About Me ︎
I like to think my passion for music started before I was born.
My parents (a Nigerian dad and South African mom) met while studying in Philadelphia, USA. Four years later, they were already married and with a newborn son. And I think, in that space, that's where it started for me. Two foreigners, away from home and adapting to the culture of their new environment whilst still maintaining an appreciation for their own heritage, and that collision of cultures was expressed through music.
I was in an interview once, and a question that stood to me was,
“What is your greatest personal asset as a creator?”I was in an interview once, and a question that stood to me was,
And as someone who had never thought of that question before, the answer came quickly,
For any artist, in any field, their creativity is just the sum of their references, their ability to understand them and their curiosity to question them.
I grew up in a family that played Western genres of Jazz, Blues, Soul & RnB. I learnt to love the overwhelming and excessive groove/trance of Afrobeat from my dad as part of my heritage. I learnt to love choral voices in my mother’s Zulu hymns and the boisterous composition of South African Jazz. I played drums and through various teachers, I learnt about and joined different bands. One band was with a group of older gearheads who taught me how to stay afloat under the heaving aggression of Heavy Metal. One was a Blink-182 cover band and another was a small trio where we spent most of our practise sessions trying to understand the polyrhythms of Bossa Nova and other Latin music.
Later, I started DJing and throwing parties. Falling in love with the nightlife and the dance music that kept it beating. At the same time, I started producing my own music. Learning about electronic music and testing it out in any club that would have me. It didn’t take long for me to wanna expand my production to a studio environment and I was lucky to find engineers who were willing to share their space and teach me what they knew. Here, while recording rappers and listening to their beats, I started to pull the thread that leads me to discover Hip-Hop.
I grew up in a family that played Western genres of Jazz, Blues, Soul & RnB. I learnt to love the overwhelming and excessive groove/trance of Afrobeat from my dad as part of my heritage. I learnt to love choral voices in my mother’s Zulu hymns and the boisterous composition of South African Jazz. I played drums and through various teachers, I learnt about and joined different bands. One band was with a group of older gearheads who taught me how to stay afloat under the heaving aggression of Heavy Metal. One was a Blink-182 cover band and another was a small trio where we spent most of our practise sessions trying to understand the polyrhythms of Bossa Nova and other Latin music.
Later, I started DJing and throwing parties. Falling in love with the nightlife and the dance music that kept it beating. At the same time, I started producing my own music. Learning about electronic music and testing it out in any club that would have me. It didn’t take long for me to wanna expand my production to a studio environment and I was lucky to find engineers who were willing to share their space and teach me what they knew. Here, while recording rappers and listening to their beats, I started to pull the thread that leads me to discover Hip-Hop.
The only genre that seems to comfortably accommodate every other genre in its ability to express. A few months later I had sold my first hip-hop beats, and, within a year, a director would approach me about editing some of my work for a scene in his short film. By his next film, he would ask me to come in as the composer and luckily in that time I had feasted on the composition works of whoever I could find. Enjoying the melodies of John Williams and the naked minimalism of Philip Glass. And as always learning from them.
Of course I could go on and on and on, but I think these are the events that have truly shaped who I am as an artist in music. Not just creatively in making music, but also technically in assisting others with their music and being a conversating reference library they can explore
It’s only now that I can look back and realize that I’ve been unknowingly training my whole life for what I want to do for the rest of my life.
A chef with a full pantry, able to cook whatever I want.