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7 Essential Facts About Nonso Amadi's Debut Album

Nonso Amadi explores his musical journey and tells us 7 Essential Facts about his new album, When It Blooms.

Any discourse involving Nigeria’s alternative music scene can’t be complete without mentioning Nonso Amadi.

The 27-year-old singer, songwriter, and producer is a key figure in Nigeria’s “alté renaissance” of 2015-2018, a period responsible for the widespread emergence of a crop of alternative artists, producers, and creatives firmly establishing their niche and creating room for themselves and their art in an industry heavily dominated by afrobeats-centered music, sounds, and aesthetics.

2015 saw Nonso release his first project, the Alone EP, officially launching a career that would quickly usher the young talent into the limelight. Following the EP, his subsequent single “Tonight” put Nonso on the map. The self-produced afro-R&B song established Nonso as one of the leading new voices in Nigerian R&B and alternative music, transcending the niche listenership of the alté community and successfully taking the emergent R&B sound mainstream, in a similar fashion to what the likes of R&B veteran Banky W accomplished.

The next few years saw him release a string of singles, high-profile features with the likes of Mr Eazi, Simi, Kwesi Arthur, and more, and two EPs, all capped by a three-year hiatus. In 2022, he returned to the music scene with “Foreigner.” the lead single off the subject of this story: his debut album When It Blooms. The release of “Foreigner” marked the beginning of a brand new career run, backed by label partners UMG Nigeria, Def Jam Records and Universal Music Canada, in a freshly-inked record deal.

Now close to a decade after the singer’s first output, When It Blooms is finally here. It’s a 15-track project packed with blends of afrobeats, R&B, and more, laced with sonic and lyrical references to his Lagos ties. Nonso’s debut album represents everything he is and has become—a “sonic globetrotter” highly=assertive in his sound and identity.

OkayAfrica spoke to Nonso Amadi about his debut album When It Blooms, and he gave us 7 Essential Facts about the project below.

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Music
Photo: Jay Sentrosi

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