The first single “Chop Time, No Friend” was released on 19 July featuring two art pieces created by Sinalo Ngcaba (South Africa) and Elangwe Sesse (Cameroon)
Renowned Afropop and Banku Music star Oluwatosin Ajibade p.k.a Mr Eazi has announced a unique art and music collaboration with 13 artists from across Africa for his first studio album, set to release later this year. Each album track will have an accompanying artpiece, created by these artists. The artworks fuse music and art, conveying intense emotions and will be featured in a multi-sensory exhibition experience in London, Lagos, and New York.
The artists are from different African countries, including Benin, Cameroon, Nigeria, Mozambique, Kenya, South Africa, Senegal, and Togo.
The album itself will feature Mr Eazi’s most personal musical works, diving deeply into subjects like love, betrayal, loneliness, and family. The album is a musical scrapbook, including many music collaborators and blends afrobeats, afropop, gospel, hiplife, highlife, and folklore into a fresh and organic pan-African fusion.
During the album’s two-year and multi-country recording process, Mr Eazi forged relationships with visual artists whose work he encountered. Noting the lack of collaboration between Africa’s exploding pop music scene and the continent’s fine art creators; Mr Eazi joined forces with 13 artists to enhance the album experience. Each individual was given true creative freedom based on the music.
The project is being funded by Choplife IP—Ajibade’s company that was founded to invest in African culture; from music to film.
Ajibade will also be collaborating with 1-54 contemporary African art fair as the fair hosts the London leg of the exhibition. The collection will be part of its special projects section this October. “For me, it’s exciting to see an internationally acclaimed musician platforming the work of emerging African artists,” says El Glaoui, founding director of 1-54.
The singer is known for his afrobeat classics ‘Skintight’ (2016) and ‘Leg Over’ (2017), the critically acclaimed mixtape series ‘Life is Eazi’ (2017 – 2018), and EPs ‘One Day You’ll Understand’ (2020) and ‘Something Else’ (2021). He has collaborated with international superstars such as Beyoncé, J Balvin, Bad Bunny, Burna Boy and Nicki Minaj.
Further art pieces will be revealed in August before the full exhibition opens to the public.
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