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WORDS GRACEY MAE - SPECIAL THANKS WEPLUGGOODMUSIC
After a two-year hiatus, Alpha P returns with a fresh sound, new energy and open heart. Not many artists can say they have collaborated with Justin Bieber, are the youngest African to appear on NPR’s Tiny Desk or have featured on the soundtrack for Coming 2 America, but this Nigerian star can.
Days after the release of his brand new EP ‘Welcome to the Pack’, Afrobeats’ most promising singer and songwriter, sits down with F Word. In his most honest interview yet, Alpha P digs deep to share on loss, transition, growth and the pursuit of happiness.
Gracey Mae: Hi Alpha. P. Welcome to F Word. How are you?
Aplha P: I'm good. How are you doing?
GM: All the better for seeing you. Congratulations on your EP, ‘Welcome to The Pack’. It dropped on 6 September after a two year hiatus, where have you been?
AP: I travelled back and forth between London, Ghana, and Cyprus making music. I dropped a couple of features but I haven't dropped my own music because I wanted to get it right. I've been working, putting together this project and I have a lot of ideas planned for the next project.
GM: You mentioned London, a little ‘birdie’ told me that part of this project was actually recorded here.
AP: Yeah - ‘W’. The one with Olamide. Towards the end of last October, I got to London and was working with the producer, ThisizLondon. We hadn't worked together in a while, he had just been sending me beats. That marked our first in-person collaboration in two years. He is very dope.
GM: I love ‘W’. Is it true that Olamide sent you three different verses for this track?
AP: Yes, I was close to submission. I went along with Phyno to meet Olamide. I was going to play him the project. When we got there, I was supposed to play him one song not the whole project but he wanted to listen to the everything after he heard track one. We ended up listening to the entire project repeatedly. We linked up on a different day and he recorded the song that night. I woke up the next morning to a brand new verse and the second one sounded even better than the first one. Then about week before we shot the video, he sent another verse. He told me on the set of the music video, “Bro, if you had given me more time with this record, I'd have given you more verses”. He loved the song so much that he wanted to keep recording on it. Shout out to Olamide. I have high respect for him and have looked up to him since I was a teenager.
GM: How different was the first version of his verse to the one that everyone gets to hear now?
AP: The initial ones were fire. They were different. He didn't sing as much, instead, he rapped more and the verse was shorter but on the final version he did about 16 bars. I was just flabbergasted. I didn't even know he was gonna go that far. It just made so much sense.
GM: Congratulations on getting signed to Penthauze - Phyno’s label. Tell us about your transition from former deal with Universal Music Group to this one.
AP: Thank you. It was a pretty smooth transition after I got all the legal work done. There was too much going on so I just had to leave. It took me a while before my lawyers could get me out of that situation. Although, they were good people, I just had to change environment.
GM: More power to you. The Alpha P we knew and loved gave us Trap which a very different sound to this project though. What inspired this new style and evolution? Did you fall in love?
AP: I’ve always been a lover boy. The first single that ushered me into fame was ‘Paloma’. It's literally about being a lover boy. At that time, asides the love of God and love of my family, I hadn't experienced love or the drama that came with it. I was 17 when I dropped ‘Paloma’. All I thought about was hustling. As for Trap, it's a style I love using because that's how I started music. It was always fun and easy. I can make a trap album in two days, it's that easy. Afrobeats is more delicate. It has way more content so it takes a lot more time. People think it's new, but it's not necessarily new, because it's something I've been doing for a while, but haven't been able to drop. I was dropping songs in 2022 that I recorded in 2021. Every single song on this project was recorded last year. The only thing that's new is Olamide’s verse and it just tells you that there's so much coming. This project is basically a foundation for everything I have coming next which is too special to just dump on people without warming them up to it first. This was me bringing people's attention to who I am. This is the sound evolving.
GM: You mentioned that you've always been a lover boy. You’re right. On ‘Peaches’ with Justin Bieber, you were quite sweet.
AP: I'm a sweet boy, naturally. If I just had time to just tap into that in my personal life, I'd have a very successful love life.
GM: Are you saying that your love life is not successful right now?
AP: Right now, it's not really. I love the concept of love. I'm never going to be that guy that's going to be against love or relationships. I haven't found love neither am I searching. I'm at the point where if it does happen, I'm not against it.
GM: I hear you. Let's discuss ‘Light’. You're talking about “gratitude” and “untouchable joy”, but I know that the inspiration was the loss of someone really close to you. Why was this the best opener for your brand new project?
AP: That was the song that showed me how the project was going to feel. After I made the song, I knew I had to put together an EP. Before that song, I was preparing for singles and making plans, but making that song gave me belief in what I was trying to do, especially with the producer. The project has the two producers. The first is ThisizLondon with the song featuring Olamide. The second is Wondah who produced the other four songs. That song portrayed me in a very vulnerable state. It's very rare for me to talk about my personal life, because in many aspects of life, I hadn't had too many experiences, so I just use people's experiences and stories but with that one… My friend and I were very close. She stayed in a different country, Russia, where she schooled. We used to talk a lot from 2020 till early 2022 but I hadn't checked on her in almost a year. I randomly remembered that day that she was supposed to come back to Nigeria that year so I went to her Instagram to troll her about how she lied and how she's not going to come. Unfortunately, all I saw in the comment section was R.I.P. It was a big shock. I had to sit down in silence, trying to process because I couldn't understand. The next day, I went to the studio with my friend who was in a similar mood. I told him, “let's try and create something”. It's a song for those who have lost someone. It felt like a warm blanket at that point. It's just to tell people that I know it hurts. You might have lost your dad, your partner, your friend but the person is watching over you. I was as raw as possible in this project.
GM: It feels like that song specifically was very therapeutic to you. In 2024, do you feel like men are more transparent and open with mental health?
AP: I think as the years go by, people get more open to stuff. I think men are more open to that conversation now more than before. Not speaking about your state of mental health has so much negative effects which could even affect the people around you. Sometimes people need to go see therapists.
GM: Changing gears, ‘OMW’ featuring Kemuel, talks about, the pursuit. What's the most you have done for a babe?
AP: It's all under the category of gifting. I've come to understand that, words of affirmations are nice but women want to see action. They like to be gifted and it's natural. When I start to give gifts, I’m at the point where I realise I actually like this person because I don't randomly do gifts.
GM: It sounds like you're really tapped into ‘The Five Love Languages’, which are words of affirmation, quality time, acts of service, gifts and physical touch. Which one of those five languages means the most to you?
AP: All of them. They go hand in hand. If I notice that you make time to do things for me or listen to me, and do things that you know have deep personal value to me, no matter how little it is, it shows that you care. It tells me that you care about me and want to make me happy and that is what I look out for. For instance, with physical touch, when I really like someone, I get really clingy. I think guys are so easy to please, as long as you're present, and you listen.
GM: I love that you ended on physical touch, because track four on the EP is ‘Hold Ya’. This one was recorded in your living room. Is that your most comfortable place to record?
AP: Yeah, even till now. So that was my old apartment. I work with Wondah a lot. ‘On My Way’, is the very first song we ever made. We made it and ‘4AM’ the very first night we met. I'd never seen or talked to him before. We met in a club and after, we went back to the hotel. He came with his mobile studio and we made those two songs on the spot. Back to ‘Hold Ya’! I like being alone with producers, no matter where we are; in a big studio, small studio or my house, I'm not the type of person who likes a lot of people around when I'm recording. I don't like too many opinions, just the producer's. He gives me his opinion, I give him mine. I also do co-producing. I produce sounds and melodies. Occasionally, we’ll have an instrumentalist to give me the opportunity to play around, explore and experience sounds.
GM: I have been in several studio sessions with crowds, and it's just messy with the women and the smoking. The quality of the recording is bad because everyone is talking and coughing.
AP: I hate that. Please don't smoke in my session.
GM: You touched on ‘4am’ - this is the closer of the project. You say something so wild on this song,”You're with him but you're thinking about me”.
AP: That was a real thing. This project was interesting because I was really just saying stuff that I had seen or I had gone through. When guys sing, it's usually about trying to win the girl over. In reality, it's both ways. Sometimes I've had girls do that for me. That was basically what the song is about. I got a text telling me, “We were together but I was thinking about you”. I had the superb idea to translate the text into lyrics.
GM: Wild! Is it attractive when girls chase you?
AP: I have to like the person for it to be attractive to me. I think that's how it is for everybody… if someone's chasing you and you don't like them, it becomes weird. I know how to let people down easy. I'm also very good at friendzoning. Honestly, it depends on how much I like you. If I like you, and you're chasing me, then it's a green flag for me. You know what you want and you know you're going after it. If I don't like you though, I find a way to shut it down.
GM: With your project names, there's been a theme, ’King of the Wolves’ and ‘Wolves and Mustangs: Volume 1’. Now, we have ‘Welcome to The Pack’. Are we staying on the wolf theme for the next release?
AP: No, it's changing. This is the end of an era but ‘Wolves and Mustangs’ will get a volume two. The first edition wasn't an actual project. That was me just taking freestyles that people really liked off my Instagram page. I turned them into songs and dropped them during Covid. I couldn't drop actual music because I couldn't get a budget so I had to find a way to convince the label to let me drop that. I just felt that the fans deserved it. Those fans who have always followed me, my day ones. If I do a volume two, it's still going to be on that theme.
GM: I love it. I know you had a hard time in your transition but I hear your faith kept you grounded. How important is it to you?
AP: It’s my whole life. I started music in church. I used to rap in church. I used to rap in a group with a lot of kids my age, and that really helped me so much. At the time, I didn't know I could sing. I thought my voice was terrible. It didn't sound as good as this now. So I used to rap a lot. Church helped to shape me and way I think. The word of God helps shape so much about me. Like, practicing patience, loving people. Who I am today is attributed to God and to the things I learned in church. I really attribute every achievement to the glory of God because without having the knowledge, and being connected to the Holy Spirit, I think I'd probably be just a guy still walking the streets in Benin trying to figure out, who's going to put my song on one CD. Only God knows where I would be if I didn't take time to pray consistently. I'm saying that to let you know how important faith is to me. I always try to tell everybody I see that God is real. He is very real, and I see it every single day.
GM: I'm proud of you, and I'm so happy that you're back. That brings us to the end of our F Word interview. I have to ask you, what's your favourite F Word?
AP: My favourite "F" word is fruit.
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