People ask me why I go to so many gigs. I tell them it’s thrilling to see someone you love listening to perform live, and because sometimes, you discover someone you’d never heard before. That’s how I was introduced to Kahli Abdu; he was supporting Palmistry (a UK electronic artist) at Rough Trade in Brooklyn. I walked in half-way through his set and was blown away. There was an unmistakably Afrobeat vibe, but this guy was also rapping. And then would do a sweet RnB tune, all with a drummer and a laptop. I didn’t know what to make of it but it was more interesting than anything I had heard in a while. The audience were also enjoying it; making Brooklynites move at gigs is a super power, I’ve realized. I had to hear about his story; what genre did he put himself into, if any? How long had he been making music? And what was his next move? A week or so later, we sat down and talked about all those things and much more; growing up around music in Nigeria, the way he visualizes music and why he thinks he’s a missionary.

UHH: I’ve been searching for your music, all over the internet! There’s a lot of mixtapes around in different places.

KA: All that shit is really old! You basically witnessed my evolution. It’s funny your blog is called Upcoming Hip-Hop, because I was obsessed with hip-hop at a point. I started in music by singing with my dad, then I heard a Nas verse and I was immediately obsessed with the whole thing.

How old were you then?

I was 10, I heard The Firm album; I started rapping since then. But I don’t really consider myself a rapper. I have put out some really good rap mixtapes but I’m just an artist. I produce my stuff now, about 97% of it.

How long have you been producing for?

For as long as I’ve been making music. I grew up in the church, I’d always go back when they were rehearsing so I could be around the instruments. My uncle was the band leader so I would help them set up; I learned to play the drums that way. Production has kind of been on the low, a lot of my friends didn’t know I produce.

Have you produced for anyone else?

Yeah, I have produced for some people, the only famous person is the biggest rapper in Africa called M.I But that pretty much sums up me as a producer; I basically produce to write songs.

So writing is your first love?

No singing is – my dad was a singer and he taught me to harmonize, we used to sing together. But I’m a production nerd, put it that way. Throw a rap in there, and that’s me.

So you grew up in Jos, Nigeria; when did you move here?

I moved in ’05, so I was 19.  

Do you go back often?

Yeah, I was just there a month ago, I do visit a lot. I have many friends and family there, but I’m actually planning a festival so we were talking about that.

What kind of festival?

An arts festival over 3 days. We’re going to start this December. Artists from all over, not just Nigeria.

What inspired you to do it?

I’ve always wanted to start a festival at some point. It goes pretty much hand-in-hand with everything else I’m doing. I’ve been working on it for years, mulling over ideas, so many domain names. But ever since the election really I thought it’s time to do it.

So you grew up with church music in your blood and all around you. How did music change for you in that moment you heard Nas?

I guess it just opened up a new portal, if you will. I just saw something I didn’t know existed. Rap has always been there but the poetry of it…and you’re talking about Nas. When you hear them talk - I say talk because that’s the way I approach it and so I don’t consider myself a rapper. I’m talking about legitimate stuff that’s happening to or around me. I never really try to rap, I shy away from sitting down and trying to make it rhyme. Every time you’ve heard me rap I try to just let it hit me and then I just describe it. I prefer for it to come from a place of complete inspiration. When I first listened to Nas I’m thinking, ‘wow, it’s almost musical the way he rhymes’.

Who else were you listening to growing up?

Fela Kuti is pretty huge. He was on the radio a lot. Bob Marley is my number one inspiration music and life wise. There was a lot of reggae in Nigeria in the 80s and early 90s. Pop music in Nigeria was reggae. Not too much American pop music really, just occasionally. The pop music you hear now coming out of Nigeria wasn’t like that. I guess I’m still obsessed with artists from the 80s like Rick James, Michael Jackson, Prince.

If you had grown up in the US, do you think the role of music would have been different?

You can decide to be a musician but when music decides you should do it, it’s a totally different thing altogether. So I still would have pursued music but I would have been a different artist. I never did well with instruction, like piano teachers or my dad teaching me to play guitar. Hence, I don’t really know how to play any instrument really well. I just know enough. I keep telling people that if I was classically trained, I would be a completely different artist. I feel like my rhythm is broken somewhere so I’m able to think differently. The way I conceptualize songs is a bit different. There’s a famous Kanye line, “Everything I’m not made me everything I am” – this is the way I see it.

You balance your sound between electronic, hip hop, RnB, Afrobeat, dancehall – somehow you get them all to work together.  WizKid and Fuze ODG are a few of the mainstream Afrobeat artists who have a particular sound, but you’re more of a mix.

When I work I can see the end of an album and if I can see that before I begin, then I think it’s going to be a great project. So I start at the end, go back to the beginning and fill in the middle. I almost approach it like I’m writing a book or a script. When you dreamed it, if you’re able to see it through all the way to the end where it sounds really good without any interference, listening to any genre. So when I start composing it’s very likely that I would blend those somehow.

I’ve heard you say before that you don’t listen to much music when you’re making your own tracks. Do you make something that’s spontaneously inspired by an artist you’ve heard, or is it more focused on one sound for a while?

A bit of both. Sometimes it’s super spontaneous, it overtakes me, the rush is powerful and you just flow with it. Sometimes I do six songs in one session. Other times you’re sitting down with absolutely nothing, just staring into space, like yesterday. Then I went and watched a film. When I’m working, I tend to watch more than listen to stuff. Kind of odd but that’s just how my brain works. I see things as opposed to just mimicking what I hear. Sometimes it is deliberate, for example right now I’m working on an 80s EP. But doing that while working on my first album, it’s kind of finished but there’s interest in it so I want to get musicians and instruments in the studio and blow it out of the park. I put it up on Twitter, I’m not doing any more mixtapes. The whole concept of a mixtape is just bogus to me, why is it just a mixtape? Are you scared to call it an album? I think all the projects I’ve done are albums, but they are mixtapes at the end of the day because I was mainly rapping. I don’t understand the concept of end, like this song is done. Nothing is ever finished with me. Live is everything. Any artist who doesn’t understand that or doesn’t play many live shows, isn’t a musician.

Do you prefer the stage to the studio?

That’s not necessarily what I mean, but I think that for you to really understand how a song works, you got to put it live. When you play it live, it’s like you’re auditioning for all these people – let’s see what you have. The energy within a song carries you, if the song is really good you’ll have an explosive performance; if the song sucks, the performance will suck and then you don’t like the song, or think, ‘what is wrong with this song?’ I try stuff out at shows a lot. I’ve redone so many of my projects you might have heard. I just think, ‘how can I wow people?’ I want people to think it’s totally unexpected.

I think about Freddie Mercury and about the fact that he’s one of the best performers ever. I listen to his studio recordings and I’m like of course he’s the best performer, this music is unbelievably good. Mos Def said one time, or a character he played in a movie, ‘I want people to feel the same feeling I felt the first time I heard the beat’. Some people like Slick Rick, he wouldn’t get on a track that doesn’t move him. You know when you hear a certain track and you just cover your face. If your fans feel that same energy, then you’re good. When you watch Bob Marley perform, his eyes are closed, he’s somewhere – it’s a feeling.

What about producers, are there any you like to emulate?

Yes, I love this question. When we were at Mercury Lounge, this artist called 6lack performed and when he finished, the DJ played a Timbaland / Missy Elliott track. I don’t remember which one it was and I was just squeezing my face like ‘good God’. Timbaland has to be maybe the best producer of all time. Some of the stuff he did with Missy Elliott is just stupid. I grew up in the 90s so Thriller with Quincy Jones is maybe the best album of all time. I go from there to Timabland and then to Swizz Beatz who ushered in the 2000s.

Do you listen to upcoming producers?

Whoever the kids are who produced Kendrick’s album are really good, I don’t know who they are. I almost always check out whatever Hit-Boy produces and the other guy that produces Drake, Boi-1da. You see that beat, 0 to 100 – I’ve listened to that 1000 times. Actually one of my favorite producers right now is Kaytranada.

How do you feel about Afrobeat becoming more mainstream? I know that’s the case in the UK and obviously Drake’s jumped on it. But do you have more fans in the US or Canada?

I don’t have many fans, let me explain why I say that. All the stuff I’ve done in the past was just for myself, just exercise. Every time I go back home, there’s all these kids who come up to me, like ‘oh man, that project is my life’ and I’m like ‘word, I haven’t even started yet’. All those things that you heard, I’ve put out in Nigeria in that space. But my ministry is really beginning now. I say ministry deliberately because I think I’m a missionary.

For who?

For the world. I like the idea of being a missionary and traveling everywhere. I don’t like ‘nomad’. I like missionary because I feel like the more you travel, the more you experience and the more you meet new people, the more your mind opens and more you have to offer them. So I feel like this is the beginning. I just turned 30 this year and Jesus’ ministry began at 30 so it’s very, very significant. When I say I have no fans, it’s no disrespect to anyone who considers themselves my fan, but I’m just beginning now. I feel like I will be releasing my first project. If you’re Muhammad Ali and you’re sparring in the gym preparing for a big fight, who cares if you’re knocking guys out then. On the day of the fight, you get in the ring and that’s what you’ll be judged off.

So when’s the album coming out?

I don’t know, it depends. I was trying to release it by March but when a label is interested in working with you, you have to meet with them. But on my own if I’m done mixing and mastering it then I’m done. You just email your distributor and then it’s on all the platforms.

Do you want to be signed?

No, why should you sign? The less people you have telling you what you think you should do, the better.

What if they gave you full creative control?

I would sign but I get advised with things like, no 360 deals. If anything, you want a partnership with someone who believes in your music, sees you in front of as many people as possible and support what you do.

Who do you think your fans will be – people whose main interest is hip hop, or electronic, or Afrobeat?

No idea. It may sound nuts but all of those. Think about it, most of my set is electronic. You would hear a few live instruments, mostly electric guitar and I play with a drummer on stage because live drums adds more energy, particularly an Afrobeat drummer. Then I’m singing all these styles, I’m going from dancehall to Afrobeat to funk and throwing a rap here and there.

What do you think of some of the new genres like Future RnB – hip hip, rap and RnB fans all like it?

For the longest, I’ve flirted with the concept of not having a genre at all. I used to be offended by people saying, ‘you’re just a rapper’. Well how about the three times I sang on the album? But then I realized, I didn’t know what my genre was. So it became clear to me that pop music, more than anything else, is what I want to achieve. Not pop in terms of the style but pop in terms of everything combined, that’s the only way I could envision it. Bob Marley had all his recordings in Jamaica but it needed someone with a vision to say, ‘these are really, really good but we should get somebody who plays rock music to play that guitar’. It’s basically a fusion album, you fuse styles, and then you have this completely universal thing which breaks all kinds of walls, shatters all kinds of preconceptions. I used to want to be a niche artist so bad because I thought it would be edgy, I’ve always fancied myself as a rebellious guy. I come from a place where we operate by huge numbers, when we do stuff it’s always huge. I was releasing a song called Festival, it was originally called Arewa Festival, which means ‘North Festival’. But that’s only referring to one third of Nigerians so I’m excluding people and that turned me off, this is for everybody. ‘Exotic pop’ is my genre now.

I like that! Sounds like you’re kind of niche, even if you didn’t mean to be?

It rolls off my tongue easily now, it makes sense. I know that pop can be frowned upon by some people, especially in New York.

I think it depends on the type of pop. It’s got a name as being inauthentic, which people don’t like so much but that isn’t always the case, like Kendrick Lamar pop, and Michael Jackson was the king of pop!

What do you think the American perception of Nigerian culture is?

I think what America thinks of Nigerian culture is irrelevant because they have yet to see who we truly are and what we truly can do. The same older people are in power from years and years ago, we need a change. There’s a quiet revolution brewing and trust me, I am in front of that 100%. The youth in Nigeria need to wake up and take responsibility. Musically speaking, there are so many mistakes I’ve seen all these artists make. We’re unable to see our potential because somehow we’ve been raised a certain way to hold back, like wait until you’re 40 before people take you seriously. I think that the world is about to see the true Nigeria.

The video to Festival looked like a lot of fun and you directed it. I especially like the bit where you’re hanging off the car. How did you do that?

I got it off Beyoncé! I had just seen her video where she’s leaning out of the car, and I was like ‘I want that in there!’ I didn’t turn out quite the way I wanted it but it was supposed to be like an action hero, the guy in some jungle just hanging from the window of a whip. I grew up watching really bad action films!

What was the idea behind that video?

There’s a legitimate story, although it may not seem like it. It was supposed to be this guy who goes to this enchanted forest, which happens to be my mom’s backyard, that’s where I recorded the album – I needed nature. (Artists should embrace more nature, it’s amazing what it does to you). So this guy’s in the enchanted forest and there’s a ritual dance. It was the first legitimate video I was directing and I wanted to do way too much, so if I could do it again I would do things differently. My sister and I designed the set and the people in it were really excited about it. I usually see a whole video when I’m producing my tracks so of course I had to direct my own.

The other video I saw was with Valaire, which looked like a lot of summer fun at a big festival.

Yes at C2 Montreal, really dope. That was when I fell in love with Montreal. Valaire are really fun, I toured with them in September and I’m going back in March.

Are there any artists you really want to work with?

Loads. I would love to work with Kaytranada, 100%. I had a dream that Tyler the Creator and I got along so well because he’s such a troll, he just has fun. I think I would get along with Kendrick Lamar very well. Before I die, I would love to just be in the same room as Rick Rubin, and the same studio as Andre 3000. I would love to invite Lauryn Hill to Jos. And I would love to record with any of the Marley’s before I die, anyone! A cousin, whomever, so long as their last name is Marley. Also Kojey Radical; I’m obsessed with whole Push Crayons visual thing, I just want to talk about life and art with them.

What’s the best piece of musical advice you’ve ever received?

One time I did this mixtape called ‘Ministry of Corruption’ and people really liked it back home because a lot was going on that I was talking about. People hit you up like, ‘I want to work with you’. My friend said to hold back, you got to be careful. I was weary of that and I’m glad I didn’t. My evolution wasn’t complete but it’s complete now and I’m ready. I went to Lagos and WizKid’s manager said ‘I just heard your mixtape, it’s so dope, what’s next?’ I was on some stupid cocky shit like, ‘nah that’s it, I’m done’. I didn’t take it seriously, I wasn’t ready then.

How do you know that you’re ready now?

It’s a feeling. You may not be religious, but there’s something about all those stories and almost every single one of them went through a period of immense heartbreak or pain, and that is what I call the wilderness of your life. Jesus supposedly goes to the wilderness for 40 days, he’s tormented by the devil and faces demons, and he comes out and he’s so ready. Just when I turned 30, I experienced the worst thing. I went to Nigeria last year to promote a festival and I got robbed in Lagos. My laptop, my hard drive, basically 10 years’ worth of work. I had this elaborate album I was working on for so long. Songs I had been writing since I moved to this country. All that was gone, like that. For 2 days, I was dead. I didn’t go out, I was just in a room thinking, ‘what am I going to do now. It’s over, obviously.’ But on the third day I understood exactly why that happened and I was so full of life, so bright. I just knew that I was going to conquer the world at that point. By the time I came back to the US, I started recording and I was on fire. But this year I can’t stop me, you wake up in the morning and you feel it.

What does success look like for you?

Being able to travel to any country, and be welcome there. People appreciating you because somehow you’ve touched their lives with your music, and being able to play live. I want to be invited to every festival in the world; that to me is success. The concept of success to me is touching each and every person in this world by my music.

Do you think you’ll ever move back to Nigeria?

I want to live in Nigeria because too many people are living way beyond their means here. You’re being told, ‘oh that’s the American Dream, this house – get it, it’s such a great deal’. People are buying shit they can’t afford and God forbid something bad happened, they can’t continue to pay and it’s not yours anymore. But where I’m from, this land belongs to you and it’s all you need to build a home. You have one brick, you lay it down. You have a second brick, you lay it too. You go until you have how many bricks it takes to build a home, and you have a home. No bank can ever come to you and say, ‘that’s not your home’.

Find Kahli and his music here:

http://www.kahliabdu.com

https://soundcloud.com/kahliabdu

https://twitter.com/kahliabdu

https://www.facebook.com/kahlimusic

https://www.instagram.com/kahliabdu

http://rebelmuseum.tumblr.com