EXCLUSIVE: Mr Eazi and King Promise Live Out Their Boy Band Fantasy

For many generations now, Boy Bands - as cultural concepts and objects of obsessive attraction - have captured our imaginations. They’ve come in different configurations; sometimes as a trio (Plantashun Boiz, Jonas Brothers, LFO), a quartet (Sauti Sol, Jodeci, All-4-One, B2K), and even as a quintet (Westlife, Backstreet Boys). 

They’ve appeared in different genres, R&B, Pop, Rock, Afro-pop, and in the many variations of Highlife music throughout the years.  

The idea of a band made up solely of doe-eyed, lovable men has always been a source of intrigue. Its commercial viability remains unshakable to this day. Sometimes, these bands endure cultural changes, their relevance holding strong past their prime. 

But more often than not, boy bands have been fleeting, with their careers barely reaching a decade. And so, as exciting as boy bands are, they are also temporary projects, often used as a start-off point for more enduring solo careers. And perhaps, that impermanence is what makes them so memorable, maybe it is what makes them so appealing.

So when longtime friends Mr Eazi and King Promise, who have also been collaborators since they met over 10 years ago, were working on their first joint album “See What We’ve Done” they were intrigued by the prospect of channeling the energy of a boy band.

“Growing up in Ghana, boy band music was really big,” King Promise told OkayAfrica ahead of the release of “See What We’ve Done”, out today, Wednesday, April 15. 

While a joint album doesn’t automatically turn already solo artists into a band, Eazi and Promise were interested in tapping into the thrill and legacy of boy bands for this project. 

From interpolating Backstreet Boys’ “I Want It That Way” for their track “That Way”, to building a complementary sonic language that gives the album a familial flavor, the kind that’s only present in a record made by people with incredible creative synergy, both artists manage to capture the easy camaraderie that boy bands are beloved for.

They didn’t need to manifest that camaraderie, though. “We’re friends first before [we’re] artists,” King Promise says, with Eazi adding that “We’ve been making music before we even got famous.”

Although the album operates within the R&B/Afro-Pop ambit, Eazi and Promise manage to keep their linear thematic concerns alive and inventive. The main concerns here are love, desire, the sappy vulnerability that makes boy bands so appealing, and negotiations of desire that shift in delivery but are steady in their imploring tone.

On the surface, the album reimagines the concept of a boy band from a contemporary African lens - co-opting the usual thematic tropes and embodying their usual openness and skillful declarations of love. But “See What We’ve Done” is even stronger when considered as the culmination of years of friendship and unwavering commitment to a shared creative bond. It’s Mr Eazi and King Promise, two Afrobeats acts working at the peak of their crafts, taking a moment to consider just how far they’ve come together.

“This is us celebrating our successes as brothers,” King Promise adds. “But also as people who, in their own right, have represented the Afrobeats music scene globally and our countries very well.” 

A long story

King Promise (Gregory Bortey Newman) and Mr Eazi (Oluwatosin Oluwole Ajibade) first met each other at a recording studio in Adenta, a mid-brow, commercial neighborhood in Accra. They were still in the infancy of their careers and their connection, as they both remember it, was instant, and so unforced that they ended up making a song together that same day. 

“We had a mutual friend that I used to record in his room. And on one of those days, I met King Promise in the studio, and we just hung out, and then we made a song that same day,” Mr Eazi explains.

“So we've had that musical chemistry from day one. It's not everybody you meet on the same day you make music.” Eazi and Promise are on a call with me, each dialing in from a different part of the world. Their personalities are adjacent yet complementary. Where Promise sometimes takes on an affable, bouncy personality, Eazi is slightly more reserved yet intensely engaged. And vice versa. It’s a combination that might appear contrasting from afar but holds very few dissimilarities when experienced up close. 

Throughout the years since their spontaneous collaboration and the divergent paths that music took them, both artists have maintained a strong creative relationship, defined by being each other’s first listeners. 

“At every point in time, we’ve always come back to make music. I send him music, and he'd send me music before I put it out. So, we've [also] had that sort of real friendship outside of the music and it just felt like the right timing. We didn't actually sit down and say, "Oh, we'll make it within this time or this time." It just felt natural, and we're like, "Why not?”

Promise confirms that the recording process was easygoing. “[This is the] product where you're literally just being yourself and having a good time doing it,” Promise adds.

This has become an illustration of their friendship (natural, free of airs and in need of constant tending) and their creative relationship (seamless, and driven by similar sensibilities). They worked on the album across different times, often returning to it with fresh ideas.

The album opens with “Where Have You Been?” where both artists establish the soft-edged, desire-laden tone of the project. Both singers deliver their hooks in Twi, spliced through with lyrics that feel boyish, charming, and earnest. Earnestness holds steady throughout the project, settling at the base of each track. It’s prominent in “That Way,” the second track, and also in “Baby I’m “Still” Jealous,” a follow-up to their collaboration in 2020 titled “Baby I’m Jealous”. 

In this new iteration, the production is stripped of the bounce in the first version. Here, Promise keeps the story surrounded by the wanting in his voice and the wistfulness of his lyrics, guided by gentle, heart-piercing strings. This self-referential element confirms the notion that this project is an ongoing conversation between two artists with years of collaboration under their belts.

While “See What We’ve Done” will no doubt appeal to fans who have been asking for an Eazi and Promise joint album, it’s even more enjoyable for the two artists who made it. 

As Eazi puts it, “I think I would have preferred a career where it was just a boy band,” to which Promise responded with a gentle laugh, “That's right. Because we really had fun making this s*** together.”