How Afrobeats Star Bnxn Made His Most Vulnerable Album Yet

"If there's anything I can tell you for sure, I took time," the 28-year-old told OkayAfrica a few days before the release of Captain. "This is one of the projects that I went back to revisit songs over and over, mainly because for the first time I decided to work with a mixing engineer here in Nigeria."

Like most Afropop artists today, Bnxn was previously drawn to the global appeal of collaborating with sound engineers in the West. "The need to appeal to the foreign sound demands some kind of foreign element sometimes," he says.

By working with a local team, Bnxn was afforded a hands-on, tactile approach to music-making. "I decided to use somebody that I could reach. I could wake up in the middle of the night and drive to his house and touch up whatever, and that's why I like it."

The tracks in Captain are underlined with a gentle breeziness, a soft, gliding ease that makes for a warm, easygoing listen. Made between Ghana, Lagos, and London, the sense of ease is evident in tracks like "I Alone," which opens with the flicking of a lighter hitting the end of a blunt, and "Set Up," featuring Seyi Vybez, which flips a house beat into a groovy, unhurried bounce. There is a clear sense that this is music made to soundtrack moments of deep reflection, of staying up late to talk about life, and of sitting quietly by oneself for a moment, away from the boisterousness of everyday troubles.

"The processes of making the songs and even the features were seamless in some sense because the features I wanted on the project were the exact features I got," Bnxn explains. This perfect alchemy is evident in tracks like "Cough Syrup,"featuring Victony. The song, originally by Victony, traveled with Bnxn for some time before he found inspiration to contribute a verse to it.

"I was not getting anything, I could not write to it. I could not sing on it. It wasn't until I arrived in South Africa. One day, I was in the studio and asked for the beat to be played, right? They played the beat for me and I started just thinking deeper into the record, you know, and as soon as I recorded it and sent it to Victor, he's like, "Oh, this is your song. This is not even my song again."

With this record, Bnxn allowed things to flow, to take a natural course; a testament to where he currently is as an artist.

New steps

Bnxn rose to fame at a time when the Nigerian music industry was reaching a historic peak. As stars like Davido, Burna Boy, and Wizkid broke new ground on the international scene, Bnxn was carving out his own identity with hits like "Lenu," the remix of which features his close collaborator Burna Boy. His greatest strength is his ability to express emotions that many people find difficult to articulate.

Bnxn is a refreshing antithesis to an Afropop space which has so far thrived on music that champions toxic, stoic affection and braggadocio. While his demeanor and the tone of his work might sometimes be gritty, covering everything from hustle culture to the complexities of relationships, Bnxn has also never been afraid to bare it all and leave his heart on the table. His willingness to be seen, fully, and without the crippling theatrics of sterile machismo, has made him deeply human and deeply relatable. And Captain is no exception to that knack for openness.

"I spoke on a lot of topics that I think I haven't spoken on before, especially on the song like ‘In Jesus name,’ I was talking about everything that pretty much affected me and how I know I can't feel right, I spoke about my mom, spoke about a lot of things," Bnxn says.

For Bnxn, this album activated an emotional depth he didn't think himself capable of accessing. "This is a deep project for me. I don't know how I'm going to beat this one, but I will do my best."

Already well-received by listeners since its release, Bnxn has no doubt that people will fall in love with Captain. "This album's going to affect people. I let people feel what they want to feel with the records, and that is why I try to be as genuine as possible, so I can be as relatable as I like to invoke real human emotions with my music."

Alongside the emotional weight, Bnxn is banking on his lyrics, which he has left for listeners to decipher, containing anecdotes from his days of struggle and reflections on how much life has changed. "I want people to show me how much they care about lyrics," he says.