Cruel Santino, Amaar...
The crazy thing about “Rapid Fire” is that Genio didn’t make the beat for me; it was for Tomi Thomas. I just came
inside, heard the beat, and was like, “Guy!…” The thing about these sorts of songs is that they’re really easy for me to
make. I’ve probably made like nine of those types of songs, but this one was sweet to make… there was something about
it. I just did one verse and the hook and was just playing it. I didn’t necessarily have much plans for the song, I just
knew the song was made. My friend, Tomi Agape, was on the song, but we cut her part short and then Phi (manager at the
time) was like, “Let’s put Shane, this rapper from South Africa and this girl from Ghana, her name is Amaarae.” I was
like, “Yeah, I know her, cool.” When it all came together, it was like, “Oh shit.” Shane’s verse was even cut short
because he rapped on the whole thing. Amaa killed the song, too. The thing with “Rapid Fire” is that it was made with a
purity that was intentional. The way the songs were made, the way we shot the video, the way we called all the guys, the
way we all stayed there till the video was done–it was a pure era. People were just watching us live our lives, but we
didn’t even know. We’d just record music and go about. It was just me, Ashley (Okoli), Odunsi (The Engine), and
everybody. That’s how “Rapid Fire” came about. With the video, I’m very inspired by crime and Nollywood, so that’s where
that came from.
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16 more stories from this album
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Odunsi (The Eng...
“alté cruise” was just what it was. I had just started going out and becoming more social thanks to Boj. He was always
saying the word so much around me, and I had this alt SoundCloud account called fridaycruise where I’d just drop music
very spontaneously. So I just put the two names together. For me, “alté cruise” is just a manifestation of a more social
version of myself. I was going out, hanging out with friends. When I made the song, we were all in the studio, and Santi
did his verse last. We were having fun and goofing around. I feel blessed to have this song because I love music so
much, and a lot of this stuff we were making was more than music. It was a lot of sacrifice for the community and
friends. It was built on knowing that people loved us and what we were doing. We were really making it for them, and we
wanted the people to feel it. So, it’s nice to see that it spread that far.
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Odunsi (The Eng...
“hectic” was interesting because the first part of it was just 234jaydaa. I was just recording with her, and we were
trying some stuff. I wrote that part, but I wanted someone else to sing it. We were also trying to work on another song,
that’s why, if you notice, at the start of the song, she says, “I’m just gonna read it,” but the recording already
started. She was reading and singing it and it just sounded so beautiful. I was thinking of making it a full song, then
I made this other song, “hectic.” I sent it to Amaarae, and she just slides on it. It was the kind of R&B stuff I grew
up on. For me to hear myself making music that sounded like what I grew up on, it just gave me confidence that it was
what I was meant to be doing. It sounded like the quality level that I admire. At that time, Solis was already sending
me demos. She used to sing covers on her webcam. She was just coming up and making lo-fi pop vibe, and I thought she’d
do well on it.
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Odunsi (The Eng...
Nasty C was in Lagos, and we met up. That was actually fun because we would go around Lagos at night, and I was with
Santi and one of my homies, Genio. So, we met up with Nasty C, and we made that song. It was a very interesting one
because at that time, South African-Nigerian link-ups were very popular, but there wasn’t anything really happening in
the underground like that. Working with Nasty C and having Santi on it was very important.
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