Kolaboy steps out with Kola from the East

Fast-rising singer, Nwodo Chinonso Victor, known as Kolaboy, recently released his five-track EP titled ‘Kola from the East’ with classic highlife featuring Flavour and other big names in the music industry. The Enugu-born artiste revealed that he started music from performing at social gatherings in secondary school.

“I was made the social prefect back then, that was when the music stuff began and I started recording independently in Onitsha,” Kolaboy said.
Describing his music style, Kolaboy said: “Generally, what we do in Africa is Afrobeat but in Afrobeat I feel that there are some sub-genres. I am not limited to a particular sound. When I started music, I wanted to be peculiar and do something different from what others have been doing. I came in with the storytelling brand, where you make songs out of stories of yourself.

“The first song I made was a storytelling one, ‘Hello Mummy.’ It was basically a fictional and non-fictional story about myself, and that was before I started exploring other aspects of music, including the highlife part. What I was trying to do with my brand was like a bridge.”

He stated that one of his favourite songs was Hello Mummy, a conversation between a mother and child: “It was more like a letter to my mother trying to explain youthful exuberance. There is a particular way all parents see entertainers. I come from a religious background, there is this perspective they have about all entertainers. I was writing to tell her and explain the reason I am doing music, and I am not going astray because I am following my dreams.”

Commenting on the new EP, he said: “I am promoting the tracks and extended plays, which contains five song, first is a feature with Flavour titled Normal Thing, second is Ojabili, featuring MC Young, third Utotommiri, featuring Iyi Don, fourth is Eze, featuring Ojadili One, the fifth one is Uwa Mgbede, which I did alone. These are ancestral sounds.”

Excited to work alongside big names like Flavour, the young rapper said: “It is a dream come true because they are pioneers and I grew up listening to them, people I watched on television. I have always wanted to make songs with Flavour and I have a feature from Harrysong, and, recently, a song featuring Chichotin.”