Cover Star Interview
Nigerian singer CKay is this week’s cover star and joins Cuppy via FaceTime on Apple Music 1 to talk about his latest track, “Felony.” He also discusses his new EP, ‘Boyfriend,’ a personal “diary” which tells the story of past relationships; being hands-on; and the impact of his oft-remixed 2019 single, “Love Nwatiti.”
The Big 5
Cuppy shares the 5 hottest new African tracks of the moment. This week’s selection includes new tracks from Ruger, Toofan, Chike feat. Simi, Nandy feat. Koffi Olomide, and De Mogul SA feat. Nomfundo Moh.
Africa Rising
South Africa’s Musa Keys is the latest Africa Rising cover star, a campaign which shines a light on the next generation of African superstars. https://apple.co/3qxKP2i
Proverb of the Week
Nigerian film and music video director Moe Musa shares his favourite proverb: “He who sees an old hag squatting should leave her alone; for who knows how she breathes?” The proverb reminds us to respect everyone’s individual journey.
Mini Mix
Cuppy finishes this week’s show with a special mini-mix of Apple Music’s Lusophone Africa playlist, Dança Comigo, featuring music from Nelson Freitas feat. Mr Eazi, Claudio Ismael, Rui Orlando, Nenny, and Anna Joyce. https://apple.co/2M4vGqc
Tune in and listen to the full episode this Sunday, February 21st at 2p Lagos/London / 3p Johannesburg/Paris / 6a LA / 9a NYC on Apple Music 1 at apple.co/_AfricaNow [or on Cool FM in Nigeria every Sunday at 6pm].
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Ckay on title of EP ‘Boyfriend’
“So the EP is like a diary. It’s basically me just literally talking about stuff that happened to me or capturing exact moments and feelings in my past relationships. So if I’m telling you a story or reading my diary to you, it’s basically me telling you my experiences as the boyfriend in the relationship.”
Ckay on his hands-on approach to his work
Cuppy: “Oh, my gosh. You guys, my listeners need to go and check out her artwork because it’s amazing, and then you have that number plate with ‘boyfriend’ on the back.”
Ckay: “I designed it myself, actually, the artwork.”
Cuppy: “Oh. Not, you being the artist, the instrumentalist, the producer, the songwriter, the graph… Is there anything you don’t do?”
Ckay: “I’m not the best dancer. Maybe when they were sharing dancing skills I wasn’t around.”
Ckay on the success of “Love Nwatiti”
Ckay: “Crazy story how that song [“Love Nwatiti”] happened, man. I literally freestyled that song in my living room. Right?”
Cuppy: “No way.”
Ckay: “At 1:00 AM just before I slept. The plan was to come back in the morning and the chorus… Sometimes, when I record, I just lay melodies, then put words to them later. So I was like, [sings] ‘I’m going to put words to it in the morning.’ We all realized that, yo, this is actually perfect the way it is, so that’s how that song happened. It’s so crazy that that song went so crazy.”
Moe Musa’s proverb of the week
“I think this goes out for the social media gang because there’s a lot of hearsayers and dosayers around. So I think the proverb I’m going to use is, ‘He who sees an old hag squatting should leave her alone, who knows how she breathes.’ The meaning of that is we should never interfere in someone’s issues, particularly when you don’t know anything about them.”