Music  

KIllertunes: ‘Afrobeats producers must look beyond trends’

By  Chinonso Ihekire  18 May 2024   |   3:08 am Killertunes broke into the Nigerian music scene in the mid-2010s, the Benin-bred singer, songwriter and producer pushed the needle in the sou

Killertunes

When Killertunes broke into the Nigerian music scene in the mid-2010s, the Benin-bred singer, songwriter and producer pushed the needle in the sound shift of Nigerian music with his fusion-driven pop melodies.
Creating some of Afrobeats biggest songs, including Wizkid’s Manya, Ghetto Love, Olamide’s Motigbana, and a horde of hits for stars like Mr Eazi, Spinall, Davido, Patoranking, among others, the young maverick helped popularize Afrobeats’ present wave across the world.
Born Otaniyen Uwa-Daniel, the sound whiz has also worked equally with other global superstars, building a versatile discography that ranges from Latino mega-star J Balvin and Mr Eazi’s Lento, to Kizz Daniel’s Twe Twe. His appetite for unique fusions has kept the 30-year-old on his toes since his debut. His performance debut as a singer came with 2021’s KillaXtra, his 13-track EP that showcased his fine vocals and fusion dexterity.
Now, with Afrobeats’ global expansion and the high density of new musicians and record producers in the scene, Killertunes tells Guardian Music that this is already causing monotony in our sound style. Reaching to help extend Afrobeats’ shelf-life, the hitmaker provided free mentorship to 89 budding producers, hosting masterclasses and organizing a prize-winning beat making contest for the participants.
Spending several millions of naira, time and human resource, Killertunes believes this investment is a needed lifeline for the future of the Nigerian music scene. He tells us more about his experience coaching younger producers; working with J Balvin and other foreign stars; as well as the need to end stigmas around songwriting and record sampling in Afrobeats; and why he prefers a life of creative freedom above accolades.

Tell us more about your project for emerging producers
What I did recently was basically like a masterclass for producers who wanted to sharpen their skills and all of that and maybe learn new stuff, you understand. Then, after the master class, the people who took part in the master class also participated in a competition I set up for them.

Why did you decide to do that for them?
I decided to do the master class because I just feel like a lot of the music that has been coming out from Nigeria or the music from Nigeria sounds kind of sounds a lot alike; it was like everybody sounded like everybody; with all of the amapiano vibe, everything is sounding alike. I just wanted to bring these producers together and show them new ways to do things, new sounds and everything. And in the class, I think we had 89 students, and imagine showing 89 people different ways of doing things and new sounds.

Is this your first experience mentoring producers?
Yes, it is.

Having come this far as a producer yourself, what would you say are the most important mentorships you had in your career?
The most important would be myself disciplining myself and listening to other people because I really did not have a teacher when I was coming up; when I was learning how to make beats and all of that. It was just me and my brother. Back then, when I was learning how to make music in Nigeria, there was no internet like that. So there was no YouTube. We didn’t even know there was something like YouTube where you can go online and learn so it was just us listening, listening to what we heard on the radio, and trying to remake those stuffs. I really didn’t have any major community.

A lot of throwback Afrobeats songs also sound alike. Who did you generate the most influence from?
Back then, in 2008, there was also music sounding the same then but every musician and every producer had their own thing going on. It was not like general; it was not everybody doing the same stuff. Back then, there was Don Jazzy, Dbanj and all of the Mo’hits crew. They did different stuff. Even Don Jazzy’s production was different for Dbanj, Wande Coal, Dr Sid and everyone he produced for. So it was different music. And then there was Timaya and Producers like Young Dee, sounding different from Don Jazzy and every other person. A lot of musicians had their own stuff. I am still a very big fan of Don Jazzy. Don Jazzy was somebody that I listened to very much and I also listened to Terry G.

You have worked with major musicians from different continents. How does your background in Nigerian music influence your process?
Here I am self taught; I taught myself how to produce and engineer music audio. When I started traveling out to work with all of them — such as J Balvin and others — I discovered that there are other ways the people make music outside. For example, when you’re in Nigeria when you’re making music, most times, it’s just the producer, which is myself and the artist in the studio. And the artist is the musician. He’s the songwriter. He’s everything, except for recently when Nigerians started working a lot more with songwriters. If you’re working outside the country, when you go to a studio, you meet the artists, but you can meet up to five songwriters. It’s your job as a producer to listen to everybody and try to bring everything together. When I was in the session with J Balvin, for instance, there were up to 30 songwriters in that session. There were like seven producers, all in one space. There were about 10 studios in the premises with songwriters in different rooms. So, it’s your job as a producer to go in there and try to bring everything together. Whereas in Nigeria, most of the time you’re just working with only the artists.

Can you describe your experience working with Nigerians as hostile towards using songwriters?
It depends on the artists. A lot of the older acts like those artists from 10-12 years ago, mostly want to write their own songs and most of them don’t like to collaborate. But when you’re working with these new artistes, most of them now work with songwriters. Ultimately, it doesn’t change anything for the producer. You’re the producer. You’re just in the studio, waiting for any artist who wants to come and work with you. If you don’t like to work with songwriters it is fine. You can we jam and we vibe together and come up with something. If you’re the type of artiste that you can’t do without working with songwriters, of course it’s cool. I also have songwriters that I work with who do not release music; all they do is just write. So notice that things are getting different here. A lot of Nigerian artistes are using songwriters now.

Tell us about some of your most recent exciting sessions
The most exciting that I’ve had recently are still unreleased music I made with Olamide Baddo. I don’t want to say too much for now: I just want everyone to wait and enjoy what we have coming.

How does it affect you when music you worked on ends up never getting released?
For me, it was not. But for some other producers it might affect how they feel when working with that artiste again. I usually give an artist three to six months. If we work on something and I wait and wait and wait and I feel like you’re not going to put it out, you are not the only musician in the world. You understand? I can take that beat that I created and give it to somebody else. See at the end of the day it is business. Even if you wrote the song and I notice that you are not going to drop it, I can as well take it to somebody else and give it to them and we will come back to you and clear it with you. When we release the song you would be credited as a songwriter. Everywhere in the world, you see big artistes do this. For instance, say, Chris Brown has a song with Metro Boomin and Metro feels like Chris Brown is not going to put this song out anytime soon; they can give that song to Future, Drake or anybody and clear the copyright with Chris Brown. It is business at the end of the day. There shouldn’t be any emotions or anything tied to it.

Why do you think we are not sampling enough of our old catalogues?
I just feel like it’s the fans. If you check my catalogue, I have hit songs back to back. I love to sample a lot. I love to go back to the old times and bring something from old-school music. If you listen to Manya by Wizkid and Legendury Beats, I produced that song. I sampled a Ghanaian song from the 2000s. I’ve forgotten the name of the song I sampled. If you listen to Motigbana by Olamide it is the same thing as well. I sampled another song there. So it falls on the fans; because most times these artists or the producers, everybody is online. We listen to the fans you understand. I think, in 2017, When we released Manya, I could see on Twitter back then they were people who were dragging Wizkid you no fit write your own song again, na Ghana song you go dey carry? Even Ghanaians dragged us. Some people dragged us from the first week of release. They said we don’t have ideas again. Whereas when you go to places like America you see people like Jay Z, you see the biggest musicians in the world. Most of the productions behind their songs are all sampled and nobody died. Everybody still dances to it. Only in Africa where our fans are always critical of sampling, saying things like, “You should write by yourself. Don’t you have your own brain?” So we just feel like it is the fault of the fans at the end of the day because we can always sample, as producers. I can always go back into maybe the 1970s and look for a Sunny Ade record and sample it for Olamide to record. We can release that and everybody will be happy but some fans will always come out to criticise.

What are some of the fusions you think might help extend Afrobeats shelf-life?
For Afrobeats, there is a lot that we can do. I feel like our producers are not doing enough research. Like, they’re not listening to enough music and I don’t know if they’re scared to experiment, especially the new acts. You just see somebody come out with one style. And if that style blows up, everybody’s doing it. You check the top 20 songs on the popular charts and they are almost the same songs, almost the same lyrics, the same pattern and structure of music and everything. So, I just feel like all of this falls to the producers; we can always pick from any genre of music and make fusions. I don’t know if people are scared to do that or maybe the fans will not accept it or something like that. But we can always do that. Africans are very creative when it comes to making music. We can always do whatever we want to do. But most people they just make music because of the business and because of numbers and the money that they’re going to make from the music. Most of these guys don’t even enjoy the music that they’re putting out. They just do it because they know that that is what the Nigerian fans would accept.

If you’re going to sample from oldies, what genre would you explore?
There are so many. There is RnB, not like the recent type of RnB but those from the early 2000s; those from Ja Rule and DMX era. You can pick great music from there. There are songs from the Nigerian and Ghanaian highlife 70s. There’s so much music that we can go back to and try to choose something from. There’s reggae music. There are so many types of music that we can actually experiment with.

If you were speaking to someone who’s about to start a music career, what would you advise them to do in developing their songs?
I advise anybody going into production or music to just research and listen deeper. There’s so much good music in the world. So many types of good music in this world. We should listen more to more genres of music and research more as producers.

What are your own habits of listening to music?
I can just pick out a timeframe. I can pick out one month whereby I’ll just be on Spotify or YouTube playlists listening to something that I’ve never listened to before. I can spend two weeks listening to reggae from Bob Marley’s era. I can spend five days just listening to Sean Paul and everybody from that era. I listen to all types of music, not just what we have on our top 100 charts on streaming platforms.

Apart from the production, are you working on any music?
For now, I’m working on my artiste. She’s about to drop like singles and she’s about to drop an EP. That’s what I’m working on majorly. I have my own project as well that I’m working on and I have singles and even features for days. But I don’t want to do too much at the same time. So, I might just drop only one song this year. Then, next year I am going full-time; but now I have so many other things that I’m focused on.

Finally, what do you think you are building your legacy as Killertunes to be?
I think I am building towards being that guy who does what he enjoys. I just want to be that guy that at the end of the day looks back at everything, all of the music, all of the hit records, all of my own music. It should be what we can all enjoy 30 years from now. I don’t want to be a follow-follow guy with anybody. I want to do something that I can look back on and be proud of myself.