Music
Some Of The DMV’s Brightest African Acts Unite On ‘Cure’ EP By Dafidi The Music Company
Featuring Laik, Lelo, Lotus, Wallz, Tobby Drillz, DJ 30-04, Bunie, Bobby Cleave and more.
By
Tomi Idowu
5 years ago
Alongside cities like New York, Los Angeles and Houston, the D.C, Maryland and Virginia (DMW) area remains one of the biggest hubs for Africans in the US. It’s one of the reasons the cities feature on any African artist of note’s tours, sometimes even commanding multiple dates. As Burna Boy preaches pan-Africanism, a group of DMV based African artists hailing from Ghana, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone have united under the moniker ‘Dafidi The Music Company’ to share an EP tagged Cure.
The artists included in the collective are Laik, Lelo, Ayotemi, Lotus, Wallz, Tobby Drillz, DJ 30-04 and Na’jaii. The project features Bunie, Bobby Cleave, and Lelo as producers, and Santaa shines as a guitarist.
We spoke to one of the artists on each of the tracks to highlight the significance of each of the six tracks to the greater project.
On Too Fine, the vulnerable introduction to the project, Sierra Leonean artist Laik says the record represents the healing process. He said “the Cure explores a way of healing through venturing into deep connections with diverse people through the art of music. Too Fine explores the physical connection stimulated by meeting a woman that inspires you. We know that love heals all.”
Wallz when speaking on Tonight recalls how the song came to be and reminds us to always slow down and take each day as it comes. He says “I remember watching Breaking Bad with Lelo and hearing the lyrics of a 1940’s song. He started singing it over and over, Bunie overheard him and before you know it I heard a crazy beat and started to create this inspired by the magic one moment can bring. Even during such a daunting time, taking life one moment at a time can help ease the struggle.”
Speaking about All I Want, the project’s executive producer Lelo tells the story of the track’s creation saying “Before the pandemic, I made this beat on some Airbnb vibes with Teni. As the team and I were going through a listening session during the pandemic, I reminisced on how this beat was created. Drillz was inspired by the beat but also wanted to balance that and capture enjoying and escaping a desperate situation and a return to when things were normal.”
Bunie is a man of few words when we touch on Woolah, simply saying “let’s give the quarantine savages their summer anthem.”
Touching on what
Undisputed represents,
Lotus believes it is important we never trivialize people’s experiences. He tells us “even when times are hard we want to feel undisputed and just because you have biases based on my appearance, you still have not seen what I have seen and don’t know my struggles.”
Lastly,
Bobby Cleave says the EP’s closer and most energetic record
Inside represents everything we’ve experienced in quarantine. Cleave says “I’ve been stuck inside so long but during one particular session I made three beats and this was the last of them. Wallz and Drillz were in the studio with me as well but we were just not there yet until DJ 30 came in from a jollof run with different energy, and did his take once! It brightened up the whole session and we created what we hope brings energy to the people that are stuck inside!
Uniting as a collective, an approach that was taken by Abuja based artists PsychoYP, Zilla Oaks, Marv OTM and more under Apex Village, has definitely helped the artists leverage off one another’s attention and hopefully for Dafidi The Music Company, it is a similar result.
Listen to the project below.
