Talented Nigerian artiste, Akitoye Balogun popularly known in music circles as Ajebutter22, has explained why depression must be a sub-theme of his forthcoming album.
Ajebutter who opened up during an interview with media personality, Chude Jideonwo on the latest episode of #WithChude also talked about when the music wasn’t working, his creative process, and his new album, ‘Soundtrack to the good life.’
He shared his creative process in producing EPs and albums. “EP is less pressure, it is a freeing experience, you just have fun and make the music. For me, an album feels like pressure, for me to make an album I must go through depression. There is self-doubt, ‘is this good enough?’. There is so much over-thinking. But all that doesn’t matter, because, for all the questions you ask yourself, you will still not know the answer. The best thing to do is release it, it is better to fail fast, if you are going to fail you are going to fail.”
On his new album, he shared, “I am trying to give us an opportunity to escape. It is an opportunity to japa, but you don’t have to be physically japa, you can do it in your mind. The album is the ‘Soundtrack to the goodlife’, from butter nation. Butter nation is not just my fan base, it is a place I invented. Imagine a West African country without the problems we are facing, and it has all the good things we have in Nigeria, and combining that with good things everywhere and everyone”.
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He also shared how he gets to retain his sanity while living in Lagos, he said, “I have deliberately designed my life to be like that because I can afford to, when I couldn’t afford to it was first a mental state. My last album was called ‘What happens in Lagos’, the album before that was called ‘Anytime soon’, as per when I blow. All the energy I take I just pour into the music. Everybody in Nigeria has an escape; some people’s escape is to be loud and aggressive, and some people are to be chill, it all about the personality, but everybody has their way to escape. At this stage I am now, I have tried very much to control my environment”.
Ajebutter22 also shared about what he did when the music wasn’t working and he dealt with the temptation of switching to other sounds. “I have other options; I didn’t think that music was the end. I went to look for a job, although I was still making music. But then, what worked for me in music, was me and my own style. So, I won’t go and try something else. As a musician, you will always go back to what works for you. If the first time I made a hit there were 20 people in the room, anytime I am recording I will want 20 people in the room. So, I just went back to what worked for me. Even at the time when music wasn’t working, I was looking for jobs, I applied to Oando, Total, I even failed a personality test.”
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