Virtual Sit Down 2021: Episode 2
I met with the G.O.A.T Reezy (Virtually) and it was my favourite one hour chat in quite a while.
Welcome to Benin, one of Nigeria's oldest city and the only place in the 21st century where rainfall determines if you would have a power supply or Nah, well I haven't had light for a week now and I'm super duper late for this interview because my phone been dead.
Footsteps approaching, sounds of Reezy moving around and I can't tell if today's superstar is on the road or just wandering around his home.
“Congratulations on your project and its re release” I announce. Reezy had recently put up an amazing body of work and in between congratulations, fan love, new chart spots we suddenly realised we couldn't listen to new Reezy anymore, it seemed like it had been taken off platforms. This was frustrating for fans and critics alike because we had waited almost a year for this particular tape, we got it and then we lost it. So you'll understand me congratulating Reezy on his re-release and choosing to discuss the initial release first before I dived into its “second coming”.
How are you feeling, long-awaited, almost a year old wait... explain to us what it feels like to have finally put this project out
Sounding relaxed, but as the sentences out of his mouth progress, you notice that hint of relief. Like the fans, it's clear Reezy also looked forward to releasing this project. Reezy seems to have a special endearment for this project as he dearly ascribes to it the gender “her” and constantly calls her “My baby girl”
..I'm just happy to give her to the world, I had fun making her, this project is going to be the birth of a lot of things that are so beautiful I can't wait..
Girls on drugs pretty much seems in line with everything about the Reezy branding, your first project in 2020 was let's do molly nxt.. what's it with reezy and drugs? Some would say you're being a bad influence, others would say you're simply a representation of today's youth and that is in fact why they like you. I'm wondering what does Reezy say?
At this point Reezy realises he has to choose his next words very carefully, we share a laugh over the deduced tight spot situation after which Reezy brilliantly answers
I'm happy my music influences people to live their best lives, I won't go ahead to say drugs are good, I create music from my experiences, memories of depression, happiness, sadness etc and I'm just glad people can connect to that and are inspired to be better.
Talking about branding, you're one of the few artists I've seen make a conscious effort towards representing/portraying something. Can you shed some light on what the ideas behind your branding are? What is the Reezy brand or what do you hope to portray as the Reezy brand?
Well, I just try to portray what stars do whether it be a Rapstar, Rockstar or Trapstar or anything I just like to show what that said “star” would do whether in the musical content, dress sense or aesthetics or basic terms to be associated with me..
For one with such a powerful brand like yours, I keep wondering and I'm sure a lot of fans wonder too, where are your Merchandise, hell when are we getting a Reezy show?
Reezy informs me he's working on something for G.O.D and as for the show…
I do have a show coming up that I'll be announcing pretty soon, it's a joint effort from myself and two other acts, it should go down probably next month (June) or July, I'll give a full update once everything is sorted, but yes there is a show coming and it's going to be Siiicckk!
Now we've heard some rumours about a lawsuit which possibly led to G.O.D being taken down on certain platforms care to comment on this?
Uhm..two songs on the project Coachella and Fuck Geminis had samples, I'd come across this producer who put out a sample pack, I found these samples, I loved them, I reached out to the producer informing him of my intentions to extract these samples fast forward to releasing the tape admittedly on my part I forgot to hit him up when I dropped the tape as I'd lost his contact. Court sh**, lawyer sh**, several backs and forths I'm just glad we've gotten that out the way as we came to an out of court settlement.
I still feel some way though like dude you're Nigerian, I'm Nigerian why didn't you just hit me up bro.
What did that do to your mojo how were you able to pick yourself back up, do the necessary and release again...how supportive was your team and how did this experience show the importance of having a team, do you think you could have gotten yourself back up as quickly as you did if you didn't have one (a team)
The whole experience took a lot out of me, like I was very weak, I wanted to get it back up as soon as possible but I was so tired like I didn't have the strength, I took that time to just like...what did I really do? omoh I was just sleeping, because I didn't have the strength anymore to say okay I want to do this, because it took a lot of steam out of me, from everything, where the EP had already gotten to and stuff like that. And the team to be honest helped, it's not easy doing everything by yourself and all, I don't know if someone goes through this and doesn't have that support system I don't know how they would have bounced back, as you know music can be stressful and all these extra little things just make things worse. This experience thought me a lot, showed me another dimension of the industry but I'm glad to be back up.
Now let's dive into the project itself, What was your thought process like creating this project
I have to say that when I went about creating Girls on Drugs, I had an idea of what I wanted the project to be but I had not created songs around that theme, I only had a name for it and when I eventually zoned into the theme I started creating to fit that theme. Everything basically started in my head and I'm glad I was able to bring it to life.
Is there any song you wish made the final cut but sadly didn't?
Yeah, some songs were created during the G.O.D phase that Didn’t make it, we’ll revamp them for newer projects Got a few that were this👌 close to making the project.
Why couldn't they make it any exact reason
I mean they were dope but I felt the songs that ended up making the official tracklist were more in sync with the picture I had in my head and wanted to paint with this project.
I'm sure you had your favourite songs and songs you felt would be easy fan favourites, fast forward to release day are the fan choices the same as yours or you've noticed little difference in their choices
I needed every song to make sense honestly, but yeah I was shocked that people did love F*** Geminis I thought it was a song for selective taste but when people ended up liking it I was just like oh wow that's crazy cause I didn't expect it
Let's talk jiggy boy letters
What inspired that song, pre-recording this track what was your mood like...heck take me through your day pre penning this song and pre-recording it
The instrumental! It was just like when I heard the beat I knew what I wanted to say, I was supposed to hit the studio on a set dat and just a day before that day I got this beat and wrote to it, it's basically a letter from me, I'm jiggy boy and I'm writing a letter in form of bars to my fans and anyone who cares to listen, laying it all bare.
Listening to the final mix, pre-release and I just knew this was it!
Connect with Reezy
Twitter:@reezymusic
IG:@_nomynameisreezy
Properly detailed piece..