Illbliss …For The Love of Culture, Family

For over a decade, Illbliss has been a rigorous merchant of indigenous hip-hop in Nigeria’s music community. The rapper’s eight-album discography has elevated the prestige of the indigenous rap scene, making it cool to rhyme in native tongues. From his debut, Dat Igbo Boi album, in 2009, to his just-released album, Sideh Kai, the rapper has continued to carry the torch for his culture as well as indigenous Nigerian hip-hop.

Sideh Kai runs through 16 tracks, all written to amplify the themes of fatherhood, entrepreneurship, survival, love, while subtly restating his prowess as a prolific rapper. Interestingly, the album’s title is also derived from both of his daughter’s names – Kachim Sideh and Sochikaima.

With solid standout performances such as Odumodublvck-assisted track, Full Chest, the trio with Made Kuti and Cobhams dubbed, Spirit, the highlife ringer with Eastern superstars Umu Obiligbo dubbed, Chukwu Ebuka, as well as the tributary track to his long-anticipated children, titled, Daughters, the album spins as a firm reminder of Illbliss’ signature breezy delivery and conscious lyrics.

The album’s sonic progression rings with a contemporary feel, with the allure of soft-paced percussion, RnB, Pop, as well as trap melodies raising its appeal among younger audiences.

Born Tobechukwu Ejiofor, Illbliss has fine tuned his legacy as a rapper and creative entrepreneur. His management imprint, The Goretti Company, has nurtured superstars such as, Chidinma and Phyno, reigning as one of the most influential cultural rappers from the Eastern part of the country.

His debut in Nollywood began, in 2019, with the character of Odogwu in the Kemi Adetiba-directed Netflix thriller, King of Boys. The father-of-two has also recently co-produced a showmax original seven-part documentary on the Igbo apprenticeship system, titled, Freemen. He also produced the entire soundtrack for the film.

In today’s Guardian Music, we sit down with the father-of-two delving into his latest and most personal work yet, Sideh Kai, reflecting on the memories, muses and creative ambitions that shaped the project, which all cohesively reflect the present sweetness of his bliss and how that’s shaping his vision for the rest of his career.

So, first of all, how does it feel for you coming out with another album since your last one?
It’s a great feeling. My last album was in 2020, during COVID. A lot of things have changed around me. So, yeah, it feels good. It just feels good to come back and respond to the fans. It feels good to be back. I hope I can cope with the new energy. I think I can.

Your new album is titled, Sideh Kai. Let’s delve into what that essentially means for you and why you went that direction.
Okay, if you look at the cover art for the album, it’s a picture of two girls, my daughters, Sochikaima and Kachim Sideh, their names are coined, Sideh Kai, in the album. Both kids came into our lives miraculously, my first daughter came after eight years of marriage and the second came during COVID.

She came at 25 weeks, and she was a premature baby. So, I just feel like going to a point in my career where it wasn’t even just about me. I’ve told a lot of my stories. I’ve told my stories of how I came up in the game and all the experiences I have that I’ve shared with my life. This is my 11th compilation project, as a recording and performing artist and I felt I needed to go in a totally different fresh direction. You know, just the new pages that people don’t even know about and then I decided they are going to be on the cover and then it’ll be fatherhood, you know, just getting into fatherhood, raising girls, raising kids and family and just all my experiences. So that’s essentially what Sideh Kai is about, this is perhaps my most personal album.

Let’s look at the features you had on the album. What were you trying to infuse this album with?
“For everybody, you see featured on this project, I have to be a fan of yours, like a big fan of yours, before we make music.So I’ve never made music from the point of view of this is a hot guy, and then we need to put this guy on such a hot record for it to blow up. Starting from Cobhams, who is as far as I’m concerned, the head of the classic Nigerian music department, if there’s anything like that. I made two records with Cobhams, Spirit and Maale. I sent both of them to Cobhams, and he was supposed to choose one, and he eventually recorded both of them and told me, ‘Illy, you must keep this.’ So, I went ahead to make records with Fave. I’ve always loved Fave’s texture of her vocals. And I felt that we would be able to get together and make magic. I reached out to her. For every one of these artists, from Fave, to Cobhams, Odumodu Blvck to Vector, all of them, they represent a certain part of my thematic range, which I was trying to achieve on this album. I am an album’s artist. If you look very closely at my career, you could almost barely find times when I just put out one record and it was a stand-alone record. They always lead up to an album. So, these are different stories I was trying to tell with the featured artists. With Odumodu Blvck, it’s a record called Full Chest. Odumodu’s energy is so contagious in today’s hip-hop and afrobeats space. I decided that was the right guy to put on that record. We made that record even before Odumodu made Declan Rice. Odumodu was on his way up when we made that record. And yeah, who else am I leaving out? It’s essentially for every feature, like I said, is a page in the books, and it was a story that I was trying to tell, and I felt that the featured artist that I did would embellish the story. It came together perfectly.

This wasn’t even my wishlist. A couple of people I reached out to make music, either their schedules wouldn’t allow them, you know then, or they had projects they were pushing. I just decided to go with this. I truly believed in the record I was trying to create. Also, I’m a very collaborative artist, if you look at my past, you will find records like Jawon Laya with Reekado Banks and Mr Eazi, you will find Can’t Hear You with RunTown, you will find Anam Achi Kwanu With Phyno, if you go a little back, you will find records with Vector. Yeah, that’s how the collaboration came about.

Basically, when did you start recording this album?
I started recording in October 2022 and I recorded to finish this album in early January 2023. And then the election came. And I didn’t want to put out an album during the election because it was going to distract people. Or people were going to get distracted and probably wouldn’t pay attention to it, because it was a comeback hour, I needed the time to be right. And then we got into 2023 after the election. And I got into another side of my hustle, my life, which is television. By the way, I have a new show called, Free Men. It’s a Showmax original. You can find it on Showmax. It’s a seven-part documentary series on the Igbo apprenticeship system. That took away almost all our 2023 shootings. I didn’t want to drop an album while I was on the road, I kept it. I wanted to drop it in December and the good people at ONE rpm advised me to drop it the following year (2024), it would have drowned with all that December noise.

What are your top memorable moments while making this album?
There are so many memorable moments. First of all, shout out to my producer Skitter. Skitter is such an incredible kid. He grew up in Jos. I met Skitter and Skitter literally jump-started my recording process and my recording life again. He made 14 of these records while Major Bang made two of the records. The reason why Major made two of the records is because Skittter didn’t have the time to finish off the other two. I needed to get the record in as well. Skitter has a studio in Lekki. I’ll go out there every morning and then I will sit down with him and then we’ll start. We had a lot of conversations. Even in those conversations, I remember very clearly a record called Masterclass; Masterclass is a record that can hold to Nigerian hip-hop history and how a lot of profound, amazing talented rappers fell by the wayside because there was very little room for them to explore their talents. I have seen a lot of this in my career.

I’ve seen a lot of people fall by the wayside, either from funding or from just not having the right resources to push them. I remember the day I was recording the song. And it was just goose bumps because I didn’t even know that the music was that emotional because the chords were so full and you just had the mood to it. And I’m there rapping, you know, sitting by the corner place. I’m thankful for life.

Thank you for family, freedom and peace of mind. The pressure never got to me. And by the time I finished rapping and I put the vocal samples on the song; I had vocal samples of my three favourite Nigerian rappers, Reminisce, MI and Vector. I had them at different parts of the song. That song is like six minutes long. And when I turned back, I saw over 25 people standing behind me in the studio, youngins that work in the company where the studio is located. And they just stood there and started to clap. They started to tell me, boss, we haven’t been privileged to hear you for a long time. We just didn’t know that, you have been through so much in this ministry.

And I just looked at them, some of them 19, 20, 23. They are such an integral part of my recording process because eventually they were the ones that started to, some of us used to make a record for this generation, for our generation. I ended up making a song called Gen Z. And I’m in the studio with them and they’re telling me, and I have a line, Red Cops, SK, Omo na, Gen Z, Police no dey carry eye see Gen Z. And they’re like, boss, no, no, no, no. It’s Canada, it’s called Canada. So they’re upgrading me, they’re updating my knowledge of what’s going on in the streets.

You know; the things about them that they don’t even like being called Gen Z, even though that is their demography. You understand? I had so many memorable times.

As someone who has lived different eras of it, how does the Nigerian Hip Hop scene feel for you?
Well, the hip hop scene in Nigeria is interesting. It’s at a very interesting place. It’s grown in leaps and bounds. In the last decade, we’ve had amazing success stories, you know, bit more rap artists crossing over into the upper echelon of the business. Yeah, so it’s a great time. It’s a lot of experiments. The sound is different now. It’s a Afrobeats mashup with actual raps and a lot of singing. It’s thriving, it’s still growing. It’s still not top of mind genre as far as I’m concerned in Nigeria. But I mean, the crowd is growing. I pray the purchasing power will grow alongside as we proceed. But it’s in a good place. It’s in a good place.

What legacy do you want to leave behind with your new music?
I just want people to remember my albums as classics. I just want them to be remembered for people that are of this genre and people that have, because I’ve also made a lot of crossover records, knowingly or unknowingly. I’ve made crossover records that found a lot of commercial success. I just want to be able to keep doing that, you know, and to keep being able to inspire the youngins.