For decades, Port Harcourt city has nestled some of Afrobeats’ biggest stars. From Ajebo Hustlers to Omah Lay, Timaya, Burna Boy, Mercy Chinwo and many others, the garden city has become a birthplace of music stars renowned mostly for their unique artistries. Rising among the recent offshoot of stars from the coastal city is Daniel Tuotamuno, professionally known as Dandizzy. The 28-year-old rapper has carved a legacy for himself, as one of the best freestyle artists navigating the country’s Hip Hop scene.

On a random day in Port Harcourt, Dandizzy is seen on the streets with a portable Bluetooth speaker clutched to his arms and a crowd of excited youths teeming to hear his spontaneous bars delivered with finesse. On other days, he’s with Aktivated TV, one of the country’s biggest music broadcasters, freestyling with objects and sceneries around him or words thrown at him on the spot. In other scenes, he’s on stage with fellow Afrobeats stars around the country cheering crowds with his street lingo and comical bars. On any given day, the young emcee is poised to unfurl a litany of hardcore bars, rehashing the legacy of Nigeria’s glorious Hip Hop era where the likes of Choc Boiz, Modenine, Olamide, Ikechukwu, among others, blessed the airwaves with freestyles and cyphers.

With his just-released debut album, U Gast Love Yourself (UGLY), the rapper expands the library of impressive debuts in the Nigerian rap scene. Starring guest features from fellow Nigerian mavericks including Odumodublvck, Falz, Blaqbonez, Dremo, Jeriq, 1da Banton, Zichy, Kaptain, Khaey, as well as British-Nigerian rapper DTG, the album packs a heavy Hip-Hop and Pop feel leaning towards the present dance-leaning tempo of Nigerian rap. It’s essentially a story of the streets, from the lens of Dandizzy and his cohort. From tales of “Kalakuta”, to the fear-gripping scenes of street culture decoded in “Wida” and “Oppress”, to love melees like “E Pain Me”, Dandizzy paints a robust ethnographic portrait of life on the streets in one of Nigeria’s most vibrant music communities.

With his blunt social commentary on popular podcasts and social media posts, Dandizzy has also been in the spotlight recently for his audacious personality. A thrilling showman and talented lyricist, he is climbing the rungs to the limelight by sticking to his originality in style and personality. In this week’s Guardian Music, he ushers us into his world of UGLY, unlocking the paradox of optimism that borders the music; as well as memories from Port Harcourt and his dream to be a forerunner for the next evolution of African Hip Hop.

How does it feel stepping out with this body of work?
tT’s exciting for me. I’ve been working on this for a long time now. I’ve been looking forward to releasing an album for a long time. Now that I’m able to do this, I feel like I have moved a step further to the place I want to be in my career.

What inspired this project?
I think the thing that inspired this project is my life. Every time I tried to get into this music space people doubted me and thought the freestyles were all I could be. They made me feel like I was just a freestyle guy and it couldn’t get better than that. At a point, I even hated freestyling and then I decided that if I wanted to name an album I would name it ugly; because I needed to love myself more and enjoy what I did more.

How long have you been pursuing a career in music?
I have been chasing a music career for a very long time, I think since I was 17 or even younger. I realised I could rap from a very young age. Professionally, I have been doing music for about 12 years.

How did you get into the world of rap?
I’ll say, rap, to me, was just a gift. I didn’t listen to anybody and say that I wanted to rap. I always knew I could rap. I can remember myself as a kid where I knew that I could always throw words together. It was just something that was there. I didn’t grow up in a place where I was exposed to a lot of music or even hip hop music. I just realized that, by myself, I could do this thing. So, I started doing it in front of people and everytime I performed a rap, people loved it. So, I kept doing it. Also, every time I do it, I enjoy it too. So I just found myself doing this and never looked back.

When did you also discover your singing talent?
Okay, to get hooks from singing artistes is a bit difficult for me, because I don’t make a lot of friends. I felt that if I needed to use hooks for my songs then I needed to sing them myself. So, I have been learning how to sing for the longest. I needed to get my hooks together to get to the next level.

How did you start recording your first songs?
I never changed my name. I grew up in Rumukurushi. And music is not really big there. The only thing that got me exposed then was when I was living in Leriq’s house. Leriq is Burna Boy’s producer. Leriq’s dad used to get a lot of entertainers around. Leriq had a studio in the house and Burna Boy used to come around to record; it was where he recorded his first album. I used to watch all of them and I knew it was what I wanted to do. I couldn’t afford to pay for sessions because I was young then. So, I just stuck with freestyling to get people to pay attention to me till I was able to start making music. I made my first song and it went on to become a hit in Port Harcourt.

How has this experience shaped you?
I have seen a lot of things and I’ve learned things. One of the things that I feel like I’ve held onto is the fact that you can only sell music at the end of the day. That’s the evidence that you would have in the music industry. Regardless of your connections, your friends who are industry top guns, the only thing you can show people to prove that you have been doing this for the longest is the music.

How has Port Harcourt shaped your music?
I feel like the most exciting thing about Nigeria hip hop right now is the use of Port Harcourt slang. It is PH that has shaped the new hip hop sound that people are using now. Port Harcourt is a place where if you are not special, you are not going to make it out. You have to be really special to make it as artistes. PH people are very productive, very blunt, and very arrogant but in a good way though. We don’t have a crowd mentality. It’s like if someone does not like you, he can have friends that would like you, and then they can be friends. He knows that my friend does not like this person, but I like this vessel, but they can still be friends, regardless. Port Harcourt is the kind of place where people think for themselves and do things that they want to do. And if you want to come to PH as an entertainer you have to be special to really stand out. You need to have a very big personality. You can’t find another Burna Boy, Omah Lay or Duncan Mighty in Port Harcourt. There are always really unique artistes popping out of PH. The city is a tough place to grow up, but it is a necessary experience that can help you deal with the entire world. If you grew up in PH, there is nothing you can’t overcome.

You are notorious for going to public places to freestyle. How did you hone that skill?
I am from Port Harcourt and I don’t fear anybody. I used to freestyle in front of 500 people. When I was in SSS 2, they were already booking me to freestyle at universities during their social events. I performed at orientation weeks. Students are very mean to upcoming artistes. I was never scared of that.

I just always grabbed the mic and controlled the crowd with my performance. People would go crazy at the end of the day. They get fascinated when I freestyle. I performed at polytechnics and college of education around Rivers and Imo State. I even performed at an occasion held for the Imo State governor one time and I was paid like N50,000 at that time. I was not even bothered that I was in the presence of the governor and other politicians; I was just always happy to perform my freestyles. I always got compliments. I have never even had any experience where I tapped out on freestyle. I have never had a bad stage performance or been booed off stage. I have never had a bad experience with the mic on the stage. I have had experiences where the mic or the speakers went off, but I always dropped the mic and finished with acapella.

What is your most memorable freestyle performance?
I think it was a performance at the University of Port Harcourt. I had not gained admission then. They were doing their freshmen orientation and I went to greet my friends who just gained admission. I went there and they said I should come and rap. There were so many people that it looked like a Wizkid concert in 02 arena. I had not seen that crowd before. After I freestyled, they were screaming. I was overwhelmed that day. It is a memory that has lived with me till date.

What is your current creative process?
For me, making music depends on how I’m feeling. If I’m feeling down a song will come out and I’m feeling happier a song would come out. I like to talk about my life and the things going on around me. I like to talk about where my head is at any moment. I write all my songs and I freestyle most of the songs. I just do everything myself. Sometimes, a producer sends the beat and I just record myself, you know, when I can’t be with him. I can’t always be with him. Because I am independent, I had to teach myself how to do a lot of things and I learned them on YouTube. You can’t do songwriting without freestyling; even if you’re not going to go off the top and back to back, you have to just drop random thoughts in your head that come together to make a song you know?

What are your most memorable records on this album?
I think Sote and Hold God. I made Sote at a time where I was trying to get my singing right. I struggled to make that record, to sound right and get my vocals laid well. When I finally did it, I was proud of myself. For Hold God, I was recording something else when I heard the beat. I just switched the beat and started recording the song and it came out nice.

What are your thoughts on sustaining a rap career right now in Afrobeats?
I can’t speak for anyone else. I can only speak for myself. I only know what I’m doing. I feel like if you want to stay longer in this music scene, you have to just evolve, be consistent and always strive to do new things. You know, always try to introduce new things and be versatile too.

You have a stellar lineup of features on this album. lWho else did you consider for this project that eventually didn’t make your selection?
I have a song with Ajebo Hustlers that is going to drop in a few months. There’s a pending collaboration with Zlatan that should make the next album.

What is next for Dandizzy?
I don’t want to think too much. I’m just trying to put out the album and give it my all. There’s going to be more music, but I just want to put out my all into this and see where it gets me.

What’s the vision for Dandizzy?
There’s a way entertainers really move in the industry that doesn’t resonate with me. I want to be successful and act the way I think celebrities should act. I can’t really try explaining details now but when I get there we will find out.