Following the release of his party record ‘Andale’, I sat down with Bryann, a 22-year-old Nigerian musician on the artistic process behind the music he makes, his favorite films, and the upcoming release of his debut tape. Whilst studying at Babcock University, Bryann made the decision to pursue music full time. Since then the budding singer and songwriter from Festac, Lagos has been honing his craft, constantly pushing himself to the limits of his personal creativity.
After the release of his party record ‘Andale’, I sat down with Bryann and probed the young Nigerian creative on the artistic process behind his music, his favorite films, and the upcoming project.
M – If you could describe yourself in one word, what word are you using and why?
Concoction. It is a mixture of many things. I’m not one thing in particular. With regard to both sound and personality. With my sound and the direction of the songs on my tape, I mix a bunch of things together and the result is what you hear, as with ‘Andale’. Saying this is simply Afrobeats would be a huge oversimplification. The same thing with my personality, I feel like I have multiple personas depending on the day you meet me. I can be super laidback and reserved and I can be loud and energetic, or I can be both at the same time.
M – What part of Nigeria where were you born, what was growing up there like?
I’m from Imo state but I was born in Lagos, lived my whole life in Lagos. I stay on the island now, but I spent most of my early life on the mainland: Festac. That shaped me to be the person I am today. Like sonic-wise and even character-wise because I had friends and knew people from different backgrounds. And the same thing with the music.
M – How has your family life shaped both your sound and ability to make music?
My mum is super supportive of my music from the moment she knew when she became aware that I wanted to do music. She’s always been super supportive. And my dad, I don’t think on purpose, but he has put me onto a lot of music since an early age that shaped the kind of sound or my preference for the type of music I want to make right now. So he’s a very strong factor for that. So when I was younger, he put me onto artists like Musiq Soulchild, a lot of R&B, and soul music, so that’s like my foundation.
M – I’ve seen your influences are artists like Asa, Wande Coal, Wizkid, Burna Boy, is there something that we wouldn’t expect that influences your music?
Movies. I recently watched The Perks of Being a Wallflower and at the end of the movie (Spoiler Alert!) he is on top of the van and they find out the song they’ve been trying to work out. And there’s something he says: “and at this point in time I feel infinite” and you know that stuck with me. That’s something I want to feel like. I want to feel infinite. And when I’m done with this project, that’s actually how I make projects and music, so one thing from somewhere inspires me and I can use that now to be the foundation or theme of a project. So the theme would be: ‘infinite’.
M – Do you have a favorite film of all time, or like a top three?
That’s hard, I’m like a film critic. The Dark Knight. This is hard. But I’ll add three movies into one category as they’re all by the same director. So Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, The Prestige, Inception. Then Quentin Tarantino: Pulp Fiction and then Inglorious Bastards. Then third I would just say the entire MCU with Iron Man, Captain America, The Avengers.
M – How did the pandemic impact your music-making? Did anything change for you?
It did not really disturb my recording process, most of the signs I’ve made alone, in my room, at 3 am in the night! It just makes more sense to record at night, everything is quiet so I can think better. The creative juices flow better at night. There was a period of two three weeks straight I would literally wake up, record music, and go back to sleep. I like to see how many songs I could record in a day.
M – Do you have a record of songs recorded in a day?
Five!
M – I know you’re keen to champion artists from the continent. Can you give us any artists who you’re listening to at the moment?
I’m a big fan of Nasty C, I love Nasty C, I can’t lie I haven’t been listening to new music a lot. Because I have a thing where I really don’t listen to music that plays on the radio, or what my peers are making because it then becomes a conscious effort for me to stand out. So the minute I start listening to my peers, especially in the Afropop space, then I’ll subconsciously start to sound like them or make decisions not knowing it’s in line with something they’re doing. So everything I try to do, regardless of the fact that Afropop can be repetitive, is to break the boundary of what listeners can take in.
For example; Rema’s ‘Bounce’. When I first heard it, I thought: now this is a unique record. So I’m about to move slightly into musical theory but they put chords at the 13th and 9th. They don’t do that in Afropop, that’s like the things you hear in scary movies. It’s very dark. And yeah Don Jazzy is a genius. But it’s still Afropop so it still sounds sweet. . I came upon artists like Frank Ocean and Kanye West and throughout their whole discography, those are things they have consciously tried to do.
M – Do you do your own production?
Not recently no, but I do add suggestions to production. So when the producer is making a beat I’ll suggest ‘how about we make a track that feels like this’. I send demos sometimes also.
M – How important is songwriting to you? What’s that process like?
Songwriting is a big thing for me because my art is very personal, much like rap music. So everything you hear me sing is me capturing a moment in time and how I felt. So the record ‘Andale’, I was in a let’s party, I wanna go to the club, I wanna call somebody and be like hey let’s go out type of mood. It’s a really laidback record like we weren’t really thinking when we made it. So the producer, Spax, I went to his house and not with the intention of making music: just to chill. I wanted to see the new Spiderman that came out and he had it. So there’s no way I’m in his crib and he won’t force me to make music, So I’m in his studio and he’s making this beat and the first thing that comes out of my mouth is the ‘Andale’ melody [singing the riff] and it just stuck. It wasn’t even a serious thing, I would do one part of a chorus then go back to playing the game or I’d order food. It was so laidback and after that day I didn’t hear anything about the record and he sent it to me months after. Then I hear it and I’m like Yo! this is fire. So we did this without even thinking.
M – Was there any part of the project-making process that you didn’t enjoy?
So there’s this one song that the producer made me write 8-9 different verses for and we only went with two. He heard the first draft and just felt like I could do better, so he asked for six. After sending six he then asked for more. And I felt like all the verses were crazy but you know, I like the way the song came out in the end.
M – What can we expect from the project?
It’s a very sensual project. But at the same time, it’s very groovy. So we tried to make a tape that did not have full-on pop chord progressions. Then we thought okay if we want to do that how will we still come out with an Afropop record. So we set constraints for ourselves. And this forces us to be more creative and think outside the box. So this project has elements of jazz all around it even tho it is an Afropop tape So from the chord progressions to the choice of instruments, and at the same time still very sensual, just because that is how I was feeling at the time
