It was one of the calmest Friday evenings. The rain had poured and washed away all of the heartache that I had felt gripping my heart. I was very cold. This Friday, I had decided to visit a friend, Kofo. She had just become my friend at this time. She was ransacking for clothes to wear to visit her ‘it’s complicated’ on one hand and on the other hand, she was convincing me to come along and meet his friend. I was staring at her long golden braids and admiring how much effort she was putting into picking a crop top.
‘See Yemisi, you need to meet new people and forget about him’, she said while she turned on her speaker and began to search for songs to play.
Pause.
I heard it. She picked up her hairbrush and rather confidently screamed into my ears, a little off tune ‘Do you have what it takes, to be my baby cuz if you know you want to waste time you should just walk out the way you came’
‘Who is this?’, I asked her while focusing on how she swayed.
Like every other person I have now met, she could not pronounce his name. This was the first time I heard Obongjayar on ‘If You Say’.
‘I don’t need love that’s not genuine. My heart just can’t let you in. Show me you’re not the same as everyone else’
Obongjayar, ‘If You Say’
Maybe it was because of the performance Kofo put up, the way she swayed and held on to the brush while screaming ‘I don’t need love that’s not genuine’. Or unadmittedly, it was because a part of me wanted to share this song with my past lover. I would never know for sure. The song played in my head all through that evening.
I searched for him far and wide with the little words of the song I remembered from that night and found his Sweetness EP. What a day! As I showered, I played the entire EP and imitated Kofo’s performance of If You Say until it stuck.
The most beautiful thing about Obongjayar for me has to be his raspy voice. It is not the more intense voice I have heard. It feels a little bit like cotton balls, soft but the texture is very noticeable, call it bedroom voice even. His unique voice is usually accentuated in how he delivers through spoken word. For this reason, unlike most artistes, if I do say so myself, the wordings of songs stick rather easily.
Like every other choir boy turned mainstream artist, the spiritual overtones in his music could easily be traced to his early exposure to gospel music. In God’s Own Children, his tune and wording remind me of the popular Battle Hymn of the Republic but in the Afrocentric form.
‘God’s own children. Keep your head up. Press your weight against the winds that try to throw you. This place is ugly. Don’t let it rub you. Of your face. Of your grace and of your body’
Obongjayar, ‘God’s Own Children’
In Point and Kill, where he is featured by the phenomenal Little Simz, his use of afrobeat reminds me of the legendary Fela Anikulapo Kuti. Somewhere in my mind, I have painted a picture of him doing a refix to Fela’s ‘Alagbon Close’ irrespective of the flaw that his music is not exactly drive at activism.
I do as I want, I do as I like. I no watch face. I no fear nobody.
Obongjayar, ‘Point and Kill’
Admittedly, I am no music expert. When it comes to matters of expression however, I am drawn to Obongjayar’s Tinko Tinko, to think about numerous ‘situationships’ that we seemingly find ourselves and the quest for true love. This makes me anticipate what he may have brewing for us in his new Album ‘Some Nights I Dream of Doors’ which would be for our hearing pleasure on the 15th of May.
‘Don’t play me for a fool. I’d rather be alone than next to someone who don’t feel like i do. Are we in love or are we just comfortable’
Obongjayar, ‘Tinko Tinko’
Obongjayar is undisputedly blessed with the hands of Maya Angelou, the imagination of Walt Disney, and his voice, incomparable as it proves to be one of a kind.
Thinking back to the evening where Kofo had performed to me and looking at myself now, I would say Obongjayar( and I say this without seeming like a flatterer) has in some ways made me feel like a better lover. His expressiveness has covered most of the words I would share with a future lover.
Thank you Mr Umoh.
With all love,
Oluwayemisi.
Here is an essential Obongjayar Playlist I specially curated for you.
YOU ARE! 
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