AGBALAGBI (the E.P) Oluwamillar, his distinctive rap style, and his philosophical approach to rap are one thing. His ability to contribute to society with meaningful words backed by active bars, intriguing wordplays, and an uncanny ability to captivate the listener’s mind with imagery and suspense in an unpredictable manner is another.
OLUWAMILLAR, born “ ” is a rapper from South-West Nigeria. It is a historic city rich in music and with a great love for drums. Discussing Agbalagbi, Oluwamillar sheds new insights into his struggles, the making of the E.P., and more.
Millar, this is great to see, agbalagbi making waves in real time, chartings, blogging, shouts-outs, and all, this is great. Congratulations, How do you feel about this?
Thank you so much. One, I’m just grateful for the gift to be able to impact this way, grateful my people are tapped in and putting their people on. Basically, I feel quite a number of things, but gratitude is chief amongst them. A part of me also echoes, “yes, we have to keep going.”
Why AGBALAGBI? Like out of all names, why did you choose AGBALAGBI?
Ohh. First you have to understand we sampled Baba Suwe a while back, in a clip where he referred to himself as ÀGBÀLÁGBÌ. “Agbalagbi to ju Àgbàlágbà lọ,” he says and I bit. Simply put an àgbàlágbì is a senior man, and all senior men have their stories. In other words, everybody is an ÀGBÀLÁGBÌ. And yeah, apart from the song, I choose to name the project ÀGBÀLÁGBÌ because of the storytelling, give my people a lot to connect with and relate to.
The process of creating AGBALAGBI must have carried a lot of weight, care to shed some with us?
Oh yeah. There’s a couple personal stuff in there. Some of them hard to share. But I’ve found sharing this way in and with the music helps shed some of the weight.
REVERSE BACK with BAYO, and MOJO AF, how did you connect with these great guys?
Found Bayoo on Twitter that year, knew instantly we’d make magic. When I wrote Reverse Back, I wrote a hook but didn’t like it. Wondered who could handle it for a while then I remembered him. Sent him the jam and that was it. He delivered beyond words. MOJO, weirdly, it was this same Twitter. I heard Shawarma and have been a huge fan since. From the moment I heard the instrumental (s/o Kami, the producer), I knew MOJO would bang on it. Took a while but it happened. S/o Bayoo & MOJO.
“Here you have it Agbalagbi to ju Agbalagba lo, this is hip-hop, this is the culture, this is 234”
