, California, for their decade celebration. Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news The poolside dance/electronic festival hosted […]
Peggy Gou has expanded her WME representation and is now globally represented by the agency. Based in Berlin, Gou’s 2023 tour schedule has included EDC Mexico, Sónar Barcelona, KappaFuturFestival, Lollapalooza Stockholm, Electric Castle, Creamfields North and ARC Music Festival. Upcoming plays include Australia’s Beyond The Valley and Wildlands festivals. She’s also played events including Primavera, […]
Per Sundin had seen the future.
Then the President of Universal Music Nordic, Sundin was invited to Ibiza to see Swedish House Mafia play their 2008 residency at Pacha.
“It was like, ‘When are they going on stage? Half past two? In the morning? Oh my god,’” recalls Sundin, who at this time was not yet fully steeped in dance music’s late-night culture. At Pacha he ventured onto the dancefloor amidst a massive crowd “fist-pumping towards the DJ booth.” It was then he knew: “This is the future of pop.”
Back in Stockholm, Sundin looked around for his own dance act to sign, eventually connecting with a young Swedish producer then going by Tim Berg, along with the artist’s manager, Ash Pournouri. Sundin signed the artist’s 2010 debut single, “Seek Bromance.” The label and the producer, who was by then going by Avicii, followed that with 2012’s “Fade Into Darkness” — and then, of course, the era-defining global phenomenon that was “Levels.”
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But the biggest success was yet to come.
Avicii’s debut album, True, came out on September 13, 2013. By its release date, it was already soaring on the wings of its lead single “Wake Me Up,” the first-ever country/EDM hybrid to cross over to top 40, which as of today has 1.18 billion official on-demand U.S. streams, according to Luminate. The song reached No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 in October of 2013, marking what would be the highest-charting song of Avicii’s career, and his only top 10 hit. It also spent 26 weeks at No. 1 on the Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart, and this past June, became the RIAA’s highest certified dance song.
Dance music purists may have hated the track — when “Wake Me Up” was mentioned at a business lunch in 2013, one dance music publicist put her finger in her mouth and pretended to vomit — but anyone with ears had to admit it was catchy. True was also a phenomenon: With it, Avicii bucked the trend of EDM artists only releasing singles, instead presenting a cohesive body of work that bore surprising country/bluegrass influences, which were at first misunderstood, but ultimately distinguished him as an innovator and world class creative.
The album currently has two billion total on-demand official U.S. streams, according to Luminate. It reached No. 5 on the Billboard 200 in October of 2013 and spent eight weeks at No. 1 on Top Dance/Electronic Albums. Today (Sept. 13) marks the ten-year anniversary of True, which will be celebrated with never-before-released footage of the album’s production, released on the Avicii social media accounts over the next month.
Sundin — now the CEO of Pophouse, which purchased 75% of Avicii’s recording and publishing catalog in 2022 — here recalls the album’s origins to Billboard, along with the excitement for it within Universal, and how an unlicensed Soundcloud mix helped shift hatred for the LP into global acclaim.
Tell me about the earliest phases of the album.
[“Levels”] really moved my career internationally and inside Universal. At that time when I came into [the dance world], everyone did instrumentals beats, and then they tested that on the audience. If the audience liked it, they called in a topliner or vocalist to write the lyrics, and tried different verses and different topliners.
But Tim was like, ‘I want to be an artist. I don’t want to do one song instrumentals and this [testing] process. I want to do an album.” I said “You know, this is dance music. You don’t do albums.”
But he told me that they were already working on it — so I went to Tim’s studio, which was just a five minutes walk from Universal’s Stockholm office — and they played me me “Wake Me Up.” This was in February of 2013.
What did you think when you heard it?
I tried to hold back, because if I say, “It’s fantastic,” then Ash would increase the price for the advance, so I had to hold back everything. I was like, “Yeah, this could work.”
That was the only song they played me. I went back to the office and I called my superiors — because this was above my pay grade, because he asked for a lot of millions for this album — and talked about it. We did so well with “Levels,” and that really was a breakthrough for us, for me and for Universal Music Sweden, because that really ignited interest around the world for EDM music. So when this album was in place, we went all in on it and just did everything we could [for it].
So you first hear “Wake Me Up” in February, and then a month later the album is being debuted at Ultra Music Festival in Miami. Famously, that show bombed. What was it was like being there?
I invited people from all over the world to Ultra Music Festival. There, Avicii decided together with his management to premiere the album — with the original songwriters and topliners he worked with on the album.
So he first played an approximately 45-minutes set of a traditional Avicii concert. Then, for the audience it was like a changeover, like a new act coming on. The DJ booth was moved to the right of the stage, and then came a guy who started singing “Wake Me Up.” For me, it was obvious, because I love the track. But for the audience, it was a disaster. They hated it.
Then Dan Tyminski did “Hey Brother,” and no one understood. They wanted traditional Avicii songs with big drops, and to just able to dance in their party mode, if I say so. So online it was terrible, like, “Rest in peace Avicii’s career.” It was really, really tough for him. He was devastated. He was like, “Am I wrong? Have I done something bad?” He just really didn’t understand the reactions.
What was that moment like for you?
I remember Andrew Kronfeld, who still is the Executive Vice President of Universal Music, was standing there with me and said, “Don’t worry, this is a fantastic album. It was fantastic yesterday, it will be fantastic tomorrow.”
Did the marketing plan for True change at all, after what happened at Ultra?
Yes. What happened was that… we knew the music was great, but we couldn’t release it, because “Wake Me Up” was supposed to be out in mid-June. We couldn’t play anything until that. Then Ash said, “Maybe we can do a remix of it and put it out on SoundCloud.” And I said, “You can’t do that, because that’s not legal.”
Ash said, “But maybe if I do it…” And I was like, “I’m not involved in this, but yes, do it. Just put the mix together.” Avicii remixed all 10 songs from the album and put a mix on SoundCloud. You can still find it there. It’s a fantastic. The reactions in the comments comments — everyone was like, “This is really good.” “Why did people say this was bad? This is fantastic.” I have goosebumps talking about it again, because it was like, “Oh my god, this is really happening.”
That must’ve been exciting.
It created a hype on SoundCloud. Ash could do it, but we [at Universal] couldn’t, because it was licensed to us. [At that time] they didn’t have a deal for for releasing music on SoundCloud that was under contract. So that’s why I was reluctant to do it. If it went wrong … we couldn’t really handle it. But again, I said, “OK, do it.” And they did.
That’s how it took off. That’s how the other conversation changed from being brutally tough and hateful to love for this True album.
Was it always obvious that “Wake Me Up” would be the lead single?
Yes, it was obvious. It wasn’t even a discussion. “Hey Brother” is a little bit too country, so that wasn’t it. “Addicted To You” was one that was discussed. In hindsight, you can always say, “This is what we believed in the whole time.” And, you know, sometimes you lie about it to sound smart. But in this case, it was, “This is the single,” and it was from the beginning.
I was going to ask if this album felt like a business risk within Universal, given the country influences, but it sounds like there was a lot of goodwill around it.
Yeah. Everyone that heard it said, “This is going to be sensational,” because there were so many singles on it. We could work for a long, long time on it… We believed then at Universal Music that EDM was the new big wave. And it was, with Swedish House Mafia and Tiësto and David Guetta and Calvin Harris. It was just, bang.
Was there anything you’d have wanted to change about the album?
One sad thing is that my favorite song on the album was “Heart on My Sleeve” with Imagine Dragons. The interesting thing is that Ash, and I think this is quite clever, didn’t want to have any features on the on the album. Every other EDM artist had “featuring whoever” on the on the songs. Everyone did at this time.
But Ash decided no one could be featured — because if someone like Imagine Dragons gets featured, then it’s going to be “Imagine Dragons featuring Avicii.” If you take all that away, then it’s just an Avicii song, and Avicii is the artist. So when radio station played the song, it’s Avicii.
So that was a negotiation with Imagine Dragons. And [the band] said, “If we don’t get our full credits, you’re not going to get us on the album.” That’s why the song was taken off and why [that track] is an instrumental on the album. It was ready to go. It was recorded.
Then when we did the [posthumous] Tim album, we contacted Imagine Dragons and said, “You will get credit; we really want you to be part of this.”
Was there a feeling of anticipation within Universal around the album of like, “Wait until they hear this”?
Yes. That’s why it was such a crazy feeling when we were at Ultra. I had drink tables paid for. I was spending a lot of money to have everyone from Universal there: marketing directors, managing directors. I played the music the day before the festival, and they loved it.
So it was a shock, because we believed this was going to be so good, and everyone that heard it said it was fantastic … Maybe it was badly presented from stage, so people didn’t understand. It was not communicated that this is what they were going to do … It was a combination of people wanting to party to hit songs they’d heard before and not good presenting from stage. There could have been a voiceover with someone saying, “And now ladies and gentlemen, you’re going to hear the new album from Avicii.” And that wasn’t done. Was I shocked about it? Yes, I was.
So you’re in the VIP section at Ultra with bottle service and all the business people — what’s the mood?
You question yourself. “Am I totally getting this wrong?” “Am I reading in the wrong way?”
I’d always considered that moment for Tim and everybody on stage, but I hadn’t considered your perspective.
No one cares about the record execs. [Laughs.] But it was worse for Tim, of course. He was devastated. He went to his parents, I think it was in Los Angeles, and [his father] Klas told me that he was just shocked.
But it all turns itself around rather quickly, and obviously the album becomes a massive hit. At what point do you start celebrating?
Everywhere in the world, you heard “Wake Me Up” on the radio, but you never celebrate. That’s the crazy thing about being in the music business — you can celebrate when you give an artist a plaque or whatever it is, but then you’re already onto “OK, what’s next?”
Do you think Tim felt that pressure of “what’s next?”
I never talked to him about exactly that. But he was just — he was a very, very good igniter when it came to creating music. When he unfortunately died too early, if you look at sketches, demos and songs on his hard drive, he was close to 100 [projects]. He loved to study, loved to work with other people.
When he when he landed in Oman [editors note: Avicii died by suicide in Muscat, Oman on April 20, 2018], we had a conference call and talked about the music. He was so in a positive mode. “This is what we’re going to do, and please book a studio in [Kenya]; I want to work with people there, and then I want to go to New Hampshire, then l want to go to London.” He just wanted just to have studio time, he loved to be in the studio and do his thing. So yeah, so he was looking forward.
10 years on, what do you think True‘s legacy is?
It’s hard for me to say. Billboard did a thing about the 100 biggest moments of EDM, and the number one was Tim’s career. I just…I get emotional because it’s… [a pause while he tears up, then collects himself], because what we accomplished during this short period of time, it’s just unbelievable.
CAA has signed Alesso, the agency tells Billboard. Alesso was previously represented by UTA, who will continue to represent him in the European Union, with CAA repping him in all other territories. The Swedish producer has been a marquee name in the global dance/electronic scene since breaking out amidst the EDM boom of the early […]
The scene will be immediately familiar to anyone who has attended a music festival: a DJ riling up a crowd, playing a hit but ratcheting up the anticipation by toying with the melody before the drums charge to the rescue. Only this time, the hit hadn’t come out yet — the South Korean producer Peggy Gou was teasing an unreleased single titled “(It Goes Like) Nanana.”
Attendees at the Lost Nomads festival outside of Marrakesh hardly seemed to mind; a TikTok video capturing Gou’s set shows listeners throwing their hands in the air with abandon. One onlooker, standing behind the DJ’s right shoulder, removes the cigarette hanging unlit from his lips to unleash a hoot just as the percussion hits.
That sunset TikTok clip helped kickstart a viral chain of events that has turned “(It Goes Like) Nanana” into Gou’s mainstream breakthrough. The single is her first to scale the Billboard charts, climbing inside the top 40 on the Global 200, and it’s earned 24.5 million on-demand streams in the U.S. since its release, according to Luminate. For a time it was the lead track on Spotify’s flagship playlist Today’s Top Hits, a spot usually taken up by major-label superstars, not dance producers on the independent label XL.
No one is more surprised than Gou. She didn’t have TikTok when “(It Goes Like) Nanana” started to go like viral; she found out about that success from her friends. She also doesn’t watch the charts. “I really did not expect this reaction,” Gou says. “My song was never on a chart before. In the beginning I wasn’t sure what [charting] meant exactly.”
But the excursion into new commercial territory is welcome — a relief, in fact. After her rubbery 2019 single “Starry Night” became popular on dancefloors, Gou felt pressured to top it. “Sometimes pressure is a good thing,” she says. “It always kind of pushes me.”
“(It Goes Like) Nanana” was born during the pandemic, while Gou was binging dance music and hip-hop from the 1990s. The simplicity of the house music she absorbed from that decade stood out: “A lot of the hooks are repetitive, but it’s still catchy, you don’t get bored.” She cites SNAP!’s chugging hit “Rhythm Is a Dancer” and the German producer ATB as touchstones.
Musical train-spotters on TikTok have thrown out a handful of other references in video comments: Kylie Minogue! (Presumably because she knows her way around a “la-la-la,” which isn’t too far from a “na-na-na.”) “I Like To Move It”! (Maybe in the progression of the bass line?) A Touch of Class’s “Around the World;” Gala’s “Freed From Desire” — take a fistful of Ultimate Dance Party CDs from the second half of the ’90s, throw them in a blender, and you might get something along the lines of “(It Goes Like) Nanana.”
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Gou’s biggest tracks to date — “Starry Night” and “It Makes You Forget (Itgehane)” — are sung predominantly in Korean. But when she tried that approach on “(It Goes Like) Nanana,” “it didn’t really work,” so she ended up singing it all in English instead. Gou also subbed in an entirely new bass line at the last minute before she started playing it out at festivals like Lost Nomads.
Badr Bounailat, who shot the popular video of Gou near Marrakesh on June 3rd and posted it June 5th, has two theories about why it amassed over 7 million views. First, he says, “I’m a photographer, and that’s a good frame.” (The top comment on his post: “Can we talk about that zoom quality ouffff.”) Second: “People were in it, they were responding well to the song.”
The scenic locale may have helped as well. Harmony Soleil, music director for KNHC, a dance radio station in Seattle, was excited to find the video of Gou in her feed. “I’m a tiny bit obsessed with her, in a not weird way,” Soleil jokes. “She’s always in amazing places. What do you mean, you’re in Morocco and you’re in Spain and you’re in Japan?” (Soleil has been playing Gou on KNHC, jumping at the chance “to support an artist who hasn’t had a lot of U.S. radio airplay otherwise.”)
Thanks to all the online attention, by the time “(It Goes Like) Nanana” was officially released on June 15th, Gou felt like the track “was already out.” She was quickly inundated with requests from DJs — from “EDM to jungle to soul to hardcore techno” — asking for stems to make their own remixes.
The biggest re-work has come from Ian Asher, a DJ and producer with a large following who has a knack for making mash-ups that drive TikTokers wild. Asher, who calls “Starry Night” “a classic,” decided to fuse Gou’s single with CamelPhat’s “Cola,” a skipping but hard-nosed dance track that became an international hit in 2017. “What I love about it is that you have two party songs,” Asher explains, “but one is very bright and summery, and the other is like you’re going into a nightclub.”
His mash-up from July went bananas on both TikTok and Instagram, appearing in more than 780,000 user created videos. The “Cola x Nanana” meld is not officially available, which in practice means there are bootleg versions on Spotify, YouTube, and SoundCloud as of this week. “It keeps getting taken down, but people keep re-finding it and uploading it on every platform,” Asher notes. “It’s a whole mini-drama.” (It gets taken down because the remix is technically unauthorized; Gou only gave stems to the German DJ-producer Boys Noize.)
The social media fervor around “(It Goes Like) Nanana” in its various forms propelled the track out of the world of independent-label dance music. “I first became aware of Peggy about three years ago on more of an underground level,” says Jonathan Geronimo, vp of electronic/dance programming for SiriusXM. He found out about “(It Goes Like) Nanana” from his colleagues overseeing TikTok Radio, saw that it was “exploding globally,” and put it into rotation a few days after its official release. SiriusXM has played the track more than 700 times since, and Geronimo believes it has “a shot” to make the jump over to pop radio, “especially with the format really keeping a close eye on what’s happening on TikTok.”
Gou’s single hit the Global 200 in July and has since climbed to No. 33, giving her a strong tailwind as she finalizes her full-length debut, due out early in 2024. The album also draws on her recent dive into ’90s sounds. Once again, though, she is feeling the need to top herself. “I don’t think there’s any track on my album that’s as catchy as ‘Nanana,’” Gou says. “The second single that’s coming out is very different — close to pop.”
That said, predicting audience reactions is notoriously difficult — she didn’t know that millions of listeners would find “(It Goes Like) Nanana” so bewitching. Still, the pressure remains. “My mindset is always: I can do better,” Gou adds. “I can do better.”
Calvin Harris is a married man. The producer tied the knot with radio host Vick Hope on Saturday (Sept. 9), according to People. The couple, who has been engaged since last year, held their reception in a tent on the grounds of Hulne Priory, Alnwick, Northumberland, while the ceremony took place outside, according to the […]
Nigerian dance artist Kah-Lo released her debut album, Pain/Pleasure, on Sept. 8 via Epic Records. Here, she writes about the long journey that brought her to this achievement.
I always knew I would become a musician, before I even knew how to spell the word. I always wrote poetry and other bits, but didn’t start making music until I met a bunch of like-minded friends in secondary school in the mid-noughties.
Prior to meeting these friends – most of them rappers and boys – a lot of my dreams of becoming a musician seemed so wildly far-fetched that at 13, my teachers and classmates once sat me down and, out of genuine concern, tried to talk me out of chasing these dreams.
Growing up in Nigeria at the time, telling most people you wanted to make music for a living was like telling them you wanted to toss your life in the trash. Telling them you wanted to make globally accepted music was even worse. To be a successful musician – one who made a lucrative living, was so beyond anyone’s imagination, you started to sound crazier the older you got.
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It was a dream that was never validated until I met those friends. We wanted to make music Nigerians had never even thought to make, and we wanted it to be so good it would be heard, respected, and measured on the same plane as the musicians we idolized.
We started to see what could be possible when a label called Storm Records launched with a slew of rappers, musicians and producers fusing Nigerian instruments and slang with Western patterns and flow in a way we had never heard before. They had Naeto C and Ikechukwu, who came onto the rap scene fresh from New York. They also had Sasha P – a standout female MC who started out with one of the first rap collectives known as the Trybesmen. She came back on the scene with a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it lyrical maturity I’m still decoding to this day.
It started to dawn on me that our dreams were, indeed, valid. These rappers weren’t making Afropop or Afro- anything. They were making rap. But this was 2007, and Afropop itself was barely even scratching the surface, let alone Nigerian artists making Western-adjacent music in Nigerian accents. However, I left Lagos for New York in 2009 — knowing at the very least, it was possible.
I eventually started cultivating a sound and posting my original music to SoundCloud. I started getting messages from DJs asking to use the monotone deadpan talk-rap sections of my reverb heavy alt-R&B over dance music. In that era, dance music was dubstep and Baauer’s “Harlem Shake,” so these requests confused me. How would it even work?
I eventually connected with electronic producer Riton via Twitter, and used what was then my last $20 to head to the studio in Brooklyn to record with him. We made two tracks. One of them was a carefully written alt-R&B number, and the other was “Rinse and Repeat.”
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At his insistence, I used the talk-rap style over a minimalist dance beat he had made. I had never made dance music before – at least not intentionally. I couldn’t fathom how a genre I mostly associated with looped vocals and sample-heavy hits from the early-2000s by the likes of Daft Punk, Fatboy Slim and Groove Armada could possibly command significant attention. The climate of dance music I knew at the time didn’t accommodate such stylings. I cried on the way home and decided to move back home to Lagos since it was clear music wouldn’t work out for me. Who would listen to that?
I was wrong. The song became a global hit.
Over the next few years, I would perform in places I had yet to even dream of. All over Europe, North America opening for Sofi Tukker, touring in Australia and a brief gig in Russia. Albeit incredible, it was also a bit uncomfortable. The bulk of the shows would be lineups full of white male DJs where I’d end up being the only Black person/woman on the stage. Sometimes, it would be entire towns where I seemed to be the only Black person there at all.
Once in a while, we’d do gigs where there would be other insanely talented Black artists in the green rooms – Raye, MNEK and Kelli-Leigh were frequent fixtures. However, I quickly started to notice, we weren’t on the lineups for our own merit. In most cases, we were there because we had collaborated on hit records with the white, male DJs who were booked for these gigs.
I dyed my wigs all sorts of bright colors to make sure I looked extra captivating on camera, because the recap videos and livestreams I asked my friends and family to watch almost always seemed to miss me. I figured perhaps I wasn’t dynamic enough on stage.
I didn’t start attracting my own attention until I debuted an electric green wig in Ibiza in the summer of 2018. I visually became hard to ignore with such a bright color against my dark skin, and that bled into the music and my persona as well. Things started to change, and I started to get booked on my own accord – much to the chagrin of my collaborators.
We – the Black artists who made up the bulk of the vocal prowess that was in dance music – weren’t supposed to be in the limelight. We were supposed to live in the shrouded mystery of samples, topline vocalists or even session musicians. In dance music, the DJ was king. To draw attention to yourself in that way was to overstep, and to even be credited as a primary artist on a record was something you had to fight for, and viewed as a “favor” you were to be grateful for.
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Meanwhile, Nigerian pop music was just starting to be recognized by mainstream media outlets as its own thing. My first few tracks had been referred to as having “Afrobeat elements” – I imagine due to my blended Nigerian accent. I had to constantly reiterate I was making house music, and not Afrohouse.
Regardless, it seemed like the very space I was taking up as an artist was defying odds, and it was wonderful, because it’s all I really ever wanted to prove. Being nominated for the Grammy for best dance recording in 2017, for “Rinse & Repeat,” was one of the best milestones of my career. One of the most respected musical bodies had recognized my art as it was, and not based it off of my cultural background.
I started getting collaboration requests on a larger scale from some of the biggest DJs in the world. Chances to release my own records were few and far between – and when I eventually did, I hardly got much support on the scale my features would.
It wasn’t until my dear friend and DJ/producer, Michael Brun, taught me how to DJ that I fully understood the power of my vocals. The delivery and global citizen feel of it made it a perfect fit for beat-matching, and it was malleable enough to go over any beat style. It started to make sense why – since my days on SoundCloud and even to this day – my a cappellas were always in high demand. It gave me a new perspective, and I began understanding the power of “no,” for instance, when the track wasn’t one I felt was a good fit for me and my brand.
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Understanding that power, and going from a scarcity mindset to one of abundance, opened me up to new opportunities. No longer would I be minimized to support DJs when I bring just as much to the track as they do. Some collaborators were not happy about this, and it led to a lot of friction, naturally so.
I moved back to New York and signed to Epic Records in 2020 at the peak of the global pandemic, and I released my debut EP in the summer of 2021, aptly called The Arrival.
For the first time in my career, I released a body of work that I had creative control over and truly represented me in every facet. It spawned a solo single on the Dance/Mix Show Airplay chart – a feat that was deemed unrealistic for a Nigerian and a Black woman making dance music.
“Drag Me Out,” a one-off single, followed the year after to the same acclaim. It wasn’t a fluke, and I could stand on my own. Black female “vocalists” – who are usually talented singer/songwriters in their own right – can stand on their own. I’m insanely proud of proving people wrong.
My debut album, Pain/Pleasure came out this past Friday, September 8th. The first half of it was written while I was going through a lot of these trials and tribulations, so I explore themes of anger on “fund$,” pain on the title track, and hurt on “Karma.”
The last half of it is a lot more triumphant, because through all of that and against all odds, I did it. I overcame, and there’s a lot to celebrate for it.