Billboard is expanding its Rookie of the Month interview series by highlighting rising stars from more genres like dance and rock. But the new crop of artists emerging out of the African continent have continued making it clearer that their music can exist beyond the borders of “Afrobeats” and should not be broadly and lackadaisically labeled as such. “It has African intonations in it,” Tems said of her genre-bending music during her Women in Music interview last year.
Like Tems, many African artists have discovered one-of-a-kind ways to express themselves that cannot fit into one box while staying true to their roots. And Billboard is dedicating a spotlight to them through our new African Rookie of the Month series, which we’re kicking off with Odeal for January 2025.
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Odeal hasn’t stuck to one lane during his entire artistic journey. The 25-year-old artist was born in Germany and raised in Spain, the U.K. and Nigeria before settling down in the U.K. when he was 17, shortly before he embarked on his solo career. His familiarity with global genres eventually paved the way for his boundary-pushing music – even though he didn’t have the smoothest start.
Some of his older friends in the U.K. realized his propensity for music and encouraged a young Odeal (real name Hillary Dennis Udanoh) to make an original song at a studio in one of the youth clubs. He spent one evening after school there recording his first song and returned for a few days before the youth club shut down weeks later. When he moved to Awka, the capital of the Anambra State, Nigeria, at 14, Odeal’s father connected him to his cousin who always hung out at a studio. “I’d literally sit and watch everyone come in and record because I wasn’t making their type of music. I was more into R&B. And they were like, ‘R&B doesn’t work over here,’” he tells Billboard. “I was watching different artists to see how they record, the way they pronounce things, the beats, their choice of melodies. By the end of the summer, I learned what moves people and what doesn’t.”
While attending boarding school, he downloaded FruityLoops onto one of the laptops in the IT suite and snuck the laptop back to his dorm room so he could make beats while everyone was asleep. After a student snitched and the laptop was confiscated, Odeal’s “production journey kind of ended there,” he says. His cousin later advised him to spend time in Lagos so he could connect with producers and record music, where Odeal thought he’d have yet another shot at making it.
“I didn’t break in Lagos,” he recalls with a chuckle. “That was just like a dream.” At 17, he returned to London and witnessed the rise of Afroswing, an amalgamation of Afrobeats, dancehall and hip-hop created by the Afro-Caribbean diaspora in the U.K. Odeal immersed himself in the scene by joining a group called TMG, featuring other members Curtis J and Zilla, before they disbanded soon after.
Odeal embarked on his solo career in 2017 with the release of his debut EP New Time, but just a few months later, he became severely ill and spent the majority of November in the hospital. “If I get out of here, I need to make sure that I make an impact as much as I can and give back to my fans so that I can leave a legacy,” he remembers telling himself. Every November since then, Odeal has intentionally increased his musical output, from new singles to even OVMBR-branded EPs (2020’s Roses, 2021’s Hits No Mrs and 2022’s Maybe I’m Best Alone). In a similar vein to Drake’s OVO (October’s Very Own), Odeal’s OVMBR – which stands for “Our Variances Make Us Bold and Relentless” – doesn’t just represent the artist’s brand but has evolved into a movement that honors the individuality of his fanbase and even includes live events in Lagos, London, Berlin and Paris.
He heated things up last summer with Sunday at Zuri’s, a sultry, smooth four-song EP that represents a Sunday well spent at a woman named Zuri Awela’s beach house in Lagos. The scintillating highlight “Soh-Soh” became the project’s breakout hit, scoring A-list co-signs from SZA, Ciara and Victoria Monét, earning a song of the year nomination at the 2025 MOBO Awards and reaching No. 12 on U.S. Afrobeats Songs and No. 33 on Rhythmic Airplay. Last November, Odeal continued his OVMBR tradition by releasing the critically acclaimed EP Lustropolis, a heart-wrenching expedition about strained love affairs that features the Aaliyah-interpolating single “Temptress” and “You’re Stuck” collaboration with Summer Walker.
Billboard spoke with January’s African Rookie of the Month about making certain types of music for specific seasons, going viral with “Soh-Soh,” signing with LVRN and linking up with his labelmate Summer Walker on “You’re Stuck.”
How did your international upbringing impact the music you listen to and the music you make?
It made me understand different cultures and languages that people speak all over the world. It made me understand why other cultures like one style of music over another. So when making my music, I know exactly what to do and how to execute in a way that will resonate with certain people and the elements needed for it.
How many languages do you speak? And how many languages do you typically sing in?
To be fair, I’ve sang in French before, but I don’t speak French like that. I’ve sang in Spanish before, but I don’t speak Spanish as well as I used to. I used to speak it fluently, and then as I grew up, it fizzled away. I’m still trying to get [German and Spanish] back because I really want to connect with my fans in their own language. Stuff just hits different when you speak a certain language — the banter is different, the whole feeling is different.
Who were some of your favorite artists whom you grew up listening to?
Outside of Africa: Michael Jackson, Céline Dion, Brandy, 2Pac, Biggie. Inside of Africa, Wizkid, Davido, 2Face, Olamide, P-Square, Mi Casa. When I was growing up around the ages of 14-15, we used to listen to [urban music channels] Trace Urban and Soundcity when I was in Nigeria, and we listened to a lot of South African music like Uhuru.
And what kind of music do you listen to now?
I listen to anything that feeds my soul. At the moment, I’ve been listening to a lot of Afro-house, amapiano, R&B.
What kind of sounds and styles does your music encompass?
Afro-fusion, alté and R&B.
A few days after you released Lustropolis, you tweeted “the duality of man” and described Sunday at Zuri’s as “Afrofusion/Alte” and Lustropolis as “R&B/Soul.” Were you consciously thinking about genre when you were making both projects?
It’s definitely intentional. I normally make music seasonally. You need a theme song for your winter, and that’s what I feel like soul and R&B is for, when you’re inside and you’re in your feels. It’s more introspective. And for the summer, I’ll do Afro-fusion or Afrobeats or whatever experimental project for that season.
As someone who is as multidisciplinary as you in their approach to music, has it been difficult to find producers to help bring your unique sound to life? When I first interviewed Tems last year, she told me a major reason why she produces a lot of her own music is because she had a hard time being in studio sessions with other producers who just kept making Afrobeats. I’m curious if you had a similar experience.
Yeah 100%. The main reason why I started making music was because I wanted to hear something out there that was catered to me. Not being able to find something out there that fully embodied what I wanted, I had to start producing. But from making the music I have made, I’ve been able to meet a lot of incredible producers who are on the same page and want to experiment and explore and are ready for me to take the lead on where the sound should go.
Do you feel like it’s becoming more acceptable/more the norm for artists with Nigerian backgrounds to make music outside of Afrobeats?
Yes, 100%. Shoutout to everyone who’s been able to break out of that stigma that Nigerian artists should only make Afrobeats, or African artists should only make Afrobeats. We’re definitely capable of so much more and shouldn’t be boxed in.
Take me back through the making of both projects, starting with Sunday at Zuri’s.
I needed a summer tape. I was working on a project prior to when I went over to Nigeria. A week before I left Nigeria, I scrapped the summer project, everything I encountered while being in Lagos around April, May last year led to the creation of Sunday at Zuri’s.
On X, you wrote that Sunday at Zuri’s was influenced by Zuri Awela. Who is she, and how do you know her?
We’re calling her Zuri Awela, but she is someone that I spent time with in Lagos. I got to understand her background more of being South African and going to the beach houses in Lagos and having a good time. Having to leave Lagos and come back to the U.K., there was a certain feeling I had of having to detach from that situation. I made a story about that.
Was there one specific beach house you were spending time at, or were there multiple?
There were different beach houses. One’s called Ilashe Beach House, there’s another one called Koko Beach.
Out of the four songs on Sunday at Zuri’s, why do you think “Soh-Soh” resonated the most?
The chorus is provocative, it gets you moving, singing. It’s a catchy chorus, but then the second verse is very R&B-esque. There’s something about it, from the melodies and everything, that really resonated with people.
Prior to the success of “Soh-Soh,” when was the first time you remember a song going viral?
“Vicious Cycle (Policeman)” in 2019. I was in uni at the time. I’d wake up in the morning and record at the same time when people would be going to lectures. I started making the beat to “Vicious Cycle,” and then my boy came up and was like, “Yo, this is sounding crazy.” I laid the verse, it must’ve been before 12pm. I was done by 1, and then immediately, I posted a video of it on social media and it went off. Loads of people posting like, “Yo, when’s this dropping?” That was a moment.
Now take me back through the making of Lustropolis. How long did it take you to make it?
One or two of the songs were started earlier on in the year, and then the rest of them were made within a week or two.
You tweeted “Zuri’s absence paved the way to Lustropolis.” Can you expand on that? How are your two latest projects connected?
There are two different feelings: When you’re happy in summer, you’re a completely different person than who you are in the winter and not in the best place. Being with Zuri in Lagos, I felt like it was paradise. And then leaving that situation and coming back to the U.K., and it being winter and I’m about to head on tour and go to all these places, it was kind of dark. Maneuvering through that dark space and uncertainty and living on the edge was Lustropolis. I personified that mind frame. It led me to a place where I was acting off impulse, off something not going right in the previous situation and being in this place of self-destruct mode.
How did you and Summer Walker come together on “You’re Stuck”?
Her A&R and my A&R were in talks of having her on the record. They played it for her, and she loved it, she really wanted to be part of it. She brought her own perspective to it. I don’t really have many female features on my records, so it was really dope.
And then to link up with her in L.A. to do the video was another thing. She was really cool, down to earth. We went to the studio while I was out there, just working on a couple of things.
You’ve independently released your music through OVMBR, but you signed your first label deal with Warner Records UK in 2020. What was that adjustment like, from working on music on your own terms to working with a team?
It was more approvals. When you’re working independently, you can literally wake up in the morning, make a song and drop it tomorrow, which built most of the beginning of my career. But getting with a label, it was more like, “OK, you can’t just do that.” You’re working with a whole business now, and there’s an investment. You can’t be as spontaneous. That was the only difficulty. But apart from that, it was good because I understand now the importance of planning and preparation. If you want to operate on a global level and really scale, there’s certain things that you need to do.
How did you get acquainted with LVRN, and why was signing with them the right decision?
They reached out over a period of time. I really love their whole team structure. Just like OVMBR, it’s a bunch of friends who’ve become family and they really care about quality, have their own story. It was deeper than one company over another company. We share similar values, and they were really huge fans of the music, which is what I always want people to lead with outside of everything else.
I saw you were in the studio with Kaytranada recently.
That was crazy. In terms of production, he’s a huge inspiration. Getting in a session with him and really connecting over the music and sharing our taste, that was another thing.
Can we expect new music from you two anytime soon?
I’m not saying anything as of now, but hopefully. [Laughs.]
JayO posted some pictures of you two in Cape Town, and people in the comments were saying they need the joint project. Is that something you two have seriously discussed?
We actually do speak about it. We’re like, “OK, if we were to put out a project, that would be dope.” We don’t schedule sessions together. We’re really good friends. We’ll be chilling and music is made, or we’re on holiday and we end up making something together. We like to live life and then see how it pours into the music.
Who would you love to collaborate with this year?
I’d say Tems, Billie Eilish, Rema, Wiz.
What’s been the biggest “pinch me” moment of your career so far?
There were two moments, and they both happened the same day. I was at the British Fashion Awards, and Issa Rae was like, “There he is.” I was literally watching Insecure the day before. And she was like, “I absolutely love your music.” She really loves how I’ve been blending genres, which told me she was really listening. It wasn’t just one song. I told her I’m a huge fan of her. And then literally moments later, Wiz was like, “Yo, I love your music.” I was like, “Bro, this is actually insane.” Those were two moments that were like, “There’s no way this is happening right now.”
