Obongjayar | Nataal

“Music saves me. When things aren’t going my way and the outside world is falling down on me, I go back to music,” Obongjayar tells me. We’re at a south London café, drinking black coffee and enjoying an unseasonably blue sky. Today isn’t a bad day, but he’s keenly aware when they come, and uses them like fuel. “We all have those moments when it’s hard to keep the faith. Do you call your family, vent to your friends, down drugs? For me, it’s the music, man. That’s my ‘Wind Sailor’. When I’m in the gunk of that emotion, I’m going to pay attention to it, write a song about it and come out the other side of it. And then, let’s fucking go.”

On ‘Wind Sailor’, Obongjayar’s favourite track on newly released debut album Some Nights I Dream of Doors, the artist’s singular voice is accompanied by a simple organ melody that delivers the listener to a contemplative space. In fact, the entire album is the result of Obongjayar mining his feelings to lend a raw tenderness to every song. And, of course, it’s exactly that bittersweet spot from which the best music always stems. “Music should come from an emotional place. Those songs that tug on your heartstrings, that make you feel more, especially when the language is so beautiful, those are the ones that can give you hope,” he says.

The album’s sense of sincerity convinces the listener that Obongjayar speaks from experience. Born Steven Umoh in Calabar, Nigeria, he was brought up by his grandmother from the age of four after his mother fled the country to escape his father’s violence. “It was a horrible situation. The only way to go was out, to start again somewhere that has more opportunities – if you were willing to take the chance. And that’s what she did,” he recalls, rightly proud of her strength. He attended a government-run boarding school, which he describes as “no joke”, and his first musical education was in church. “It was unconventional in that there was no choir or drum section. We all sang acapella and clapped. So, I think that’s influenced how I hear things and where I’m at.”

As a young teenager he was inspired by US rappers such as 50 Cent, Kanye and Lil Wayne; aged 15, he laid down his first tune. “It was terrible,” he recalls with a grin. “I got hold of a hooky copy of Fruity Loops and figured out how to make this whack-ass beat. I got my boys over to check it out and they were like, ‘Yeah, man, that’s not it’. And I was, ‘Nah, trust me. You don’t get it’. I was so stubborn. I washed my uncle’s car and saved up for time to afford to get into this studio and record the track and it came out so bad. But the takeaway was that I knew I had that thing even though I didn’t understand what it was yet.”

Aged 17, after several attempts at getting a visa, he and his brother were finally able to join their mother and sister in the UK and, after college, he went to art school in Norwich. During this time he began to listen to everyone from Asa and Fela Kuti to Radiohead and Billy Bragg, and read voraciously too, citing Zadie Smith and James Baldwin as influences. As a result of what he calls his “wide-eyed approach” to learning, he developed a far more nuanced creativity. “I was being introduced to artists who saw the world differently, and I started to call myself an artist, too.”

After putting demos on Soundcloud, Obongjayar got noticed by XL label founder Richard Russell and went on to guest on his project Everything Is Recorded alongside Damon Albarn, Giggs, Kamasi Washington and Sampha. In 2016 he released his first EP, Home, which was followed by the sparse Bassey EP and the sonically complex Which Way Is Forward?, which featured the standout tracks ‘Still Sun’ and Ivor Novello-award-winning ‘God’s Own Children’. Last year he returned to Lagos to record his 80s-synth-drenched Sweetness EP with Sarz and shoot the video for Little Simz’ ‘Point and Kill’. And 2022 kicked off with another A-list collaboration, this time on Pa Salieu’s ‘Style & Fashion’.

Bearing witness to, and being part of, Nigeria’s cultural renaissance fills Obongjayar with joy. “I love to see that, man. It’s a whole bunch of young people doing their thing and being so proud of it. They’ve broken the seal and changed the creative consciousness,” he enthuses. “It’s brilliant to see the whole scene across the continent. These sounds have always been there but are now having a big stamp on culture because we know ourselves. That’s all you need to do – know your voice and sing as loud as you can.”

Some Nights I Dream of Doors is a testament to Obongjayar doing just that; his music and lyricism have blossomed into a mature statement of intent. “This new record feels like a coming of age,” he says. “Compared to what I’ve done before, I think the most important thing is having found the right balance between what I’m saying and what’s backing it. What’s the armour around my words?” A year in the making with producer Barney Lister, the equilibrium is spot on, his experimental sound ranging from intimate and minimal to the rich and layered. And his voice, which veers from gentle to ferocious; husky to falsetto; singing to spoken word, is never less than captivating.

“The album was originally inspired by the basketball documentary Hoop Dreams, which follows the journey of these two protégées who are aiming for the NBA but neither of them makes it. That’s what it’s like when you’re a kid. You feel like anything is possible. Then as you get older, life starts to close in on you. And maybe that’s okay. So, it’s taking the idea of success and focussing on the things that really matter. Rather than dream forward, let’s dream of the present. But as I started writing, the album became about time travelling through introspection. The doors are about going through your life and working out what’s next because of who you’ve been and where you’ve been.”

The opening track ‘Try’ sums this up. ‘We used to be invincible / We used to be so beautiful, my dear / We had the world in front of us / How did we ever end up here?’ he laments over a stirring melody and scattered beats. Elsewhere, the tone takes a political turn as he rails against state corruption. ‘Message in a Hammer’ was written as a response to the 2020 Lekki Tollgate Massacre, when the Nigerian armed forces opened fire on a crowd of peaceful End SARS protestors in Lagos making a stand against police brutality. In the album’s most visceral expression, Obongjayar calls out the country’s rulers as thieves and murderers over a backdrop of insistent drumming. “The struggles that the soldiers and the protesters have are the same. They go back to their houses and there will be no electricity or water. We’re fighting the same fight. But because you’re in uniform, your hatred or your pride trumps all of that united struggle? That broke my heart.”

Equally confrontational is ‘Parasite’, a deceptively subdued track that dresses down the UK government for telling disadvantaged people how to live despite having no experience of struggle themselves. For Obongjayar, the fact that working-class people keep them in power reflects the same one-upmanship and lack of humanity he experienced back home. “People will fight tooth and nail for a system that doesn’t serve them for what they think it means. I’m bigger than you, I’m better than you. But it’s smoke and mirrors and people are dying or losing their livelihoods. Fuck that.”

More personal moments include the jaunty ‘Tinko Tinko (Don’t Play Me For a Fool)’, for which he steps into an ex’s shoes to accuse himself of coasting in their relationship. The woozy ‘Wish It Was Me’ is a soppy love song for his brother. And on the spacey, goose bump-eliciting title track he soulfully croaks ‘Save me I’m dying / Save me I’m losing this fight… Trying my best to survive’, those eternal doors bringing him right back to the edge. On his creative process, he says: “I definitely tapped into the spirits. That’s how I felt when I was making this album, and I did it to the best of my abilities. I hope it touches people but that’s all I can do. Then it’s on to the next one.”

Already recognised as a Future Artist by BBC Radio 1 and labelled ‘destined for greatness’ by GQ magazine, Some Nights I Dream of Doors feels fated to soar. Yet Obongjayar doesn’t show up for the fame. His response to the question – What does beauty mean to you? – makes that abundantly clear. “Beauty to me is freedom. The ability to just be without a care for what people think of you. It’s about how you feel and if you’re confident in that moment, that’s top. Enjoying life. Not questioning yourself in your feelings. That’s what makes someone beautiful.”

Over the course of his career to date, the artist has been on his own aesthetic journey, going from hoodies to a sharp, street-psychedelic style. Today, he has mini mushrooms hanging from his necklace and wears statement shades. And during the Nataal shoot the previous week, he was drawn to the brightest looks from Labrum and Prada. “What you’re wearing, how you talk, how you move, could inspire someone. But if you’re just there, dressing for the occasion rather than being the occasion, then you are a nothingness. That’s why you have to push to be yourself.”

The same goes for his crown, a fine head of dreads that he’s been cultivating for as long as he’s been releasing records, and like his music, is a reflection of being in charge of his own destiny. “Sometimes I’m like, okay I’m a dread guy. It’s weird how it changes you,” he reflects. “One of the main reasons I got dreads was to challenge the idea of what it means to be well-kempt. Why do I have to show up with a trim? I’m going to get dreads and what are you going to do about it? Hair can just be hair. It shouldn’t be political. But the society that we live in can make it so. I deserve to go into any room and be respected. It’s about holding that power within yourself so that your hair, or where you come from, has nothing to do with it.”

With that, it’s time to get back into the sunshine but before we go, I have to ask him to explain his Instagram description and merch slogan: ‘Devil Slayer’. “It’s someone who takes no nonsense,” he declares as we step outside. “A devil slayer will call out anyone who is being disrespectful. If you’re not on the side of good, I’m going to fuck with you,” he adds, then pauses. Lights a cigarette. Ponders again. “But the devil slayer could also be fighting your own inner demons and not letting them take over. All those bad days…’ before quoting his own lyrics to make a beautifully distilled point: ‘Up like sun, down like sun. Still sun’.”

Photography: Salomé Gomis Trezise
Styling: Lady Barbara Ayozie Fu Safira
Publication: Nataal