WORDSPJ Some
ESTRELLA DE PORTADA - Prettyboy DO
DIRECTORES CREATIVOS - Derrick Odafi y Jessica Rushforth
PRODUCTORES CREATIVOS - Jessica Rushforth & Derrick Odafi
FOTÓGRAFO - Barbara Premo
DIRECTOR VISUAL - John Serunjogi
ESTILISTA - Malcolm Yaeng
ASISTENTE DE ESTILISTA - Gloria Iyare
DISEÑADORA DE ESCENARIO - Jessica Rushforth
MUA - Bendición Kambanga
ESTUDIO - Estudio para tomar más fotos
NW: Hi BK, we would love to start by asking how you are right now?
BK: I am in a growing state. I’m honestly just observing, and just working on my album, I think I’m just ready for new stuff to come out. So this is also exciting. Like for me to be a part of this too. You know what I mean?
NW: Yes of course, who is Bktherula and how has she helped Brooklyn Rodriguez?
BK: I would say that who I am and as an artist are very similar. I feel like Bktherula helps me in a sense of just remembering that. I guess I am who I am, and not in a prideful way. If I can envision it, I would see BK talking to me, and I’m sitting down or sad about something, and then she would just come to me and be like, ‘Yo, what are you doing?’ And I’d say, ‘What do you mean?’, then she shows me the life that I have, and the things that I’ve done, and then I’m like,’ oh, yeah, forgot.’ I would have to get up again and shake off whatever is trying to keep me in this cave of emotions.
NW: Yes, to sharpen your mental state, and helps you thrive on that side.
BK: Yes!
NW: Being an Atlanta native, how has that place influenced you, not only as an artist but as an individual?
BK: I was actually just talking to my friends about this yesterday. I honestly don’t think I could have done it anywhere else other than Atlanta. I’ve grown up with my videographer, my engineer. He’s engineered every single song that I have and I grew up with them since I was 15. We just did a lot of stuff, we went to underground shows where they were playing my music and I couldn’t have done it without them. I also couldn’t have done it without being here in Atlanta, I felt the energy here, the culture here, everything has morphed me into being who I am today. I’m recording my album in Atlanta with the same guys once again so it’s just like the cycle repeats itself here all the time.
El estrellato de Prettyboy DO se difunde
Como 'Wildfire' en el número IX
Cuando piensas en Afrobeats, es probable que los artistas nigerianos sean la imagen de adónde te lleva tu mente, que sabemos que cuentan con una gran cantidad de nombres poderosos e influyentes. La personalidad pionera Prettyboy DO es una que no puede faltar en la lista actual de artistas influyentes de la potencia de la música africana. Este innovador artista nacido en Nueva Jersey ofrece un sonido vibrante y animado que no te deja quedarte quieto. Estos sonidos combinan a la perfección con su estilo excéntrico, desde su interpretación de 'Jungle Justice' en COLORS y otros sencillos de gran éxito como 'Same Energy' y 'Chop Elbow' se puede ver claramente el reflejo de esta creatividad. Prettyboy DO es un artista que camina por la cuerda floja de los comentarios sociales y la música experimental, acreditando su entorno e influencias personales por estos rasgos de carácter. Prettyboy es tan interesante en persona como en su música, con individuos como Dennis Rodman y Sisqo como influencias, su estilo personal y energía son distintos de la cabeza a los pies, desde su cabello colorido hasta su expresivo sentido del estilo.
Tras el reciente lanzamiento de su último proyecto, un EP titulado 'Wildfire' que se inspiró en el Libro de las Revelaciones en la Biblia; Prettyboy DO ha podido divergir entre Afro-Pop y Rap mostrando su versatilidad que lo separa del resto. Al ser nombrado rey de la escena Alte, no sorprende que su influencia se esté extendiendo con música que crea una atmósfera fascinante. Continuando con su viaje, parece que el cantante / rapero tiene un objetivo claro de ser el mejor e inspirar a las personas en el camino, allanando su propio camino.
WORDS Derrick Odafi
“La música me hizo un hombre. Siempre he estado enamorado de la música, incluso cuando era niño, pero más aún del lado de la moda de la música. Biggie, Mase, Tupac ... "
Full Look , LEO PROTHMANN
Silver Chocker, CHANEL
¿Cuál es tu opinión de Londres?
P: He venido aquí a menudo, esta vez es diferente por la música y ya estamos levantados. Amo Londres, amo a la gente, me parece muy africano. Parece estar en casa de alguna manera.
Londres y Lagos tienen una gran conexión, ¿cómo crees que es?
P: En primer lugar, tenemos mucha gente nuestra aquí, muchos africanos aquí. Aquí hay toda una vibra que es similar a Lagos porque está muy ajetreado, muy ajetreado. Pero aquí es un nivel más alto, todavía hay lucha. Me encanta Londres, pero al mismo tiempo, la lucha aquí es una locura porque aquí no dicen nada, es solo interna.
También tienes experiencia en Nueva York, y ese es también un lugar donde realmente tienes que esforzarte para salir adelante.
P: Creo que la vida que he vivido, una cosa que he aprendido es que realmente no puedes arrepentirte. Y si tengo algún tipo de puesto, no puedo desperdiciarlo. Londres está lleno, como el metro, realmente no tienes espacio y Nueva York es así, y es como si x2 no estuviera limpio, es más arenoso que Londres.
Y volviendo también a la música, ¿dirías que la música te encontró o tú la encontraste?
P: Eso es profundo. La música me hizo hombre. Siempre he estado enamorado de la música, incluso cuando era niño, pero más aún del lado de la moda de la música. Biggie, Mase, Tupac… Me encanta Tupac, incluso tengo un tatuaje como él. La moda siempre estuvo muy presente en mi cabeza, al mismo tiempo lo era la música, pero nunca me vi a mí mismo como un rapero, lo veo como un estilo de vida, así que en todas partes estoy bailando, vibrando, imitando. Su cultura, especialmente su moda. Cuando era más joven probablemente quería ser diseñador. El caso es que en la secundaria solía escribir mucho, poemas, etc., mierda cursi pero siempre funcionaba. En la universidad, me dijeron que escribiera un poema en inglés y lo hice tan rápido que me dijeron que lo leyera en voz alta y era tan largo y todos estaban como wow. En ese momento realmente no tenía música en mi cabeza, pero en ese momento sale Drake, sale Rocky. No me estaba yendo bien en la escuela, solo perdí a mi chica y el corazón roto. Luego comencé a ir al estudio, pero no lancé nada hasta que sentí que era bueno y eso fue en 2012 y no he mirado atrás.
Estaba un poco destinado, era un proceso, pero no sabes cuál fue el proceso.
P: Sí, no sabe lo que encontrará en la forma en que conoce gente. La cosa se agranda. Es dios. Es Dios y el trabajo.
¿Qué otras cosas creativas haces fuera de la música?
P: Cine, dirijo muchos de mis videos musicales. Probablemente entraré en el cine dependiendo de cuán ambicioso y dispuesto esté a hacerlo. Realmente quiero empezar ahora.
¿Tienes estilista? Si no es así, ¿de dónde viene?
P: Solo estoy en Instagram, guardo las cosas y luego las mezclo.
Uno de nuestros proyectos favoritos es su proyecto de 2018, ¿cuáles fueron sus momentos favoritos para crearlo?
P: Cuando volví a Lagos, había ido a Birmingham y Los Ángeles, y esa vez decidí dejar un proyecto. Luego tuve una conversación con mi primo quien me dijo “tienes que dejar un proyecto, dejar algo y conocer tu sonido, como si tus singles estuvieran explotando, eres tonto pero necesitas conocer tu sonido”. Así que boom, una vez que dijo que era genial, vamos, vamos a hacer estallar. Tenía un montón de música que ya había grabado, llegar a Londres para grabar 2 canciones. Vete a Lagos, empieza a grabar con mis chicos, Hugo, y luego tenemos 2 en la bolsa. Ahora podemos tener un espectáculo ... un nigga me cabrea, odio la política de la industria, si trabajamos duro, tú puedes trabajar duro, vamos, aprovechemos esta oportunidad. Voy a por una industria del espectáculo, los niggas intentan joder conmigo.Estoy cabreado como el infierno. Pero después del show, estoy molesto. Voy a su estudio y le digo que me toque algo y ese ritmo me hizo más feliz que me sentí. Levantar
NW: One video game that you would like one of your songs to feature in cyberpunk? Why is that?
BK: Cyberpunk is actually my favourite game. I don’t know why I haven’t mentioned it yet. I feel like it just looks like how my music sounds. Even the tasks that you have to do, it just reminds me of my music. There’s this one time, I was playing the game and I went to the club on the game. I was hearing music in the background and it sounded like the future and I was like, ‘Oh my God,’ this just sounds like my music, like me. I just imagined that was my song. I also have Tony 77 tattooed on me like, like the game.
NW: Have any video games sparked a song that came out?
BK: I would say it was not a song that came out, it just reminded me of something that I already have out, a song called Crown. Whenever I was in the club was like ‘Damn, that sounds like Crown’, but I think what inspires my music is the small sounds like the sound of like, I don’t know, opening like a the car or whatever. It makes this weird, futuristic sound or just how it sounds when you’re standing in the middle of the street. That inspires me more than the actual music in there. Sounds I’ve never before heard. Inspires me more than listening to other music.
NW: What were some of your favourite characters that you’ve seen in some of these video games?
BK: Well, I mentioned Tomb Raider, Lara Croft. That was like a big inspiration. the way that she dressed and I just really liked that type of style…Crash Bandicoot. My favourite character from Mario Kart was Rosalina. And Knuckles from Sonic. Yeah, Knuckles had swag.
NW: Another thing that’s interesting about you is that you have a toy collection.
BK: Yeah, I do. I do.
NW: How does tapping into your inner child influenced your music? And yeah, tell us a bit about your collection, and why it’s so special to you.
BK: Tapping into my inner child, I just feel like it really never left, honestly. And I think it helps my process with music because I’m just being me. You know what I’m saying? The second you fall away from what you actually are, you’ll just compute, you’re gonna compare yourself to everyone, you’re gonna be really insecure, you’re gonna doubt yourself. And you’re gonna feel like something’s missing, which is why when people usually get famous. They obtain all this money, all this fame, and then they still feel
like something’s missing. Because they left a very important part out which is who they really are. At that point in life, you’ve already lived so much life you don’t know where to find that shit no more. You have to really look hard and dig deep to find it again. So I think you should just never lose it, so you won’t have to look for it.
But about my toys. I’m actually sitting right in front of it. I’m really into horror movies. Like
extremely into horror movies. So I have a lot of my favourite horror movies. I have like a toy of the none. Hellraiser I have a Candy Man toy. I have the Grady twins toy, Coraline. The Walking Dead, Five Nights at Freddy’s Halloween. I have a whole SpongeBob collection. A whole saga: SpongeBob, Patrick, Squidward and I have the Krusty Krab and Sponge Bob’s house and stuff.
NW: Is that your favourite cartoon?
BK: Yeah, that’s one of my favourite shows. I can’t lie. That’s it. I have a couple Tech Decks. I have a Run DMC toy and Andre 3000… I’ve got a lot of Minecraft shit. I actually like miniature arcade games. I have Miss Pac Man, Galaga and cyberpunk toys. I have a chunky toy that moves.
NW: LVL5, what a lot of people might not know is that the album has a very spiritual kind of messaging, what sparked that direction for you?
BK: I think that I am just trying to spread a message of there definitely is a spiritual war going on, all at all times. In the smallest little things that we go through. And, sometimes we feel like the world is against us. And why are all these bad things happening? It’s actually just as simple as is spiritual warfare, the light and the dark. That’s really it. When you do crazy good things, the dark is not happy about that. They’ll do anything to take you down. So that’s why when people say life is like a roller coaster, you go all the way to the top, and then you go all the way down. You don’t have to go all the way down. The reason why people are going all the way down is because they’re not aware that there’s a spiritual warfare going on.
So, they just kind of let the devil take them down. It could be like small things like you going up. Everything’s cool. But let’s say you don’t drink, right? You’re going up, you go to one of these parties. And they’re just like, ‘here, take a shot’. You take the shot, that’s what’s making the roller coaster go down. It’s a decision that you’re making. But you just have to be aware of what can take you back. And that is the dark. That’s the spiritual warfare that I’d be talking about. There’s signs and there’s certain things that you can see, that will literally tell you what’s about to happen, but you just have to see the unseen. And in order to do that, you just have to really tap in.
NW: You recently released an acoustic version of that song. What message were you trying to convey with that?
BK: For the acoustic, I wanted to give more of a personal side of me honestly, because I feel like some people think I’m either extremely aggressive or not serious. I wanted to do that, you know what I mean? Let me really show them, tell them how I feel without having to tell them how I feel. So it’s the same songs that are already out. When I’m saying something completely in a different way. It sounds different. It feels different. When I started off, my first song was an r&b song. I’m more into that. I know how to do that way more than what I’m doing now. So it’s like, alright, just let me just show them another side of me, was my thought process. And I did it, I did all three songs back to back. We just planned on releasing it like that, it was probably the easiest thing I’ve done. I wanted to kind of get a little bit more vulnerable with them.
Black Leather Top and Skirt, LICK RIKA
Leather Arm Belt, MONIKA BEREZA
Latex Leg Cover, ELISSA POPPY
Black Boots, NATACHA MARRO
" Me veo siendo uno de los GOATS que alguna vez lo haya hecho musicalmente en Nigeria, si todavía sigo haciendo música ".
Vemos que tiene una carrera muy larga y que lidera una nueva carga de artistas. En los próximos 10 a 15 años, ¿dónde se ve a sí mismo y a su oficio?
P: ¿Dónde quiero estar dentro de 10 años ... Maldita sea, seré viejo [Risas] Veo cosas diferentes, pero me veo siendo una de las CABRAS que alguna vez lo haya hecho musicalmente en Nigeria, si todavía sigo haciendo música. . Si no lo soy, tendré un artista, pero aún seré uno de los grandes que lo haya hecho. Probablemente haré películas dentro de 10 años. Quizás en mi cabeza probablemente esté tratando de conseguir un Oscar. Me veo siendo un Titán para entonces, un nombre familiar. Ni siquiera será mi nombre artístico, será mi nombre real.
Increíble, con suerte, ¿hacer películas generacionales que sean recordadas en todo el mundo?
P: Sí, solo para ser un titán en el entretenimiento. No me veo a mí mismo ahí fuera como algo comercial, pero sumergiré mis manos en eso y sé que entraré en películas. En ese momento, no creo que esté en el centro de atención, pero mis películas lo estarán.
Dress, TRACY CUI.
Ring (Right Hand), KHIRY
Rings (Left Hand), AGMES
Nose Ring, ARTIST’S OWN.
Traje morado: John Lawrence Sullivan
Camisa de leopardo: Edward Crutchley
Joyas: Rathel Wolf
NW: This issue that we’re releasing is called the performance issue. What does performance mean to you?
BK: I still think experience fits for that, honestly, it’s, that’s probably one of my favourite things to do, and every day I practice to get better. Practising, just listening to my music and seeing how my body moves to music, and just taking it to the stage. And also, like creating a connection with the fans in the crowd as well. I would say.
It’s fun. It’s probably that I want to be known as one of the best performances. That’s another goal that I have.
NW: What aspect of performance do you want to tap into a little bit more?
BK: Stage design, I need stage design! I need just something a little bit more. But I think that every day, I’ll just strive to be like one of the best performers. I just, that’s the dream that I have to look at Trav [Travis Scott]. Trav goes on stage and people go crazy, even Carti. If we really get in there, Carti goes on stage, and the crowds are different from how other people go on stage. It’s not the same. Our attention spans are getting shorter and shorter. And there’s so much music that comes out. So people don’t really listen to the same body of work over and over again anymore. To have that type of control, to the point where you can go on tour three, four times with the same body of work. 1000s of people are still pulling up plus 1000s more. Yeah, that’s what I want to do. That’s what I’m gonna do. I just have to perfect what I’m doing. But I’ll get there for sure. Wherever you’ve been at once or twice, like, you’re not gonna get that experience, not anywhere else. So you come back for that, for that feeling, for that energy.
NW: What do you want yourself to be focused on 10 years from now?
BK: I would say, don’t don’t stretch yourself out too long. When your time is done, your time will never be done. You don’t have to keep up with the next gen, that’s why the Next Gen is the next gen. It was a good one. When you know, you know? It’s definitely gonna be like an evolution thing. I’m not just sticking to wherever it is like you’re delving into other aspects of your journey.
NW: Maybe a toy museum 10 years from now?
BK: It’s definitely gonna be something different. I have a feeling that this is just the beginning of everything that I was supposed to do. I might even be fucking motivational, I don’t know, I see myself talking a lot. I see myself really helping out younger kids and stuff like that. It’s just a matter of growth that I need to do. I can really be great at a lot of different things. I could branch out into a lot of different things. I think music is just a first step, because it’s my love and I’ll never not, I’ll never stop loving music. Even when I retire. I’ll probably still have a studio. But I’ll probably just retire from dropping but I’ll probably still be recording.
" Me veo siendo uno de los GOATS que alguna vez lo haya hecho musicalmente en Nigeria, si todavía sigo haciendo música ".
