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As crazy as Blaqbonez is, nothing prepared me for the visuals for his new single, Back in Uni. From recreating Asake’s grills and signature blink in the Bandana video to Wizkid’s Bad to You floral cover art, no one was safe from Blaqbonez in this video.
Check out all the artists Blaqbonez referenced in the music video for Back in Uni.
Oxlade in his Colors Studios Ku Lo Sa video
Are you really doing the #KuLosaChallenge if you don’t have a green screen and a sleeveless leather jacket? Blaqbonez has raised the bar and I can’t help but stan.
Asake in Fireboy DML’s Bandana music video
There’s a high chance Asake never saw this coming.
Ruger’s sexy Snapchat video
From the pink hair to the eye patch and lipstick stains on his singlet, it’s safe to say Blaqbonez nailed his recreation of Ruger’s Snapchat music video look.
Burna Boy’s Dazed magazine cover
If Burna Boy and Blaqbonez approve of trousers like this, who are we to say no? Maybe it’s time to call my tailor.
Ayra Starr’s swimming pool and blonde wig from the Rush promo video
The only thing missing from this look is Ayra Starr’s bayangs. But still, I’ll give my guy, Blaqbonez a strong B for effort.
RECOMMENDED: Ayra Starr Is Just Getting Started
Wizkid’s Bad To Me cover art
Even Wizkid that doesn’t like stress chop stray bullet? Blaqbonez is a menace and it’s giving me life!
Ruger vs BNXN beef
The part of the video where he asks fake Ruger and BNXN to share their video vixens is funny and petty AF!
Carter Efe’s powder look
Let’s hope this video doesn’t get removed from YouTube the way Carter Efe’s Machala disappeared that time like a thief in the night.
Portable’s writing process
God abeg o! Who go help o?
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“A Week In The Life” is a weekly Zikoko series that explores the working-class struggles of Nigerians. It captures the very spirit of what it means to hustle in Nigeria and puts you in the shoes of the subject for a week.
The subject of today’s A Week In The Life is Blaq Bonez. A fast-rising musician. He explains the challenges that come with promoting his music, the struggle of being an artiste, and the miracle of the internet.
MONDAY:
Today, the first thing I do when I wake up is promote my song. I go online, retweet, and ask people to listen to my song. There is no routine as a musician so that means I don’t have a fixed time to wake up or do many things. I may have a show at the beginning of a week and not have another one till the end of the week. It’s just vibes.
What counts as my “9-5” is creating videos on Tik Tok asking people to listen to my latest single. People keep asking me how I make the videos but I don’t have a fixed process. My brain just takes information and processes it in the background. When I’m ready to create a video, it stitches them together and boom. Sometimes, I feel pressured when making videos because people on the internet have come to expect a certain standard from me. No matter what, I make sure to always give it my best.
In these Corona times, social media is everything because there isn’t a lot of offline promotion that can be done right now. The bulk of traffic used to come from people listening to the radio in their car, but that’s not possible right now seeing as everything is on pause. That’s why I am going hard on social media.
I don’t remember doing anything before this music thing. Even when I had doubts; releasing projects and not getting any airplay, I still stuck with it. At some point I asked myself if I was going round in circles. That maybe I needed to relax, watch stuff, and calm down. I even released a project then with a song titled God where I was basically talking about the struggles and everything. Those events made me doubt if I had chosen the right career path.
So, now that my music is getting airplay, I have to double down on promoting it to an even wider audience. That’s why I take this promotion thing as a full time job.
Pre-Corona, after a full day of work, I would relax by playing Fifa or something. Now, I am bored of constantly playing it.
These days, all I want to do is sleep.
TUESDAY:
In recent times, M.I, Don Jazzy, Mr. Eazi, and Burna Boy are some of the people who have given me cool signs and vibed to my music. It feels good to see people who are up there listening to my music.
Sometimes, the burden of the creative is that no matter how much you love what you are doing or what you create, you still doubt that you’ve created a good product. Self-doubt. So, seeing them vibe to my music is kind of reassuring that I made a good song and that I need to go harder on the promotion.
When people ask me how I handle the backlash from people who think I am doing too much, I tell them that I don’t dwell on negative comments. I never respond to them. I used to be in this rap battle group years ago where the job of your opponent was to make you angry by saying things that would upset you. That was training for me. Going through people constantly trying to bring me down gave me tough skin. Anytime I see something negative, I just zoom off.
I have also realised that no matter what it is, people will talk. Sometimes, I am on the internet and somebody will call the things I rate trash. For example, with everything Messi and Ronaldo have done, some people think that they are terrible footballers just because they are one side or the other of the argument. No matter what, there are always people that feel one kind of way about something. When you realize that, you will not give them any energy.
Today, I am going to spend my time creating more content to push my music. The people that will like it will like it.
WEDNESDAY:
As I am promoting my music I am also wary. The more popular you become, the more is expected of you. Sometimes, people don’t realise that you are a normal human being like everyone else. Everybody expects some kind of Iron man composure. They always believe that you are a superior human being. Like you are not allowed to be a normal person, it’s weird. You get criticized for doing stuff any normal person would get away with. For example, if someone insults Davido and he replies, people will criticize him. People expect him to unlook. Everyone forgets that he’s a human being with feelings too.
No one attacks a normal guy when he responds to someone insulting him. But when someone that is big does it, it’s a problem. So, you can’t be like everyone else.
I have built my brand around being myself at all times. So, even with any backlash, I am still myself. Artistes are supposed to have pride and be larger than life but I am not doing any of that. I am just myself all the time. Nobody has moved the way I am moving and I think that’s helping with my song promotion.
I have no plans on what to do for the rest of today. I’ll push the music as usual and go with the flow for the remaining part of the day.
THURSDAY:
Today, I am thinking about the fact that I have been at home for so long that I no longer remember what I used to do pre-lockdown. I sha know I used to go out. I am sort of an introvert so I used to go for only music-related things; shows and concerts.
My most memorable concert still happens to be in OAU. I was at one event and I forgot my lyrics so I just stood there. There were like 5,000 people and I couldn’t remember my lyrics and in that moment I was just lost. They were looking at me until I was ushered off the stage. That single moment still drives me till today. It makes me constantly rehearse my lyrics before I go for any show.
I still get stage fright.
I am not at the point where I am sure that no matter where I perform the fans will know the music. It’s scary if you go on stage to perform and there’s no response. It’s not something you look forward to. It always helps your confidence on stage when the crowd knows your music. This is why the hustle never stops.
I plan to record new music in my home studio today. At least, something to remind me of good times before this whole thing started.
FRIDAY:
I have never really cared about money or anything. I mean obviously, we need money for our daily needs. But, I don’t sit down and think about cars and money and houses. My brain is not wired like that. I think of global domination. How can I take my music to Billboard? I just need money to sort out my everyday bills while I figure that part out. So, it’s not because of money I am doing this rap thing.
I earn enough to help the people that I fuck with. My family, my friends, and those around me. It’s important that people who actually know me feel my presence. I am not one of those artistes that give away money to random people on the internet. I only give money to the people I fuck with and that’s why my circle is small.
Money giveaways attract a kind of audience that isn’t real. In my opinion, they will only engage when there is money.
The good thing is that Nigeria is not as bad as abroad. In the hip hop world there, if you don’t have a dope chain you are regarded as a nonsense artist. That’s why you’ll see someone with a good chain and someone will still be attacking them, asking what kind of chain is that.
In Nigeria, if you live a fast life, you are just doing yourself. If you think about it, as much as the media tries everything, no one has seen the cars that Wizkid drives. No one has seen videos of the kind of house Wizkid lives in.
There’s no pressure from Nigerians to look like you have 50 billion. Anyone that is doing it here is doing it because they think it will help them promote their music. The truth is that Nigerians don’t care that much. Which is one thing that I appreciate in this country.
So, if you are doing fast life, you are just doing yourself.
I don’t have a car. It’s not like anyone wakes up trying to attack me. Nobody cares about it. If you have it and you want to show it off, kudos to you.
The only thing I am interested in showing off are my numbers. I am very critical about them. My goal is to always outdo the numbers I did the year before and thankfully, my recent promotion strategy is paying off.
Today, my song moved up the charts by fifteen spots. That in itself is worth more than anything. Today is a good day.
SATURDAY:
The only thing on my mind today is:
Nothing more.
SUNDAY:
The most common misconception about being an artiste is that people think that we are never broke. Maybe it’s because of the videos people see on TV or something. They assume that there’s always a large sum of money in the bank at any given time. They don’t know that popular people also run out of money.
Anytime I am broke, people don’t believe me. I have literally had people tell me I was lying when I told them I was broke. I don’t allow it to bother me, I live my own truth.
It’s not even in this period where there are no shows to perform that I will be pretending to be what I am not.
I am just waiting for all this to be over. Let the virus leave us, let’s return back to our normal lives – my whole life is literally the same routine of wake up, sleep, promote music.
It gets tiring.
I want to go out; I miss performances. I want to perform.
Check back every Tuesday by 9 am for more “A Week In The Life ” goodness, and if you would like to be featured or you know anyone who fits the profile, don’t hesitate to reach out. Reach out to me: hassan@bigcabal.com if you want to be featured on this series.
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There’s so much music out there that it’s hard for even the most loyal fans to stay up with their favourite artists or what’s new and hot right now. That’s why we’ve created #BumpThis – a daily series that features the one song you need to listen to, every day. Don’t say we never did anything for you.
On the final bars of “#BRIA”, Blaqbonez sounds an offer out to a who’s who of Nigerian rappers. ‘Payper Corleone, stop tiptoeing and come get it/ Ladipoe hit me up
whenever, this how I’m feeling/ Fresh L bruh you cool but whenever you want this smoke/ Pick an Alte gathering and then I’ll let it fucking blow,’ he raps. He goes on to send shots at Boogey, Psycho YP, Ycee and Paybac. Such blatant invitations to spar are a rarity in Nigerian hip-hop nowadays, more so for a rapper who’s relatively new to most fans. But Blaqbonez isn’t new; and for fans who are familiar with his battle-rap days, this is simply true to form.
“Best Rapper In Africa” was released as an inevitable response to the backlash and diss songs that followed his declaration of being Africa’s best rapper. Such boss talk is common in hip-hop, but Blaqbonez did it different. He made the claim in a well-promoted freestyle video and has treated it as an album rollout, goading everyone with his funny use of social media.
The beat, produced by rapper Alpha Ojini, is at once menacing and whimsical, a perfect compliment as Blaqbonez takes shots at rapper Tentik (who dissed Blaqbonez with “Blaq Friday”) and just about anyone in his line of sight. His delivery is playful at times, but the punches land hard. Lines like “career’s still underground like a building collapsed” are bound to cause some deep introspection for whoever owns the sub.
Blaqbonez has been accused of disrespecting the OGs (he’s called out Show Dem Camp’s Ghost as well) and of stirring up bad blood as a vehicle for self-promotion, much like his mentor, M.I Abaga did with 2017’s “You Rappers Should Fix Up Your Lives”. One could respond to that by saying hip-hop has always been a blood sport. The best make their names by putting their words where their clout is, and so far, Blaq isn’t doing wrong.
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It was midway through 2017 when a colleague at the time first observed, rather loudly, that no artist had really broken out that year. The factors by which artists are adjudged to have had their breakout vary from the sheer number of hits to impact.
2015 gave us Woju and Kizz Daniel. 2016 will be remembered as the year Afropop decided to catch its breath and go midtempo. It happened thanks to highlife melodies of Tekno and Mr Eazi.
In both cases, entries for the year’s best rookie had essentially closed during the short calm before the storm of the holiday season or summer, according to the international event calendar. This was primarily because summer is the best time for new music to convert fresh ears and travel with them.
So far, 2019 has been generous. The year started off when a 2018 release off a compilation album began to creep to the top of charts everywhere. Soon after, a young Surulere singer began to build a reputation as a hook master reminiscent of a younger Wande Coal. Then a certain four-track EP dropped and launched a teenager from the ancient city of Benin into the B-list.
As summer 2019 approaches, more curators have become willing to hand 2019 to certain newbies on a platter. The question though is this; among the many upstarts who have diversified the Nigerian sound and spread its reaches in the last 6 months, who has done enough to hold the rest of the year down?
I asked a couple of colleagues in music management, journalism, curation, A&R and one superfan. What they think may or may not surprise you.
Ehis Ohunyun, former music writer at Nigerian music blog, Filter Free and editor at Pulse Nigeria thinks there are a few contenders. “I easily think of Joeboy and Fireboy but it’s really hard to look beyond Rema for now. I see him in some ways as Lil Nas X.” he says.
“Unlike the others, he is the only one that truly has a power label behind his art. Mr Eazi’s still undecided about what to do with Empawa so Joeboy is getting decent streaming numbers but I don’t think he is connecting with the mainstream in terms of conversations.”
“Fireboy is dope, but
talent is never enough and Olamide is unbothered really. Rema is that kid that a combination of social media plus the alte disruption of the last few months and our warming attitudes towards new music is gradually vaulting into becoming the kid superstar you can’t hate on. I may have missed out some names but off the top of my head, Rema is 2019’s breakout star so far.“When he puts it like this, you can’t argue with Ehis. Joeboy’s Baby is arguably the song of the moment and thanks to the digital machine at Empawa, the song is a streaming darling with almost 10 million streams across all platforms. Yet, there is a sense that Empawa has no concrete long term plans for beneficiaries of its fund.
Fears that artists like Joeboy may be left to fend for their own on their next releases are warranted, although we have reason Joeboy will be fine regardless. Fireboy’s talent is housed in a platform that has a sorry reputation for mismanaging artists. Rema, however, is in the most perfect situation of all three, and it shows. “Dumebi” is one of the songs of the year, international media swears by him and the fans are in agreement.
Simi Badiru, a pop culture connoisseur and co-host of the F&S podcast, agrees.
“It’s between Blaqbonez, Rema or Fireboy.” she says.”But I think Rema because he has had the biggest roll-out and support behind him. Ultimately,
na money and label kill everything. If the other two were in labels that took them more seriously or carried their matter on their head more, then things could be different. Rema is my pick, largely because of the backing he has”“His push has been too strong and nobody is topping that right now, that is, unless someone else comes along. Right now, Rema has cut across all age levels and regions. There’s no generation of listeners that’s not familiar with Rema. Even my mum bumps his stuff“
What stands out the most about Simi’s submission is that Rema has cut across all generations. While his style is primarily for the young, his music, from songs like Dumebi to Spiderman, has something for every listener. The same could be said of Fireboy’s “Jealous”; but when you have two EPs with enough music for everyone, the odds tend to swing in your favour.
Emmanuel Ilori, or
Mani to you mortals, is a filmmaker, superfan and commentator on all things Nigerian music. From where he stands, Rema is the only objective pick.“For an artist who broke out in late March, he’s doing numbers that are very huge in this
clime. ” he says.“He’s dropped 2 projects in 4 months! Both are doing the numbers, and are even going mainstream. Also, there are credible sources reporting that international music business execs want the boy’s signature badly. His sound respects no borders.“
Tomisin Akins, my personal favourite custodian of the Alte sub-culture, a former staffer at UMG Nigeria and the brains behind pop culture platform, Lucid Lemons, puts the fourth stamp on the kid from Benin.
“In the first half of the year, Rema has shown his versatility, his chart-topping ability, and that he can establish a real fan base that reflects a considerable percentage of Nigeria’s youth population. Rema ranks 1st, then Santi. They represent their own sound, style, lifestyle and marketing. It’s refreshing; finally, artists who actually realize to be successful, you need more than the sound. You need packaging and a fan base willing to elevate you and they’ve got it.“
What more need I say? Actually, someone else says it for me. Rema may have the team and the hits. But like we learned in the infamous Sean Tizzle v. Burna Boy conversation in 2013, fan love may eventually trump early mega hits and commercial success. Let Nauteeq Bello, a music commentator who’s contributed to FilterFree, tell it.
“Rema has
a willing management and he knows how to do the music thing. There’s anx factor he has that a lot of his contemporaries don’t have.” ButNauteeq doesn’t hand it all to Rema, “I think Fireboy and Joeboy too can mount a strong challenge. But seeing as Fireboy’s people are more focused on pushing him organically, it may slow down his charge.““Fireboy also seems to have the “pull” effect. Fans actively seek out his music and they want to know “who’s that guy?“
There’s data to back it up. “About four weeks ago, many people showed interest in Fireboy: on Google, he was one of the most searched for guys in entertainment. Number one sef.”
Nauteeq says. “So, all this love he’s receiving might eventually come to work really good for him. He’s a good bet.““It’s hard not to give him. But with the way people want Fireboy offers a stronger potential than the push Rema is getting.“
It’s not quite often that so many people are united in their approval of a rookie and his methods, especially in a fickle and unstructured Nigerian music space. Remarriages, on the other hand, is ticking all the boxes as Debola Abimbolu, music writer at millennial culture platform, Native Mag says.
“2019 is such an interesting year because we’re seeing so many different artists pushing for mainstream acclaim with their different unique styles and sounds. But I’d have to give it to Rema cause he’s so edgy and yet so accessible.”
“He dropped two tapes this year that have both found and hit their target audience.” Debola says, “One for the streets and one for the kids. If that’s not breakout artist strategy then I don’t know what one has to do to break out.“
Here’s what everyone seems to think. Rema is in front by a country mile. The Mavin machinery, fueled by investor dollars, is behind him. A year of intense artist development has helped him hone his edge in a way that peers like Joeboy and Fireboy will have to learn through experience. Joeboy has the potential to become a serial hitmaker; he has a great sense of rhythm. Fireboy has such organic fan love that it’s impossible to count him out too.
There are a few others that come to mind; Blaqbonez showed up on most radars last year but he’s only begun to really register this year with the re-up to his debut studio album, “Bad Boy Blaq”. Oxlade has had a great run too – his “Shugar” and Causing Trouble” w/ DJ Tunez
are strong dance hits. But in his case, it would appear he’s taking a more organic approach to his push – making strategic collaborations, doing live performances and building a cult following. So far, it’s working for him but the climax can’t come soon enough. Remy boy takes the nod.The odds are firmly stacked in Rema’s favour. But with Fireboy’s alluring personality and Joeboy’s ear and numbers, the race feels fairly open for a few last-minute surprises.
