Heavy ivory beads dangle across his neck and wrist sways. His thick locs, macho gait and pruning eyes cast an image of a medieval prophet. Drape in a black rough-cut fit, his moody mien soaks up the atmosphere at the summit of Idanre Hills where he is filming a video for his song, Higher Powers, with a dozen masked men in cameo.
This alluring mystique is partly why Wizard Chan, born Maxwell Fuayefika, has crept up on the radar of exceptional African musicians of this era.
For the most part, Wizard Chan thrives for his deep experimentation with ancestral spirit music, fusing native Ijaw sonics with a broad mix of sounds like Hip Hop, RnB, Reggae, Funk and Folk. And his latest album, The Messenger, engraves his identity as a musical genius, centering his philosophies on life and the human condition as the core of his message.
It was not until 2022 that Wizard Chan, born in Okirika, Rivers State, and raised across Port Harcourt and Accra, found his way to the spotlight with his record, ‘Earth Song’, which earned him his first Headies award the following year. His Marlian-styled reggae fusions stole the hearts of many and his homely themes kept his music digestible across all age brackets. Together with a trio of spirit singers from his clan exclusively signed to him under the moniker Boma Nime, Wizard Chan is spreading the gospel of Ijaw culture, one chant at a time.
“Tamuno be, sikima se (apart from the God that the three brothers worshipped), oro oloko chuame ojin tamuno tekema (He decreed that we should not worship other gods),” the sombre chorus from Boma Nime on ‘Higher Powers’, pulls the listener in trance-like fashion,  a bit similar to psychedelic RnB in the US or UK scenes. Essentially, his music has become a sharp gaze into the fate of indigenous African sonics in contemporary Afrobeats.
In this week’s Guardian Music, the young bard peels back layers of his life and journey, especially navigating a slow-burn breakout, exploring his styles and maintaining authenticity, working with Joeboy and his puritan principles to making collaborations, his love for Damian Marley, as well as his mission to create a legacy of a sonic genius or ‘wizard’, that would be cherished for generations to come.

How do you feel about putting out your album now?
I feel fulfilled to a very large extent. I consider myself a project artiste. So, I’m always looking forward to showing people what a project should look like.

It should tell stories and also be connected to your art. So I’m very glad that the project came out and, so far, I’ve not seen anybody that has downplayed it. I’m very glad people listen to my type of music.

At what point in your journey did you start your fusions?
So, I have always thought about mixing my local dialects into  modern-day music. Just like the way the Yoruba and Igbo have done it: I want to make it a global sensation but I really did not know how possible it was because nobody has ever done what I’m doing. So, my first try on this was in 2021 when I reached out to the now-known group as Boma Nime, the woman I did the song, Higher Powers, with.  We made a song back then and I saw that it was possible. And from then the vision opened to me. But even back then I was still trying to blow.  I was still trying so hard to make music that I felt like people would accept. But that was not the true definition of me; because when you meet me and we start chatting, you’ll know that I am a different type of person. Then it got to the point I stopped caring about all those things. Age was no longer on my side. You just get to that breaking point in your life. Then, in 2022, I started making music for myself and my children; because at some point I didn’t believe I was going to make it anymore. I was looking at the people that were blowing up. They were always in the young age era and I was pushing 30 already. I kind of lost hope and decided to just keep writing songs because I’m a good songwriter. I hoped that I would sell the songs someday to maybe an American artiste, or maybe I could have kids someday and they would get to listen to my music. I just started writing my realities down some more. I got to this point that I became unapologetic about them. And then I told my manager about my new approach and she liked what she heard. She even thinks it’s more me than anything else I did to fit in with the crowd and all that.

What’s the story behind your name, Wizard Chan?
Many people who don’t know me would understand the concept of why they call me a wizard; I am this guy that can practically do anything when it comes to music. So, I’m more like a musical wizard. I have made all types of music. I have packs of love songs, burial songs, and I’ve done everything. I think I haven’t done opera, but I still look at doing it one day. So, it’s more like this. You cannot predict what I can do next. Chan is more like a family name. It came from a day I was freestyling back then in Ghana, as far back as 2015. I was actually going to the booth to freestyle and I got lost with words and they had this Chinese right up on the wall and I just said Chan. It had a very nice tone and everyone started calling me Chan so I just stuck with it. So everyone in my group called the cause themselves Chan, like a family name.

How did you discover the Boma Nime group? 
Boma Nime is a group that I created and signed to myself. It never existed as a group before. The type of music the group does is not mainstream music; it is only done in the church and the prayer houses. They are healers. And I’ve known one of them, who is their leader, since I was a kid. She is the godmother to my elder sister. She’s like a family person. And I remember, I came back home and I knew their music was very dope. And I just feel like I can make it happen, you know, and this was me daring when I was nobody. We pushed a dream and we’re here today. A lot of people love them and are amazed by the sound. I’ve seen people try to go and do what they’re doing or replicate but they do not understand that it’s not just about the local language being spoken; it’s about the spirituality involved. They are actually women that used to sing for people to get healed where I grew up.

Tell us about your ethnicity and how it influences your music. 
I am an Ijaw man. Ijaw people are the fourth largest ethnic group in the country. Bayelsa is the only state in Nigeria that is fully Ijaw. We also have Ijaws in Ondo, Rivers, Delta, Calabar and just like that. We are actually very large.
If you’ve been around us, you would notice that we don’t typically depend on the correctness of melodies or notes. First and foremost, we sing in unison. It is about unity. Perhaps, it is because we are more like a riverine ethnic group and traveling via water would have made them sing together to reduce their fears while paddling canoes. And, at that point, I do not think you’re going to be considering whether or not you’re singing on key. So that was one thing that I took for my people. We sing like it’s our last breath, and we are singing together like everyone is about to die together. So, I really love that about the Ijaw people and I did it in songs like Earth Song and several others. That is how we would usually sing; the voices are cracked; the sound is very stressed. It’s just all forms of beauty. For me, the difference between the white man’s way of making music and the African man’s way of making music is that we sing from our heart. So, it is not about the perfect pitches or notes; it’s about how you feel and how you can express it outside to the listener. And that’s why when you listen to people like me and Boma Nime you feel like it’s a trance. It is like we are there with you or there’s a sort of spiritual connection. And it is because when we are in the studio we are not thinking of making viral records; we are thinking about making a change in what we are doing with our personal message. So, we sing from our heart and soul, because we’re trying to praise God or we’re trying to elevate our spirits because we are down and we’re always listening to each other. And if another man feels the same way he or she is definitely going to be touched by the music.

You are also very notable for your reggae fusions. How did you hone this style?
For reggae, I kind of hacked it a longer time ago. It was in 2014 or 2015. I fuse a lot of sounds to create mine. I merge funk, reggae, Hip-Hop, Afrobeat, and my local dialect. For reggae, I have always loved it through Lucky Dube, Bob Marley, Wyclef Jean. It was when I found Damian Marley that everything changed. I listened to his message and saw the swag in his words. I instantly liked him. He is my greatest of all time in music. You know, for me, I don’t think anyone beats him; I even place him above his dad.
That is how much I respect his craft. He is one guy that brought the whole idea of collaboration as a reggae artist. As a reggae artiste, you can jump on a beat with hip hop artists and you can drop a verse and not just choruses, and you’re going to give a hip hop artist a run for his money. A good example is Damian Marley and Nas’ Distant Relatives album. At that time, Nas was dissing people like Jay Z and there was Damian Marley just giving Nas the hardest time of his life on a joint project. So, I really love that so I grew to love reggae in a different dimension even more.

So, how would you describe your music? 
Oh no. People always find faults when musicians try to name their music and sometimes it baffles me; because for you to become a legend you have to create what never existed, right? For me, I always tell people that Afrobeats is a culture. It’s not a sound. There are a lot of different sounds inside this Afrobeats that we do. I like to call my music Afro Teme. Teme, in my language, means spirit. So, Afro Teme means African spirit music. Even if I’m singing a love song, I try to tap into your main emotions to unlock something special inside and that’s a spiritual connection. I don’t want to come and live under the shadow of somebody.

Do you see yourself collaborating more with other indigenous musicians or with mainstream pop musicians? 
I do not discriminate against music. I always tell people that music is just an opinion-based sport. Like every music has an audience, it just depends on the listener. I have that mindset and that’s why I can work with anybody. But we just have to have certain things clear. For example, I don’t like to use certain words in my music. If we can just get that out of the way. It’s just some certain words. I wouldn’t want to make songs about sex and it is not like I’m an innocent person, but I just feel like we have a lot of influence as musicians and what we say really shapes the world. I don’t want to be part of the people that are putting more ideas into the younger generations when the ideas we have put into them already are kind of impossible to control at this point in time. So, for me if we’re having to make music for a good cause or a good reason I will work with anybody.  I have songs with a lot of people already although unreleased. Working with Joeboy, it was just the right connection. You know, when I had the song called “Loner” and I reached out to him, in two days he sent me his verse. Everything just went well and above all it was also about mutual respect. You know, because for me, as much as I love to collaborate, I do not believe that it is a must.  Look at our heroes of the past like Michael Jackson, Miriam Makeba, Harry Belafonte, Lionel Richie, and so on. How many features can you count that they had? A popular reason why most artistes feature themselves is because they want to tap from their fanbases. For me, that is secondary. The first question is what can we create? What is the magic we can create? I want to make sure that in the next 50 years, someone can go and look at the song and sample it or something.

What’s your ideal creative process like?
I love to be alone when I am making my music. I am also a producer and a mixing engineer. I mix my vocals myself too sometimes. I love dark rooms. I love to record after or when I am going through something really significant. It really helps with the emotions. I need to be in a certain space. I can be around people when I’m recording my verses and all but when I want to do my chants, I like to do it alone.

What are your favourite pastimes? 
I love making music and I love to cook. I love football. I love to drive. I love to be around people.

What’s next for you? 
I started my tour already in Port Harcourt. I did my first show in Port Harcourt last month. It was meant for 200 people but we ended up having like 400 or more people. We had only a week to publicize it. Imagine if we actually used months to push the word?
We are looking at doing Lagos, Abuja and Delta State next. We are also looking at dropping at least two to three singles this year and maybe another project depending on what the mood looks like. I already have more than four or five projects ready. I make music my music timeless. On this new album, the song “Mr. Sailorman” was written in 2016.

Finally, what is your vision long-term? 
The long term vision is to end up becoming like a demigod in the music realm, to become someone that generations to come would listen to, to become an icon and role model in a good way. You know the kind of legacy that Bob Marley had? Yeah, that type of legacy. I want to go to stadiums and arenas all over the world. I want to take my culture to the world and say this is Ijaw. I like to call us the Waterbenders of Nigeria. So, yeah, like to be someone that doesn’t just come to the earth and pass away like an earthworm; but to be someone that people would say they are comfortable with their child becoming a musician because there are people like Wizard Chan. At the end of the day, I always tell people that when you achieve greatness in this form, you will always make money. So you don’t have to chase money when it will chase you. Because if you chase money, it’s just gonna get tiring at some point with the chase.