The Healing Melodies of Oxlade From Africa

Most importantly, though, OFA reveals how Oxlade’s generational vocals can be utilized throughout a full body of work. What colors can he evoke with those featherlight melodies?

“D PTSD INTERLUDE,” the dramatic album opener, goes a surprising route. A stirring commentary on police brutality, particularly around the #EndSARS movement of 2020, the song features an inspiring vocal performance from Ugandan musician and activist Bobi Wine.

“You cannot sing or talk about Oxlade from Africa [and] not touch topics like that,” says the Nigerian singer about that sociopolitical infusion. “I try my best to be safe with them, because I could go way deeper. Touching it at all is something my platform required because silence is a sin, and I needed to make it understood that’s a part of my story. It’s an episode in my life and that’s one of the things we face in Africa.”

Press photo provided by Oxlade's team.

Regardless of this background, OFA primarily explores love over the colorful vibrance of African sounds. On “BLESSED,” one hears the intersection of Afropop and reggae, further colored with a stellar verse from Jamaican star Popcaan. The mellow drums and vocal styles on “PIANO” are quite similar to those Styl Plus jams of the 2000s, but with more urgency in its application, it’s in-tune with current listener sensibilities. Bright highlife-esque guitars can be heard on “OVAMI” and “IFA,” and he spars sweetly with Flavour and Fally Ipupa respectively.

He affirms he’s always wanted to work with the Congolese legend. “I feel like the record itself resonates around [Fally Ipupa’s] musical territory,” says Oxlade. “I didn’t know it was ever going to happen, lowkey, but my persistence got me this verse.” The song also ties into his larger vision for the project. “What is an Oxlade From Africa album if there are no African legends helping to solidify the statement piece?”

Oxlade grew up between Mushin and Surulere, areas where the crazed underside of Lagos comes into full glare. Music kept his focus, as he found the choir and did a lot of vocal training which now manifests in his music. “I feel like music chose me before I even chose music,” Oxlade said to OkayAfrica two years ago. “That’s why it’s a love affair between me and music. That’s why it feels like it’s spiritual. That’s why it feels quite personal to me when I perform or when I make or release music.”

Now that he’s put out his debut album, five years into the industry and two short projects deep — Oxygene and Eclipse — there’s a number of stories Oxlade has accrued along the way. “Challenges are part of the story,” he mentions. “You cannot call yourself great without defeating the demons and challenges that come before you… I’ll just say it’s part of the journey. It’s a total package, the bigger the level, the bigger the devil."

If Oxlade refuses to speak on personal and professional travails, the stories are there in the music. On OFA particularly, he considers the worth of his dreams across a number of records. In inspired moments, Oxlade has one of the most remarkable perspectives among the artists of his generation, charged with his vocal layering technique. “KATIGORI,” the penultimate song in the album, places him above the realm of detractors.

On its affirmative chorus, Oxlade sings with great resolve the words: “I no know how I wan do am, but e go sup / And e go shock una, cause e go choke.” These are statements that carry the weight of a man’s journey, a weight measured in heart and pronounced by name. On “OLAITAN (OLAOLUWA),” the artist reserves some of his most poignant lyricism for a song titled after his names — quite the tradition in modern Afropop. “Some ah think I’m overconfident, think I am incompetent / No love for this continent, but me no gwan relent,” he sings on its second verse, promising to showcase his talent in order to feed his children.

“This is me singing about my story,” he says about the record. “We Africans always have really deep names and I feel like my name is a representation of who I am. It means unending favor, unending wealth and unending grace from God. I mean, it’s self-explanatory. It’s me manifesting my name into reality”.

Such intentionality belies everything else on the album. It’s a showcase of Oxlade’s creative instincts, and no one understands this better than him. “I feel like Oxlade From Africa is a combination of vintage African music and modern-day Afrobeats,” he says. “It’s a body of work that travels through time and rhythm. You’re going to hear some elements that we grew up listening to and the current sounds of our time, bridging generations through collaboration. This is just destiny fulfilling itself.”

He chips in a final line of his intentions just before we wrap up the conversation. “People need to understand that music is beyond entertainment purposes,” he says. “It could serve as therapy, and I feel like I also make music for people to heal from whatever they’ve been going through. As the great Fela would always say, music is the weapon, and in Yoruba, ofa means an arrow. So it’s like a positive arrow defeating the human demons and celebrating black excellence in our community through music.”