There is an interesting conundrum around a young Nigerian musician called Chikadibia Remi Okoro. Professionally, he is known as producer Chika Okoro. As an artist, however, he moves under the moniker FKA Remi, despite not actually singing. On his recent self-produced track, Timepiece, that distinction starts to make more sense.

Where does one even start with a song like Timepiece? Initially, it almost looks designed to annoy you. A repetitive piano loop comes on, slightly melancholic and basically two-step in its movement, and barely five seconds in, you are already expecting somebody to start singing. Nothing happens. The piano keeps going. Then comes the surprise, a warm one at that: Timepiece is an instrumental sound piece, crafted by Chika Okoro and performed under his FKA Remi identity.

The more intriguing part is that one does not stop listening. I tried to, actually. Then I found myself returning to it. There is something dreamy about the record. It sits somewhere around emo-pop, lounge pop and experimental RnB, with Caribbean and tropical percussion driving parts of its pulse. Think the melodic worlds around Cruel Santino, Odunsi and that particular corridor of alternative African pop that borrows freely from American RnB without losing its own strange, colourful identity.

For a deep lover of instrumental music, vinyl beats and lo-fi, Timepiece immediately presents enough small details to keep digging into. The music graduates through different tonal planes. At first, all you really have is that melancholic piano loop. It is nothing grandiose. It does not even appear particularly interested in impressing you. Then it begins to stretch. Synthy fillers start flanking the piano. Tropical percussion eventually enters the picture, and somewhere in that progression, the fuller scope of what Chika Okoro is attempting starts becoming clearer.

The production blooms slowly. And then the title itself begins to matter. Timepiece feels warm at heart. It sounds like something you would listen to while archiving your life, lost somewhere in the haze of summer, looking through old pictures or simply basking in the splendour of youth. It feels like music you could use to score the movie of some of the most exciting moments of your life.

There is also nostalgia sitting inside it, but not necessarily sadness. There is remembrance. Memorabilia. That strange emotional effect where music begins to hold a particular period of your life inside itself.

In that sense, Timepiece feels fluid across past, present and future. Each time you hear it, it can belong to whatever moment you are currently living through. Then, eventually, that same listen becomes another memory. The song becomes a memento of something more.

Further towards the end, Chika Okoro pulls off another interesting sleight of hand. He simmers the music down, takes the percussion away and enters this soulful, synthy ambient chord progression. The notes arrive almost like raindrops of sound, one after another, with enough space between them for the music to breathe.

That section exposes another strength in the production: elasticity. You can almost hear where an intense vocal performance could sit. The instrumental is arranged with pockets for introspection, release and immersion, without actually needing a singer to demonstrate them.

That delicate handling of tension becomes one of the record’s strongest qualities. Nothing is really fighting for attention. Chika Okoro juggles the production like a juggernaut that he seems to be, especially how he knows when to pull things back and when to allow a single melodic idea to stretch.

And because of that, it is easy to imagine Timepiece travelling beyond its current instrumental form. The soundscape feels ambitious enough for a Wizkid, a Chris Brown or another melody-heavy vocalist to find their way around it. There are enough open spaces here for somebody to sing without the production losing the personality it already has.

Still, Timepiece works perfectly well on its own. It is one of those meticulous experiments coming out of the RnB and pop boulevard within the newer edges of Afrobeats, where producers are becoming increasingly comfortable building complete melodic worlds without treating the beat merely as scaffolding for a vocalist.

That is perhaps the clearest imprint Chika Okoro leaves on this record. Timepiece is not trying to overwhelm you. It grows on you, sits beside you and eventually begins attaching itself to memories, almost fulfilling its title in real time.

As far as experiments and instrumental melodies go, this is a solid 8/10. A unique one-of-one, and another reason to keep an eye on Chika Okoro.