Falz Cooks Up a Platter of Stories and Sounds on ‘The Feast’

Speaking with OkayAfrica, Falz reveals that he has been working on the album for about three years, refining its cross-project ethos. “It was just about putting the strings together,” he says. “I knew this was a special project, and it needed its own time.”

The direction was decidedly different from his last project, B.A.H.D, which reflects in the music, but Falz infers that The Feast is “more wholesome … broader. It’s more of a combination of several different elements of myself. All the different versions of me up until date are present on this album.”

The Feast has “Story Time” for its closing record. Clocking in at almost six minutes, it's the longest song Falz has ever made and one of his most important. A bracing account of his life and career, Falz recounts how he wanted to be a footballer but eventually studied law, blazing an enviable path even though music remained at the core of his ambitions.

“You make beautiful art sometimes, but you don’t really know how it will be received, you just hope for the best,” he says. “For me, making this song, I wanted to just take a deep dive beneath the surface and do something that has a lot of heart. Something that explores a deeper side of myself, and for me, this involves being vulnerable and open. It involved a lot of writing.”

It’s remarkable how much Falz incorporates new young voices into The Feast. Given the sonic terrain covered — from Majeeed’s sweet rustic tone on “Soja” to the sing-song voices of the alt-leaning Oiza x Meyi — it’s easily his most contemporary project. “Famomi” sees DOTTi The Deity deliver on his inspired soul style, with fine touches of R&B sensibilities which elevate the record’s potential for romantic events. No doubt, Falz has often created music attuned to his perspective, but the focus on The Feast is wider, yet he succeeds at cohesion.

“For me, the sounds have to be very peculiar,” he says about the artists he works with. “I had to find artists that embody that uniqueness, that peculiarity, and that’s where all these people fall. When you hear their sound, they’re unmistakable. You know them. That’s why it had to be this set of people.”

Eleven years after his initial bow, Falz has continued to reflect an interesting off-music personality that complements the bubbly overtones in his music. He’s unarguably one of the most beloved celebrities around, eagerly contributing to sociopolitical causes while maintaining a respectable distance from the corridors of political power.

“It’s a lot of pressure,” he says about the role of a Nigerian celebrity. “It’s a lot of work. It’s just a lot to deal with. There’s so much going on, and you have to find a way to navigate these waters and put yourself together. It’s very demanding, I would say. But at the same time, there’s fun in it. It gets exciting; there are perks, there are privileges, but it’s a lot [to deal with]. You have to find a way to be disciplined, stay level-headed, and continue to grind hard.”

Falz definitely knows one or two things about the grind. “The process is sort of similar [to cooking],” he says, “in the sense that you assemble your ingredients, you have a direction, you know where you’re going. You know what the end product is meant to taste like. There is a process that requires patience. At the end of the day, when everything is done, you taste it to see if it matches what you originally intended to go for. So I would say process-wise, it’s very similar, and I’m very glad with the end product of what we’ve been able to cook here.”