Obongjayar Blends Afrobeat, Electro-Pop, and Raw Emotion (A Listening Party)

A recent Rolling Stone headline called Obongjayar “the Afrobeat innovator who can rock a stadium with no fear.” He joins for a Listening Party to talk about Paradise Now, which blends electro-pop with intimate storytelling.

Tiffany Hansen: This is All Of It. I'm Tiffany Hansen in for Alison Stewart, and now, it's time for a listening party.

[MUSIC - Obongjayar: It's Time]

Tiffany: That is the first track from singer Obongjayar, his highly anticipated sophomore album, Paradise Now. Born and raised in Nigeria, he was very into hip hop. That is, until he moved to the UK when he was about 17 years old and developed a strong appreciation for Nigeria's musical heritage. Then, after a string of well-received EPs, he released his critically acclaimed debut, Some Nights I Dream of Doors. That, in 2022. Now, Obongjayar has returned with a new album that features some of his most intimate storytelling, focusing on themes such as self-acceptance, grief, loneliness, and what it means to live in the present.

Pitchfork listed the project as "one of the new 12 albums you should listen to right now." Paradise Now is out now, and singer Obongjayar joins us for a listening party ahead of his concert tonight at the Music Hall of Williamsburg. That happens at eight o’clock. Obongjayar, welcome to All Of It.

Obongjayar: Hello. Hello. Hello. How are you?

Tiffany: I'm good, thanks. Thanks for coming in.

Obongjayar: Thank you for having me, man.

Tiffany: All right, I mentioned Pitchfork, so I'm going to tell you what they said. All right?

Obongjayar: What did they say? Tell me what they said.

Tiffany: Yes, I got you. All right, "Paradise Now is a renewed mission statement from Obongjayar, the Nigerian musician whose hyperactive fusion of Afrobeat, soul, and hip hop has made him a sensation in his adopted hometown of London." What I want to know is, is their description of your music accurate?

Obongjayar: It's accurate to them. I think anyone who listens to the music that's been put out, the music belongs to them, so whatever they decide the music is, is true. It's true for them, what they define it as, and that's fine with me.

Tiffany: What do you define it as?

Obongjayar: I don't. I define it as me and my emotion, my feeling. Do you know what I mean? I think my job as a musician is to have my perspective and put it out into the world.

Tiffany: Did you happen to hear any of our last interview with Meredith Monk?

Obongjayar: No.

Tiffany: She was talking a lot about that genre-defining. She's somebody else who really defied, I would say. Defied genre.

Obongjayar: Right.

Tiffany: What is it about that that is so enticing to an artist?

Obongjayar: I don't think it's a thing. I know I don't do it on purpose. I don't think it's a thing I think about when I go in to make a record.

Tiffany: You don't think, "I'm going to sit here and not be anything, I'm going to be everything"?

Obongjayar: No. I think the beauty of it is, as human beings, our taste is so eclectic, and so we're nuanced. We're nuanced people, right? Our taste and the things that we've experienced, and that experience is across the time that we've been on this earth, as we've picked up so many different things, right? For me, with music, I grew up listening to-- I came up on hip hop and I came up on R&B, and listening to Brandy and Toni Braxton, with my mom playing Beyonce, that was the Destiny's Child and stuff.

Then, growing up, as things progressed, I started listening to a little bit more Afrobeat, rock and roll, funk, getting involved in electronic music, dance music. These things, they tack onto you as time goes on, and me, someone who loves music so much, these things were a huge part of my life. When I make music, subconsciously or without even realizing it, the music that I make is a combination of all of these things, these experiences put together, so when I put it out, it completely just comes out as that.

Tiffany: I get it, right, because all of you shows up?

Obongjayar: Exactly, so the music that I make is a representation of who I am.

Tiffany: Let's talk about the new album. It's called Paradise Now; that wasn't the original title.

Obongjayar: No, it was meant to be called Instant Animal. You've done your research. Love that. [laughs]

Tiffany: Yes. We're going to listen to that track, Instant Animal, in a few minutes. First, tell us about the meaning behind Instant Animal.

Obongjayar: Yes. For me, Instant Animal, I define it in this way. Imagine you're having a dream, and, in this dream, you start to fall. Your body's reaction, immediately, is to wake up because it's survival. Your body can't tell if it's a dream or if it's real life, so that jerk reaction is what you have. It just instantly kicks in without you having to physically do anything, and that's what I meant by Instant Animal.

That, regardless of if your back's against the wall and you've got nothing, nowhere else to go, you're in danger, your reaction to that danger is either you quit, you leave, or you fight. Whether you like it or not, you have to fight, and that was my take from that. That was my response to that, being in that situation where I felt like there was nowhere else to go. Rock bottom. It's like I had to wake up and become myself.

Tiffany: Let's talk about Paradise Now, though, then. Where did that come from?

Obongjayar: Paradise Now, for me, it started off as a phrase that I had. I didn't really know what to use it for. I think, for me, at the time, it meant being present, being content with the present. That was what the phrase was about, but then it became these parties that I throw in London called Paradise Now, where I have my community of friends that come down and play shows. For me, it was more of an excuse to watch my friends play, for me to play sketches I'd be making in the studio, and have my community around.

As that went on, I started to realize that that community and that moment, that celebration that was going on in that space of these things that weren't finished, was almost a representation of enjoying and being present in the moment, rather than waiting for something or having an expectation of this thing, "Okay, when it's finished, I'm going to do this."

It was like, "Okay, this is what we have. This is what we're doing. Let's have a ball," do you know what I mean? That was a beautiful thing to me.

Tiffany: You're okay sharing things that aren't fully baked?

Obongjayar: Absolutely. Absolutely. Now I am. I think there was a point in my life where I wasn't. Everything was so sacred. No, it's not that deep. Nothing is ever that deep. If it's from you, the prototype, the middle of it is the most beautiful thing, because that's where you're figuring it out. You're breaking it down, you're putting it back together. Then, when you get to the end result, the thing that got-- It's a journey. The journey is the most beautiful part. Being present within that journey, you realize when the end has come.

Tiffany: You have these parties, everybody's hanging out and playing music, and you're playing little tidbits of things that you're working on-

Obongjayar: Yes.

Tiffany: -and you're getting feedback.

Obongjayar: The feedback is on the floor. It's on the dance floor. No one's being like, "Oh, my God, these songs are really good, and it's--" It's not about that. It's when you're playing it, you know what feels good to you and what doesn't, what works or what doesn't work. Then you start to-- I realized, during those moments, what I needed to work on, what I need to change. "How does this word or this phrase or this lyric sit with me when I play it live? Does it do exactly what I need it to do? Does it evoke the emotion I need it to evoke?" If it doesn't do that, it's back to the drawing board. It helped me form what the end result became.

Tiffany: Did it become a habit of yours? Are you addicted to that process now?

Obongjayar: No, I don't care. [chuckles] I don't care. It's just a beautiful thing. I think Paradise Now is one of those parties where I'll play to the day I die, because I think it's less about me or the music, it's more about the communion. The gathering of people. We play in this venue called Ormside in Southeast London, the Ormside Projects. It's a 250-capacity venue, and there's no greenroom. There's a smoking area, there's the floor where the performances happen, and then there's the bar area, and that's it.

Everyone's in communion with each other. We're all in the same spaces. There's a smoking area there, and some of my fans are in there smoking, my friends are in there smoking. Everyone's interacting with each other, and then it just makes everything, the whole experience, a lot more human because you get to see the people who support you and who your audience is, and they get to know you beyond this performer figure, because I don't think I'm a performer.

I think I'm an artist. I think there's a difference between a performer or an entertainer and an artist.

Tiffany: You mentioned getting that live feedback for what you're doing. How do you then translate that to something that's going to go on an album?

Obongjayar: You feel it. You know what's wrong when you feel it, what isn't complete. You know what's not complete when you feel it. If you have that feeling, you know what it needs, do you know what I mean? You don't--

Tiffany: When you go into the studio, you can recreate that feeling for yourself?

Obongjayar: Absolutely, because you know what it's lacking, because you can't hear it the same, and you don't hear it the same after the fact because you know something's missing or something needs to be added to it. You can't necessarily manufacture what the solution to that problem is, but I think you have a feeling that it needs something. Then your brain starts to think in that way, and then by the time you get to the studio, you know how to add to it.

Tiffany: We're talking and talking and talking about music. I feel like we should listen to some music. All right, so let's hear--

Obongjayar: [chuckles] Absolutely.

Tiffany: Right? Let's listen to Instant Animal.

[MUSIC - Obongjayar: Instant Animal]

Tiffany: That is Instant Animal, a song from Obongjayar's new album, Paradise Now. Obongjayar, we're going to talk about it in a second. We're just going to take a quick break, but we'll come back to the conversation.

[MUSIC - Interlude]

Tiffany: This is All Of It here on WNYC. I'm Tiffany Hansen in for Allison Stewart, and we are in the middle of a listening party with Obongjayar talking about his highly anticipated sophomore album, Paradise Now. The song we just heard is called Instant Animal. It was to be the title of the album; no such luck. Talk to us about the storytelling that you're doing in this song.

Obongjayar: The song is mainly just myself realizing the world around me changing me to become this killer, this shark, because it's unforgiving and it's so brutal. I remember when we made it, I played it to my friend. Anastasia, actually, who's an incredible musician. She came down to the studio and I played to her, and she cried, and I was really-- because I didn't really think it was that kind of song to make someone cry. Then-- [crosstalk]

Tiffany: Yes, I was going to ask you, there's kind of a sadness there.

Obongjayar: Yes, and that's exactly what she said. She's like, "You know, it's sad that the world around you has done this to you to turn you into this thing," and the thing is that it's unfortunate, but that's just what goes on in the world. The world is so rough, it's so hard and so difficult and so unforgiving that it turns people soft and who are delicate into these hard-bodied sharks, that "kill or be killed" energy.

Then, as the album progresses, you see things start to-- the mentality starts to change. Then, towards the end, you get to Happy Head. It's a progression, but these moments are moments that did happen and made me feel like I was alone and there was nothing else. My smile is over my shoulder. My smile is a distant memory. I want everything. I want everything. You know what I mean? That was the sentiment when writing the song.

Tiffany: You've talked about how shy you are.

Obongjayar: Used to be.

Tiffany: You used to be? That's what I was just going to say.

Obongjayar: Even that's a lie. I am shy, but the-

Tiffany: You're not a shark?

Obongjayar: -world is genuine-- Exactly, you present-- I'm shark-presenting.

[laughter]

Tiffany: Oh, how I would love to be shark-presenting. Shy people can be performers, though, because I don't know, you can get lost in the performance.

Obongjayar: No, but the thing about performance, and this is why the word "performance" isn't necessarily for me, because I think it's, for me, when I play a show versus-

Tiffany: Yes, what are you doing if you're not performing?

Obongjayar: -when I write music, I embody the music. It's a part of me rather than-- I'm not putting on a thing. There's no mask involved, you know what I mean? I'm not acting out a scene from a movie. I am just really genuinely feeling the music through my body. It's like electricity, you know what I mean? I'm not pretending. If you get electrocuted, you're not choreographing how you move. Do you get what I'm saying?

Tiffany: Yes.

Obongjayar: That's the way I see it, so I'm not performing in that way. When it comes to music and art, I don't think the shark-leaning thing is prevalent or present at all. It's everything else around that. It's like, how do you get your music heard? How do you talk to-- when it comes to financial things? When it comes to the business side, how are you in those areas? How are you with the people around you? Be it friends or leeches or people that always want something from you. How do you engage with those situations?

That's where, I guess, the shark mentality comes up, because you know what it's like. You know what the world is like. You know you can't trust everyone. You know you have to be a certain way-minded to survive.

Tiffany: You have become more vocal, politically.

Obongjayar: Yes. No, I don't think I have become more, I think I've always been.

Tiffany: You're just saying it more?

Obongjayar: I've always said it more, across my music anyway. It depends on what you're referring to, but I think across my music, from the beginning, from Which Way Is Forward? EP, Soldier Ant, "It follows me like a bad smell," talking about, I guess, racism and the idea of all of that stuff, and politics, in regards to governments, with Message in a Hammer and things like that. It's been a thing that has-- I guess it's the world we live in, right? As an artist, it's my job to observe what's going on around me and present my perspective on it.

I don't think politics or being political or being, I guess, political in the way that your music or your art is presenting should be you talking at people. I think you should be talking to people rather than talking at them. I think maybe that's why it feels like it's only recently that I've been louder about it, because of what's going on currently in the world and how relevant said thing is.

Tiffany: We're talking with Obongjayar about his new album, Paradise Now. This is a listening party, so we will play music. That's ahead of his concert tonight at the Music Hall of Williamsburg. That happens at eight o'clock. Let's listen to Born in This Body.

[MUSIC - Obongjayar: Born in This Body]

Obongjayar: I love that one. It's such a beautiful song. [crosstalk]

Tiffany: That's a good one. It's good.

Obongjayar: Such a beautiful song.

Tiffany: I'm glad that you appreciate your work like that.

Obongjayar: I mean, I wrote it. [laughs]

Tiffany: It is good. Yes, right? [crosstalk]

Obongjayar: I wrote the thing. I wrote the thing. [laughs]

Tiffany: It's pretty good. It's pretty good. Did I hear you say, "Don't make yourself small"?

Obongjayar: "Don't make yourself small for no one," yes.

Tiffany: Kind of fits with being shark-presenting.

Obongjayar: Yes, exactly. Exactly.

Tiffany: Tell us how your childhood, your growing-up years in Nigeria, informed your music.

Obongjayar: Very shy. This is when I was really shy, truly shy-presenting and shy in being. [chuckles] I remember my grandma-- this is a very core memory for me. There was a gathering going on downstairs in the living room, and I was in the corner, in the hallway, just tucked away. I couldn't physically bring myself to go into the living room.

My grandma came to me, and she's like, "You know, you don't need to be shy. What's the worst that can happen? I know you want to go in there. I can see that you want to, that's why you're stood here. If you didn't want to be here, you wouldn't be here. You're stood here, you're looking in, but you're afraid of how you would be perceived or how it's going to react to you." She's like, "No one-- It doesn't matter. Nothing matters. The idea of you thinking that the whole thing revolves around you and your energy. You're adding to the space, you're not the center of the thing."

Tiffany: Man, a lot of people need to hear your grandma's message.

Obongjayar: [chuckles] Yes, she's given me so many gems across the years. I remember thinking, "Yes, you're right. What's going to happen? Nothing's going to happen." I'm not going to go, walk into the room, and everyone's like, "Oh, my God. It's over. The world's going to end." From that moment on, I think I've moved with that advice in my head. It's whatever I look like, whatever I think, however I present, whatever I dress like, whatever my orientation, or how I wear my hair, whatever my skin color, what are you going to do about it?

This is me. Me not going into a space or exerting myself in a place or having an opinion or holding space isn't going to stop the world from turning, right? If I have something to say, if I have an expression to express, I'm going to express it. If you feel a type of way about it, cool. We can have a discourse. Whatever happens within that is going to happen within that, but I can't predict what that's going to be before I've even done it. That is how that particular encounter with my grandma has made me move through life.

Tiffany: Also, you said, alluded to this, you can't affect, in any way, how someone thinks about you.

Obongjayar: You can't, exactly, so what's the--? "Cool." If someone thinks you're a loser, cool. I'm not a loser, so you can think that all you want. That doesn't change what I am. It doesn't change my makeup. It's just what it is.

Tiffany: Listeners, you can come and make your own opinion tonight-

Obongjayar: [laughs] Absolutely.

Tiffany: -of this shark for-- no, shark-facing?

Obongjayar: Shark-presenting. [crosstalk]

Tiffany: Shark-presenting.

Obongjayar: Shark-presenting. That's a new one. That's the next album, The Shark Presenter.

[laughter]

Tiffany: Tonight at the Music Hall of Williamsburg, that show happening at eight o'clock. The musician is Obongjayar. The new album is Paradise Now. It's out now, and gosh, we're just so thankful you came in.

Obongjayar: This was really beautiful. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Have a lovely rest of your show.

Tiffany: Well, thank you.

Obongjayar: Take care.