It was mid-morning when came across a video of a young man walking down the street and chewing bars on our other page. The ease of delivery reminded me of my late old man’s effortless use of chewing sticks in the mornings. I tried it, but my gums disagreed with them. I digress.
The young man’s name is Bliizzy, and the verse was from 1am in Lagos song off his single pack, Motion Pack. The pre-release video triggered the required emotion in me and I was anticipating his release as soon as I heard that verse for the 63rd time. I reached out after consuming the pack and the rest as they say is history.
Adebanjo Boluwatife Daniel is a Civil Engineer from the prestigious University of Lagos who is taking his shot at his dream as a professional artiste, and here is his JJC.
Background
I was born into a family of two children in Lagos, Nigeria and grew up in Ikorodu. My parents were actively in the workforce so we were home most of the time with TV and stuff.
My earliest introduction to music was TV, Channel O, MTV, Nigezie and church. If I wasn’t home I was either at school or church.
First Encounter with Hip-Hop
My first encounter with hip hop had to be one of M.I’s albums (Talk About It), the one that had Safe. I had an uncle in uni at the time so he got the cd and was blasting it. I was starting to get wise so I started picking up lines, puns and stuff from it.
Later, I started listening to Vector, Phenom and Olamide. I downloaded their songs on my Nokia phone at the time and really fell in love with the genre, the play on words and delivery. In secondary school, some friends put me on to Lil Wayne, J Cole, Meek Mill and other foreign guys.
My earliest introduction to rap was Nigerian hip-hop.
Writing Hip-Hop
I started writing lyrics in junior secondary school. My guys and I would write rhymes and perform them while someone was beating the table and stuff, and we’d take turns to rap the rhymes. It was fun stuff then. We then started going to a studio around to play [Laughs].
Hip-Hop Head to Emcee
I started rapping my rhymes early, I won’t lie. I had a whole book writing different bars and lines and stuff. I even had a group of friends where we’d just write bars and see who comes up with the hardest double entendres or triple in some cases. It was a lot of fun.
When my folks first heard my music, they were calm with it. The feedback was the regular “Oh that’s nice, but the stay in school” stuck out [Chuckles]
Most Underrated Song/Verse
My most underrated song, hmmm.
Let’s see I think that should be 1am in Lagos. It just dropped but it should be no 1 already, I don’t care (I don’t care) [Laughs].
Worst Song/Verse
I don’t think my worst song is out anywhere [Laughs], because it won’t see the light of day. Trust me.
Plans
My plans include making more music, records and visuals, and I’m stopping anytime soon. I might put out another project this year if things pattern up nicely.
Connect with Bliizzy on Twitter.
