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By Cosmas Omegoh
NonyKingz is a Nigerian-Icelandic singer, who relocated to Europe not long ago. He is a musician, expressing his emotions and extending the frontiers of motherland sound, Afrobeat, to the western world.
Coming after the release of the official visual for Banye and collaboration with Deejay J. Masta, he opens up on his plans for the year. Enjoy it.
How would you describe your kind of music?
I am an Afrobeat artiste, but Afrobeat as a music genre is not of one type. There are many categories of music styles under Afrobeat, but what I can say about my type of music is that I am an unbelievably, unpredictable kind of artiste because you can’t place me on a particular category. Rather, my music is best described as a taste for every mood or emotion. My music is not based on a particular style or made for one particular set of people or mood, but it is a big ship that carries everyone along. I put out music that connects every aspect of emotion or people, all of it. That’s why you can’t tell what my next release will be like.
When did you realise you could sing?
I can’t say this is a particular moment or time that I realised I could sing, but I will rather say I started realising I could sing, and not just only sing, but I also started discovering my ability to create musically. The first time I got connected with music was at an early age of my life – about seven, eight or nine years old. And how I got connected was through melodies. As a kid back in the day, I didn’t listen or understand the lyrics of many songs, but the melodies stuck with me forever. From there, I used those music melodies to create my lyrics in other to sing. And that’s how it all started.
While growing up, did you have musical influences?
While growing up, I had a lot of musical influences; a lot because music has been part of what had kept me going, even without me knowing it as a kid. I have always loved music, especially that kind of music that comes with a lot of sweet melodies. I love melodies, and in my music today you will notice that I can’t do anything that doesn’t involve melody. As a child even till date, music has always been something that helps me remember a particular time or moment; it doesn’t matter how long ago. I can always remember each moment with music I have listened to or played at a particular time, with emotions that came with those moments. So, music has a very deep influence on my life.
As a songwriter and singer, how do you draw inspiration?
As a songwriter and music composer, my inspiration comes from everything such as emotions, experiences and sometimes imagination. I know many won’t understand the word, ‘imaginary’. But that explains what makes my music highly spiritual, because every other person sings from experiences or what they know that had happened to someone. But ‘imaginary’ is slightly kind of different because I put myself in an imaginary situation or mood that doesn’t exist, but yet the emotions that come with that particular mood feels real. This might be too much for many to understand but it is what it is. And some of my crafts are inspired by imaginary scenarios.
How would you describe the Nigerian music scene?
Nigerian music is gradually becoming a global sound. It’s not just Nigerian music, but also African music. Nigeria has played a huge part in taking African sound to where it is now, and all accolades go to the legendary Fela Kuti, down to other musicians that have got our music this far, both the old and new skool. In deed, Nigerian music is unique, it speaks better than words; it’s a sound of culture, a sound of Africa.
What are the challenges you face as a budding singer?
My challenges are very huge, but I never let those challenges break me; rather they motivate me to put more work into my career. First of all, I was born in Nigeria, and I’m also an Iceland citizen. I moved to Iceland in 2016 from the Philippines where I was studying. Iceland is a small country (an island) with a population of a little over 300,000, which is really small. But my first challenge started at the same time when I came into the game newly and started my career professionally. Then I found out that Afrobeat didn’t exist in Iceland, which was kind of weird because every other part of Europe knows Afrobeat, because African music is global. So, why is the case of Iceland different? That’s a question I kept asking myself until I conducted an investigation into that by meeting different African people who had tried pushing African music here but were not successful because of lack of support from the industry. I was even at a time advised not to push through with Afrobeat but rather hip pop and all of the American style of music, which I did for a time and didn’t find much fulfillment in it. The reason was because within me, I knew I could jump on any kind of music style, but I can’t keep up with what doesn’t define who I am. So, I decided to go back to doing Afrobeat, and trust me, it wasn’t going well. That’s where depression and all sort of things I never could imagine myself passing through started. I was able to keep doing my thing without giving up due to my passion for music, and today those efforts I put in thinking I wasn’t getting anywhere brought me to be recognised as one and only Afrobeat musician in Iceland, on a professional level. And many people got to know about Afrobeat and who I am now; but at the end of the day, I can’t do it all by myself. Now, I need the help of Nigerian media, promoters and so on. I have done it alone to come this far, but I think it’s time our industry recognises what I am doing for the culture, and help me out with their support so that we can all take Afrobeat to the next level.
