Nirvana, the haven of perfect peace, is not really a place that exists, except, well, in the consciousness of life’s romanticists like Godwin Josiah Gaza. The Kaduna-bred musician, professionally known as Godwin, aptly captures the feeling of such rare serenity in his just-released EP dubbed, Road To Nirvana.
Godwin, who’s also an acclaimed filmmaker, with nearly a decade’s experience, presents a snapshot of grief in Road To Nirvana.
The EP was first released in 2022, five years after his mother’s demise, and it was temporarily taken down last year from streaming services, following a record deal with the Sony Music’s Columbia Records. “We needed to repackage the project to reach more people,” he said.
Among the euphony of Soul/RnB music in the Nigerian music scene, Godwin thrives as a unicorn in plain sight. His fluid and lithe vocals, buttered with poetry and drowning piano chords have spotlighted him as a Soul/RnB maestro par excellence. The multifaceted creative weaves a voice that packs just enough melancholia and harmony to soar with ease. His music, as soothing as it is introspective, has peaked in demand among Afrobeats lovers, many of whom are now drawn to therapeutic African pop.
Before music, Godwin equally thrived as a film director, creating unbelievably good scientific fiction (sci-fi) films with his brothers, under a collective called The Critics Company.
Together, they went on to co-create evergreen projects with global names such as Morgan Freeman, Kemi Adetiba, Lori McCreary, among others. And it was also during an exhibition of Ogun Ola — a short film created by them and produced by Morgan Freeman’s Revelation Entertainment — in Frankfurt, that the stars aligned for Godwin. However, making music has always been his childhood dream and a personal therapy for the past few years.
With a community of listeners swelling across Nigeria and Europe, Godwin is among Afrobeats’ noblest recent entrants. He catches up with Guardian Music, opening the curtains into ‘Nirvana’, while sharing his experiences with making music as a coping mechanism; his exciting new record deal with Columbia Records; living in Europe; and why he would never stop making music for catharsis.

You have been in Europe for a while now. What’s going on there?
I have actually recorded my album. And that happened here late last year. So, since then, I have constantly been working here. A label that I’ve signed with, Columbia Records is also in Europe. So, I think I’ve spent most of the last year being in Europe.

How has the experience been making your music outside Nigeria where you grew up?
Um, I’d say the approach is really different. The approach has been significantly different, because working with Germans, it’s, you know, you have to be early. But good music is good music. Just little things that they put in place, but in terms of the art, once the art is good, that is really all it takes to create really beautiful work. So, yeah, in terms of work, it feels like how it always does when I create; it’s just such a beautiful feeling. But of course, it’s a very different environment, if you put the physical qualities in comparison, like it’s very cold here most of the time. So, I have to find a way to adapt to work in those conditions to be honest. Like I said, good music is good music. It really doesn’t matter where you are, you can actually sort of create it.

Take us back to how you started your creative life?
It started with my exploration with my brothers, the filmmaking collective. And the thing is, while we were actively making these films we made and we still make, it really never really occurred to us that we were creating art; so we didn’t put it in the sense of a mission. It has mostly just been that we were having fun and it was really nice to, you know, make all of these things. So, for the most part, it kind of integrated into us being artists, then we were filmmakers and it was just really fun to create throughout our young starting age. And then Kaduna is my home. It’s where I was born and raised. I think what Kaduna did for me was give us the platform to create freely, not necessarily physical support, but, you know, the hostility you get when you film something in Lagos, you would not get that hostility in Kaduna. I would really say people are more open-minded to supporting you. They just need to really understand what you’re doing. And they’re willing to offer support in any way that they can. So, that is, that’s what makes Kaduna very different from, you know, the other parts of the country. That was where it started; really, I think my first introduction to actively creating art started from there. But prior to that, I was always writing music because I’ve always been a big fan of music. My dad used to be a very huge collector of music. Every single genre you can think of music wise he used to have a cassette or CD for: rock, music, soul, r&b, everything. So most times, there’s just always music. So I think as a child just listening to Aretha Franklin, listening to all of these people, I didn’t know who they were but just singing along to the music ,I feel like that did something to my voice then. Now, I’m actively pursuing it as a career.

When did you start recording music?
I think in 2019, that was the period where I actively decided to pursue music. I realized how much I could not keep running away from this burning passion that I’ve always had for music. So, with my little knowledge that I had with film, I already really knew how to work around audio; because the thing about editing audio for film and music is that it’s very similar. The tools are so similar. And when I decided to venture into music, I knew for a fact that doing covers were the best way to start; because apart from the problem that I really did not know how to go about the singing thing. I also had a confidence thing that I really needed to work on. What I started doing was I just actively started making covers of music that I really loved. And this meant recreating the covers in my own version, but one thing I decided to do was stick to the words of these covers because I felt like it would be kind of intrusive to change what the lyrics of whoever actively wrote the song made it to feel like. I made a decision towards only changing how it sounded sonically with the instrumentals. And while that was happening, it was certain that I was supposed to work on an original project. That was something I always had in mind, because when my mom passed away, in 2017, that was something that also kind of pushed me back into music. But not actively, because I was not consistent.
But music became therapy for me. We used to have this older generation of musicians where I used to live in; so we had access to a studio. So, I was actively just listening and watching people create music that was really instrumental to helping me get out of those depressing moments. So, in 2019, I lost a friend from school. And it’s interesting because this guy used to live in the same town with my family. And we went to school together. So, getting the message that he was dead was kind of moving because he’s someone that will always say, “Maybe one of these days I’ll finally come see you.” But that never happened. He passed away. I remember I was going to the shower to take my bath and I started singing what turned out to be the chorus of a song called ‘Now’ in the EP, and, to be honest, that was the beginning point of actually actively working on the project. That was the first idea of what the EP would turn out to be.

What is your typical creative process?
My workflow has changed compared to when I was working on Road To Nirvana. However, looking back to what that process was, this was also a time where I was working on what would be my biggest film project yet. And it was a film that was a collaboration with Morgan Freeman’s production company, Ogun Ola, the short film. I was actively working on that and directing that when I was also working on my first musical project. So, there was really no time for the music to happen. So, any window of opportunity I got, I would work with Feeny. Feeny happens to be the guy who produced and mixed all the songs in the EP, and is a very good friend from Kaduna, as well. And the moment I realized that I wanted to work on a project, I knew that I did not want to produce myself; because of everything that I knew was coming in terms of other projects. So, I would send him a very rough sketch of what I believe the whole song is going to sound like. I just make the noises with my mouth and sometimes I just play on my piano and send him a voice note and what he does is he recreates what I’ve sent in his own interpretation. He sends me what he believes the composition for the song would sound like. And then with that I just write. When I get to a point where I feel I’ve written enough for, maybe, three or four songs then we set a date to record. At some point when I was down the line of finishing the project. I felt like some lines were not evoking the emotions I wanted them to invoke. So, I collaborated with a poet. Her name is Debbie Johnson, and she is a very good friend as well. She helped to rewrite certain lines in some songs, like two songs. One of them was the song ‘Ile’.
And, to be honest, it was not a comfortable work condition, because I was always just working on it when I had free time. But at the point where I was done with my film project, there was time and so that was where the final steps came in. The first song in the EP, which is ‘Road To Nirvana’ was not supposed to be there. But right in the session, I felt like “Oh, I think really, there needs to be an introduction to this project. It lacks a song that introduces you into the world.” So, Road To Nirvana was sort of like a freestyle that I did at the moment. So, to be honest, I think what I’m trying to say is that the process is very spontaneous. Because, in reference to the forthcoming album, the creative process was different; there was a whole studio session for two weeks. I think I’m more comfortable with the approach to music now.

Tell us about the core messages in the EP
Road To Nirvana is a product of grief. I made that project in a state of deep confusion. It’s a project that felt like a final release of a lot of emotions that I had bottled up over the years before I was able to work on it. And it’s something I’m definitely proud to say that it influenced where I am now, mentally. I felt like the project did what it was supposed to do to me, personally, because I feel good. I feel healed from those circumstances that I used to find myself in work before and after I was working on the project. And I felt like it was just an avenue for me to air how I felt about a lot of things, most especially the grieving part. My mom was a very instrumental part of my life. She is still the most instrumental part of my life; I feel like and person I am today because of who she was in her guidance. So, losing her in 2017 was a huge blow. And I felt really lost. So the project kind of helped me seal that really sad part of my life. So, that was really why I think it was created. It’s a very selfish piece of work. But the most interesting thing is I had a first release for this project, but taking it down, and now working with my new record label to put it back up so that it gets to more people. That is the beauty because we have single handedly seen, you know, how this little community of people who listen to my music have been impacted by it. And, you know, I get messages from people talking about the fact that the music really helped them in certain ways that I would have not imagined it to. I thought that was just doing it for me as a person particularly; but it’s also finding ways to reach people who need it. So there’s a way to always reach more people, which is what we’re doing with this release. I’m just really happy that it’s finally happening, because a lot of work went into, you know, re-mastering all of the videos and everything to fit into this new perspective, and to make it a more presentable project.

So, how did you get scouted by your record label?
This story always sounds like fiction. But while I was away with my brothers for an exhibition in Frankfurt, Germany at the Museum of Modern Art, on the first day landing in Germany, we had a conversation with the museum director, Susanne Pfeffer. It was just around the fact that we think it will be nice to hang around and look out for an African community that knew or understood certain parts to get not just African food, but African fun. It was something that we thought was going to be really needed, looking at the fact we were spending almost three months there working on the exhibition. So, the thing is on our first visits, just I and one other member of the collective went and just stayed for one week before we came back to Nigeria. So, in the process of being there, we met an Ethiopian guy who offered us a ride. So, when we came back the other time, which was like this time last year. We asked Susan if she knew of people within the African community and she referenced the Ethiopian guy we saw. Coincidentally, he was having a kind of a party on that day so my brothers thought it was a good idea to go there. I, on the other hand, was supposed to meet my uncle because he was in town on that day. However, being the eldest I knew it would kill the vibe if we didn’t stay for the party. So, we partied like crazy. It felt like a breath of fresh air, because it was African music. After the party, the same host invited us over to his coffee place. Now, the thing about working in Germany is that it can get very depressing, especially if you’re used to sunlight all your life. So, I reached out to him to see if he was free. So, we met. And he’s a very busy guy; there’s no time where his phone is not ringing from somebody somewhere trying to reach him. So, we met at his coffee place, which he owns with his brothers. It was very inspiring to see a black man doing well in a very foreign country and a predominantly white country. Not just white, but an old and white, part of the country. So, I wanted to have a conversation with him as to where he is and how he got here. Just basically history. He was curious too. We were pitched as these really artistic boys from Kaduna, who were very concentrated, but during the party we were partying like crazy. They were just crazy people dancing around. So, I think he was also very curious and I think he saw himself in us as well as I saw my future self in him because he was doing really well. So we had a conversation. And I told him about the fact that I do music and it was just me highlighting it because I was talking about myself in what I do. He wanted to listen to my music so I played him something off the EP; because the EP was up at that time. And he was very moved by the music. He’s a very super spiritual person and he believes nothing happens randomly. It felt really right to work with him, because we shared similar goals. So, I started working with him as my manager. A few weeks later, we were at the Sony office, in Berlin. Apparently, he was friends with the current president of Sony Europe and Africa. He had never used that influence before, but he felt it was the right time to push certain buttons. A few months later, the record deal with Columbia records happened. Now, we have just re-released the EP.

What do you want people to experience from your music in the long run?
I think art is art, no matter the form it carries, be it film, music, whatever. An artistic work is created for a particular set of people, and it’s always going to reach them when they need it the most. That is really what I believe about music and I feel like when the music reaches whoever it needs to reach, I hope they’re able to take it in as I put it down. That is really just my whole life. I feel like my music is always meant for healing. It is a recurring theme and in my projects so far. And when people listen to it, I hope they get a sense of healing from it. I hope they feel seen when they hear my music and they feel like they’re not alone. And, I hope they feel happy. I hope they feel all the good emotions. So they feel comforted by the fact that it’s not happened to them alone. In this part of the world, people don’t want to sing about sad things; because a lot of our lives are sad as a typical Nigerian. Things are hard here. Nobody wants to hear about their problems again, because you are already facing them. But I always believe there’s a sort of healing that comes from understanding that you’re not in certain things alone. And that is really what I tried to do with music. So, yeah, I hope they are able to feel the strong emotions with my music.