Music
Mr Eazi is taking Afrobeats to the world
In advance of his Life Is Eazi festival at London's Roundhouse, the fast-rising Nigerian explains the importance of dancing and why he considers himself curator first, musician second.
Mr Eazi doesn’t just see himself as a pop star – he sees himself as an ambassador.
Born in Nigeria and raised in Ghana, his infectious music – a mix of Nigerian and Ghanaian pop, highlife and dancehall that he calls “Banku” – is making waves across the world. In June he appeared on Simon Cowell’s Grenfell Charity track, Bridge Over Troubled Water. In July, he performed a medley of In The Morning and Leg Over on the Late Late Show with James Cordon. But Eazi – real name Oluwatosin Ajibade – doesn’t just see these moments as personal successes. Rather, it’s a way of spreading African sounds across the world.
Part of this mission reaches fruition on September 23, when he brings his inaugural Life Is Eazi Culture festival to London’s Roundhouse. Bringing together dance and fashion alongside performances from Fuse ODG, Riton, Eugy and a two-hour set from Eazi himself, it’s just the first in a series of events that he’s planning across the globe.
Earlier this year, Eazi relocated to London – specifically, Shoreditch – and we catch up with him at the end of his first ever press day, held in the basement of Red Bull Studios London, to quiz him about his upcoming festival and the spread of of African music across the globe. After a long day of answering journalists’ questions, has he run out of things to say? “Never,” he laughs. “I've always got a lot to say. That gets me in trouble sometimes.”
Your Life Is Eazi festival is bringing the best African culture to London…
London is special to me – it’s the place I decided to do music. After my show in London last year, July 22, that's when I decided to make music my full-time thing. Dance With Me, my collaboration with Eugy was out, and before London I did four or five shows across the UK – Leicester, Liverpool, Coventry. At that time my music wasn't popping in Ghana or Nigeria. It was after the first wave of shows in the UK when everyone back home was like: “You're popping.” All of a sudden, Nigeria and the rest of Africa caught up: “Who’s this guy we don’t know, playing all these shows?” Because of that London is sentimental to me.
With Afrobeats, and African music, there's so much confusion. I go to some places in the world and they say “Here is an Afrobeats record” and they play a dancehall record. The name is everywhere, but it doesn't quite relate.
It means something different wherever you go?
Take an artist like Shatta Wale. He makes Afro dancehall, which is the sound of Ghana right now. He will play a 50,000 capacity venue in Ghana – go to a club and you will hear 20 Shatta Wale records. But you might not see this reflected in the data, on Spotify or Apple Music. So I thought it was important to my fans over here to show everything that makes up Afropop or Afrobeat or whatever you want to call it.
There will be different dance videos, a fashion show, and curated DJ sets to show off African music from the '60s to the present day. I will end by playing some of my popular songs and songs from the mixtape. Ultimately I plan to rotate the festival worldwide. In December something similar is going to be happening in Akkar, Lagos, Abajan. Abajan is going to be a beach thing. Lagos is going to be like a rave.
Mr Eazi
© Press
You call your music “Banku”…
Yes, that’s my word for it – it's like staple food in Ghana, it's a mixture of different elements. But there are different flavours that make up Banku. My music has many elements, from Nigerian highlife to Ghanian pop, and a little bit of dancehall in the way of the delivery. I call it Banku music because it's fusion. It’s my term, but people understand me, because I’ve been saying it so much. LAUGHS.
The Afrobeats sound has been growing in the UK. Have you been listening to a lot of UK artists?
A lot of the music I like is this mix of rap and bashment by people of African decent. I like J Hus and Yxng Bane. But when people call it Afrobeats, or Afro Swing, or AfroWave – that’s funny to me, because to my ears this is UK music.
I'm looking to book an artist like J Hus or Giggs to play a show in Africa
Does this music translate back to Africa?
The truth is, when [African] people hear it, it does sound like foreign music – like a Drake record, or a Popcaan or a DJ Khaled record. The average DJ set in Nigeria will be 90 per cent Nigerian music, then 10 percent from everywhere – other music from Africa, and the rest of the world. And that is where you would hear those records. But because there is a strong diaspora population in Africa who came to the UK – for school for example – there is a lot of cross-pollination. People travel back and forth and play this music for their friends. This is what makes it exciting. For one of my shows in December I'm looking to book an artist like J Hus or Giggs to go back and play a show in Africa. I want to play curator and make a statement like that.
Do you feel like it’s your role, to spread African music around the world?
I never woke up thinking I wanted to be a musician. I was an entrepreneur first. But I found myself in an influential position. In a way I am doing this because I want to be a curator, or a carrier – it's all part of entrepreneurship. At its heart, entrepreneurship is about taking risks, doing things differently or doing things new. And making some profit along the way [LAUGHS]
You played The Late Late Show earlier this year – that’s a big platform…
Playing The Late Late show was a blessing. In March I played the PlayStation Theater in Times Square. The night before I watching YouTube and I saw an Afro reggae artist called Majek Fashek. He was on David Letterman in 1992. I watched it and I thought, this has been erased from history back home. I was messaging my colleagues, do you know about this? And everyone was like, no, no. No-one knew how far Majek took his sound! This was a pre-YouTube age, and it made me wonder: how did this music go from Lagos to David Letterman in 1992?
And it also made me wonder, what happened? Why was there a lapse? Why were there no other artists who were pushing that sound? Anyway, I said to my manager, we need to be on the Late Late Show before the end of the year. I thought it would be December. So to have it come so quickly - in July, just after my birthday! - that was a blessing to me. If I can just say these things and they happen, maybe I should just keep on talking.
Everybody can dance, it's an international language.
When you spoke to Red Bull last year, you said dance was a catalyst.
Dance is like the radio for African music – it’s through dance that the genre has really spread – you’ve got Fuse ODG pushing dance on Azonto, D’Banj on Oliver Twist. Even Dance With Me was marketed on Instagram with short dance videos. A month or two ago, i met a dance company in LA. In the office I saw some Asian kids - one was from Korea, two from Japan. There were there on holiday. I said here is my music, do you think you can dance to this? And so they did some dance videos, and two weeks later I went online and I saw some other Japanese kids dancing to another track on my mixtape.
Now I'm getting emails from Japan, like why don't you come over here and do a show? That shows you how much an influence dance is, in driving the genre. Everybody can dance, it's an international language.
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