Before he grew to become NNAMDÏ, avant-pop wizkid Nnamdi Ogbonnaya paraded the streets of southern Chicago, going to DIY reveals downtown that had been flourishing with younger punk and indie troupes. Ogbonnaya’s proximity to all of it is what impressed him to carve out his personal spot inside it. Like the Windy City marvels who donned underground hats earlier than him, he got here of age domestically. “Some of me learning about the music scene had to do with older kids at school that had already begun getting into that DIY world,” Ogbonnaya says. “Also, living right next to Indiana, there were a lot of punk bands being formed right over the border. The rest is the result of internet sleuthing and music blog obsessions.” That heirloom-like bestowment has appeared throughout Ogbonnaya’s work for a decade, however most prominently on his newest file, Please Have a Seat, which, at its coronary heart, is a love letter to the metropolis he grew up in.
Ogbonnaya made a behavior out of looking by means of DIY venues to search out locations to play, which is how he found acts he beloved. That group he grew to become a a part of was essential as a result of many Chicago venues had been 21+, and the budding younger arts motion wasn’t in a position to attend a lot of reveals. “I started a few bands mainly playing drums,” he says. “That eventually brought me to start hosting shows at my folks’ house in the ‘burbs. Then, [we] began playing shows around the Chicago area and booking our own tours shortly after.”
Read extra: DE’WAYNE breaks down his heartfelt second album MY FAVORITE BLUE JEANS
In 2013, Ogbonnaya launched Bootie Noir, which filtered an uncategorical sonic palette, one which fused hip-hop, R&B, post-punk and indie pop. There’s one thing beguiling about his creative blueprint. The songs are as limitless and impressive as they’re centered and meticulous. The present panorama of unbiased music is crowded with “genre-busting” or “genre-defying” artists, creators embracing the margins moderately than the typical. But in case you have a look at pillars like Ogbonnaya, who has by no means been confined to any sure aspect, it turns into apparent that his sonic entanglements aren’t episodic, however a painstaking craft he’s spent years honing.
Ogbonnaya’s first massive track, “Art School Crush,” is sort of 10 years outdated now, but it surely’s nonetheless as infinitely catchy as the day it dropped. It endures with new audiences, because of Spotify’s fixed playlist curations. “I love [“Art School Crush”] and knew that it was going to be certainly one of my hottest ones after I wrote it,” Ogbonnaya says. “It’s just a feeling I got. But even thinking about it now, it’s wild that, for how long ago I put it out, it has been consistently added to new playlists and is, pretty continuously, the most-streamed song I have.” The track’s structure, which includes as many types as three minutes will permit, might be discovered on Please Have a Seat, in cuts like “Careful” and “Smart Ass,” which dare to amalgamate lure percussion, indie pop guitars, octave-surfing vocals and shiny synths into one enrapturing piece. In a world of oversharing and developments and virality, there are causes to be hopeful about the longevity of the DIY scene — particularly when artists like Ogbonnaya take that dynamic pastoral and grandfather it into their very own work.
Earlier this yr, Ogbonnaya headlined a pageant in Columbus, Ohio with Alex Cameron. SoupFest, an all-day odyssey of tunes and steaming bowls of brothy goodness, wedged itself into a sizzling ballroom that when housed big-band acts throughout the Depression. By the time Ogbonnaya took the stage, the crowd had glowed themselves into one communal stomach of beer, however, as he performed 10 years’ price of sizzling tracks, they littered the air with varied cheers for him and chants of “soup.” Whether or not they knew the songs, it was like a fraternity reeking of craft beer and pork chili verde, and Ogbonnaya honed the power into a blazing set that reworked the room into the hypest spot in the metropolis.
Ogbonnaya’s musical persona, and off-record character, was constructed for oddball venues and rowdy, all-in crowds. His 2017 LP Drool was a kaleidoscopic hip-hop joint that examined the limits of experimental flows and preparations. The subsequent yr, Ogbonnaya would play a masterful Audiotree Far Out set from inside Bucktown Market in the Wicker Park district of Chicago. He’s no stranger to taking the form of no matter rundown joint will obtain him, and, in each occasion, Ogbonnaya is unrelenting in his show-stoppage.
But it was 2020 that was, deservedly, Ogbonnaya’s yr. He launched the opus Brat in April, which holds “Wasted,” certainly one of the finest pop tracks of this decade. Over a month later, his three-song, punk-constructed EP Black Plight spoke about the price of Black folks in the wake of emotional and bodily violence inflicted upon them by power-hungry, power-abusing folks. For a decade, Ogbonnaya has turned in a catalog that celebrates Blackness by reclaiming the genres that the Black group first blueprinted and putting them again in the forefront of indie rock.
[Photo by Dennis Elliott]
When the Chicago Tribune named him “Chicagoan of the Year” that December, it was with out a doubt. “It was incredibly important to me and a true honor,” Ogbonnaya says. “A lot of times, I have better shows in other places, and sometimes the place you’re from can seem less excited about you than outsiders. So, getting that award was bonkers. I was really just focusing on my music and trying to share it and bring joy to people and help however I can.” In 2017, VICE known as Ogbonnaya “Chicago’s weirdest musician.” His music has all the time felt so innately Chicagoan that, when he says he’s had traditionally higher reveals in different cities than in his hometown, it’s shocking. It’s been a whereas since he’s had a bona fide present in the metropolis, and, after spending a while on the road pageant circuit, he’s desperate to get again.
Brat was the defining NNAMDÏ mission, because it felt like a long-awaited mission assertion on artwork devotion and grappling with ego. Whether or not Ogbonnaya is a tortured artist is just not our place to know, however, on Brat, he revealed how plainspokenly acquainted his personal inner contradictions are. But it’s 2022 now, and NNAMDÏ has returned, able to take a victory lap with Please Have a Seat, his best work but, because it faucets into the persona of a virtuosic goofball who’s unafraid of his personal faults, which he’s totally embraced. “I’m just trying to be organic in my interests,” Ogbonnaya provides. “I’m equally silly as I am stern and reflective. I think it’s a natural habit that just seeps into my creative endeavors. [I’m] always hoping to expand, evolve and learn more about myself through art.”
Please Have a Seat arrives in a rollout that’s extra celebratory than that of Brat’s was. Because the latter is so uncooked and tethered to heavy, buzzing maximalism, the various sounds shimmering throughout the former may not arrive as profoundly. But don’t get it twisted: Ogbonnaya has by no means risen extra singularly than at this very second. If Brat was him at his most formidable, then Please Have a Seat is him at his most assured. “[Please Have a Seat] covers a bit of terrain: confidence, trauma, comfort, how we react to life,” Ogbonnaya says. “I just want people to enjoy the good songs and let it resonate within them.”
Ogbonnaya is, with out a doubt, certainly one of the few artists remaining whose charisma hasn’t been compromised for the sake of constructing accessible information. The sonic landscapes of jazz fusion, cosmic artwork pop, acoustic guitars, lure beats and pure silliness shouldn’t work collectively, however they do. And he’s going to maintain merging these sounds as relentlessly as he can. One second, Ogbonnaya’s stream is poised and bumping. By the subsequent track, he’s traded bars for a buttered falsetto. Album turns can generally arrive jagged, however on Please Have a Seat, the transitions are breathtaking. “I really love piecing together a cohesive story that flows together. I think album order and flow is crucial to a project, so I do put a lot of time and thought into those details as well,” Ogbonnaya provides.
In an genuine presentation of his personal versatility, the singles of Please Have a Seat — “I Don’t Wanna Be Famous,” “Anti” and “Dedication” — contact each nook of Ogbonnaya’s repertoire. In distinction with Brat, nevertheless, the songs of Please Have a Seat don’t conflict; they mesh. It’s as if the Chicagoan’s boldness has lastly locked in in totality. Most of that’s a product of Ogbannaya’s attachment to vocal melodies, which nearly all the time type the foundation of his work. “It can start with a voice memo or me fooling around on guitar or keys, but it’s typically melodic,” he says. “I’ll find the instrument that feels the most at home with the melody and expand from there. Usually, percussive elements and lyrics come towards the end, which sometimes surprises people, with me being a drummer.”
Ogbonnaya is chameleonic. His footprint is throughout up to date music. Recently, he opened for black midi and Jeff Rosenstock. Five years in the past, he was enjoying drums for Vagabon. He’s taken turns as a bassist in Lillie West’s band Lala Lala and likewise performs drums in the instrumental math-rock outfit Monobody. He runs certainly one of Chicago’s biggest indie labels, Sooper Records, with Glenn Curran and Sen Morimoto. Sooper’s existence started, as Ogbonnaya places it, “out of a love and appreciation for a lot of the folks we were friends with [who were] making dope shit.” The label doesn’t change the manner Ogbonnaya makes a file, but it surely makes him extra aware about how he needs it introduced to the remainder of the world.
Ogbonnaya wedges his manner into any musical area and prospers. The undeniable fact that we so usually don’t even understand it’s a testomony to his capacity to rework with out commanding any type of ruckus. “Please Have a Seat can mean many things. It can be you telling someone to have a seat for their own safety, like on a plane. It can be you saying it in a bragging way, like you just juked [someone] in 2K,” Ogbonnaya says. “It could be someone telling it to you because they want to teach you something. The phrase gives way to versatility. During the course of this album, it means all of these things at different moments.”
So usually, what Ogbonnaya items to his audiences are indicators of hope. Two years in the past on Brat, he gave us a mantra that proved extra well timed than ever: “There’s no need to pretend/You’re OK if you’re not.” Now, in 2022, he’s nonetheless combating uphill like the remainder of us. “Something told me I should stay/Things might end up better today/Fight, fight, fight, fight through the pain,” he sings on “Dedication.” To mine by means of the countless prospects that music can supply is already a signal of somebody’s unrelenting curiosity. But to pause and supply some type of reconciliation to all of the methods during which the world needs to beat down on you is simply as unrelenting and highly effective.
None of Ogbonnaya’s wizardry is new, however the stardom of NNAMDÏ remains to be climbing. He’s now passing his passions all the way down to hungry audiences in search of a hero. Few musicians make it to the different facet of the dialog — that interpersonal relationship with the elders of a metropolis’s scene — however Ogbonnaya by no means left dwelling, and now he is able to pay his loyalty ahead to the subsequent era. The world of NNAMDÏ is certainly one of electrifying group. And, in flip, the title of Please Have a Seat rings good, as Ogbonnaya is asking us to hitch him, at his ever-growing desk, whereas he wades by means of the present and continues to problem the binaries of pop music by reinventing their each edge.
Discussion about this post