INTERVIEW: Obongjayar – "Collaboration ups your game"

Written for Boiler Room [2/4/19]

The Nigerian-raised, UK-based artist's spoken-word polemics are bringing a modern, energy-filled twist to the Afrobeat sound.

“That could get very boring, very quickly,” Obongjayar says of the one-man, one-machine live set-up. “I've always wanted to play with a band. I was never really into the live element of stuff when it's just you and a backing track,” he tells me. “If you're playing a lot of shows and you're doing the same thing over and over, there's no room for improvisation.”

Those familiar with the Kingston-based, Nigerian artist’s early material – 2016’s Home and the four-track Bassey EP which followed a year later – will attest to a fragmentary, downtempo hip-hop style that felt like they could only ever be performed by him alone. Despite those sketches of sound, Obongjayar’s vocals tied everything together; preacher-like poems on divinity, art, and death that were often wedded to a nocturnal tone.

But the last 18 months have seen Obongjayar, real name Steven Umoh, move forward with a different energy; the kind that warrants a live band. If the zesty rumba hooks and polyrhythms of “Endless” felt like the sore thumb on his Bassey EP, Obongjayar’s current music has become all the more distinct from his early material. Last year’s “Never Change” was the kind of lively, kaleidoscopic Afrobeat born of Fela Kuti but stamped with Obongjayar’s distinct, coarse vocals. In 2019, Obongjayar’s new single “Frens” (which he performs for the second installment of Boiler Room ENERGY) is a dizzying roots music cacophony.

"Collaboration makes you want to up your game."

Did Obongjayar make a conscious decision to switch things up? “It's a progression of my knowledge of music and where I want to take things in terms of the experimentation of joining these worlds together – from Nigeria and from here – and putting in the electronic and the percussive side.”

Part of this development came from him working on Richard Russell’s Everything Is Recorded project. In 2018, he joined artists including Sampha, Ibeyi and Kamasi Washington to collaborate on the XL honcho’s Mercury Music Prize-nominated album. This came after Obongjayar first worked with Russell on the producer’s debut EP, Close But Not Quite, back in 2017.

“It was a beautiful time, man, and it was something I learned a lot from – just being around those guys, seeing how they worked,” he recalls. “At that stage in my life I was still making rap-type beats. I'd go on Soundcloud, get a beat, and rap on it.” For Obongjayar, working on Everything Is Recorded was “more like a family thing, there were jam sessions. It was great.”

"We live in an upbeat time. We live in an upbeat city, so I think the music is reflective of that"

Collaboration instilled a new spirit in Obongjayar, who admits it “makes you want to up your game.”

“I think those moments bring out the best in you,” he says. “And I think it's wanting to have more energy for your songs. Because times are changing. We live in an upbeat time. We live in an upbeat city, so I think the music is reflective of that, in a way. I just want to make faster stuff: music you can dance to. That's the direction I'm kind of heading in.”

Obongjayar speaks with a London-inflected accent that he attributes to his chameleon character. Growing up in Nigeria on a steady diet of Lil Wayne and Kanye West bootleg CDs meant he initially rapped with a US twang. “Nigeria was going through this phase where it was trying to be America, [everyone] was dressing up like Americans, singing or rapping like Americans. So I kind of got sucked into that,” he explains.

It was Obongjayar’s move to the UK aged 17 to be reunited with his mother that brought about significant change. She’d left Nigeria for London a decade earlier to escape Obongjayar’s abusive father, leaving him to be raised by his grandmother. “When I first moved to London, I was like, 'Okay, cool, I'm in London now. I'm going to do that accent.’ I've kind of put myself in this mindset where it's difficult to switch, though my accent isn't quite British.”

"The DJs were playing funk or Afrobeat from the '80s, electronic music from the ‘90s. And to be introduced to these sounds at that time was…. just like an orgasm."

Studying at university in Norwich is where Obongjayar found his true voice. “I met people there who were DJs and I was going to parties with really good music where it wasn't just thud thud thud,” he laments of the clubs frequented by the “Be At One” crowd.

“I felt like [Norwich] was where I belonged. The DJs were playing funk or Afrobeat from the '80s, electronic music from the ‘90s. And to be introduced to these sounds at that time was…. just like an orgasm, man. It was fucking crazy.”

With his own Norwich club night and local gigs showcasing his beats and rhymes, Obongjayar came to realise that he was “making excuses” for his American rap stylings. “I realised I had something that not a lot of people had: a foundation, a background in a culture that was completely mine. I had this uniqueness to me and I was trying to change it up to do something else – trying to be cool. But that wasn't being cool because you're just lying to yourself.” Embracing his Nigerian roots duly followed.

Obongjayar is reticent to describe the music that accompanies his spoken-word stories but he says fellow Nigerian acts Fela Kuti, King Sunny Adé, and Aṣa have helped shaped it. Talking Heads, Liquid Liquid and Radiohead are also key influences. “I have an idea of what my music is,” he says, “but then you put the music out and it doesn't belong to you anymore. Almost instantly, people are interpreting it how they interpret it.”

So with nearly a decade spent on English soil, where does Obongjayar see himself now? Would he ever want to move back to Nigeria? “It’s not the plan for now,” he says. “It's incredible here. It affords you so much opportunity.”

Obongjayar recognises his time in Nigeria represents “the most important years of my life were spent in Nigeria,” but he feels living in the UK affords him much more creative freedom. “The things I've been able to do now, I probably wouldn't have been able to do there.”

Returning home at the end of last year made Obongjayar feel “really angry” about the state of society. “People are really suffering there. It's fucked – everything is terrible,” he says. “It just makes me want to, at some point, go back and be a teacher or go into politics... something. That’s my goal.”

For now though his primary focus is on music and playing more gigs. Obongjayar’s debut headline show at Peckham's Bussey Building this month is his first proper live performance outside of featured guest slots. “It's going to be very different to the standard show in terms of design and the production.” How so? “Well, you’ll have to buy a ticket to find out…,” he replies with a chuckle.