Afropop superstar Mr Eazi has shared ‘Fefe Ne Fefe’, as featured in Culture Custodian, the latest single from his forthcoming debut album, The Evil Genius (emPawa Africa), coming October 27. ‘Fefe Ne Fefe’, which premiered this week during Mr Eazi’s guest appearance on Apple Music’s The Zane Lowe Show (Listen HERE), is one of several tracks from The Evil Genius that Mr Eazi recorded in the resort town of Kokrobite, Ghana, with producer Kel-P (Wizkid, Future, Burna Boy). With its cool highlife rhythm, smooth sax lead and palm-wine guitar sound, the up-tempo yet easy-going track transports listeners to a retro vision of West Africa befitting the beachside locale where it was made.
Recorded between Ouidah and Cotonou, Benin; Kigali, Rwanda; Accra and Kokrobite, Ghana; Lagos, Nigeria; London; Los Angeles; and New York City, The Evil Genius features some of Mr Eazi’s most personal work, as he dives deeply into subjects like love, betrayal, loneliness, and family, expressed through three distinctive acts. ‘Fefe Ne Fefe’ appears on the album, which plays out across three distinct narrative acts, as the fourth in a five-track suite of love songs.
The title, translating to “beauty is beautiful”, comes from an Akan proverb: “Fefe ne fe, se obaa tu amirika ne oso ni nufumua, eye fe, enye se ebe ti ato ntia”, which means “When a woman is running, she holds her breasts not because they would fall but because she’s a woman. That’s what makes her beautiful”. Explaining his state of mind on the track, Mr Eazi says, “Now, I’ve messed up, and I’m trying to make things better, I someday would like to get married, so I’m saying ‘Let’s go meet your dad. I want this to be something more’”.
‘Fefe Ne Fefe’ also features in a new social film created for Apple’s MacBook Air starring Storm Reid, which premiered this week (Watch HERE). The film is a ‘Study With Me’ video, a tool for college students that acts as a virtual study buddy that shows you when to focus and when to take breaks. ‘Fefe Ne Fefe’ is featured in the final break section: A beautifully dreamy roller-skating sequence that has an element of magical realism fuelled by the track.
In a first-of-its-kind fusion of African music and art, Mr Eazi commissioned visual artists from across the continent to create unique physical art pieces to represent each track on The Evil Genius album. As he travelled through Africa recording the album, Mr Eazi forged relationships with visual artists whose work he encountered along the way. Noting a lack of meaningful collaboration between Africa’s exploding pop music scene and the continent’s fine art creators, Mr Eazi personally handpicked 13 artists from eight different African countries to bring this ambitious art and music fusion project to life, adding art curator and patron to his already extensive resume of pursuits.
For ‘Fefe Ne Fefe,’ he tapped Togo-born, Ghana-based artist Samuel Tete-Katchan, whose piece ‘The Blanket’ captures the song’s themes of love, forgiveness, and attraction. Speaking about the art piece, Samuel Tete-Katchan says, “‘The Blanket’ portrays a love that is pure but not holy, I thought representing the couple amidst flowers was the best way to portray the stages of their love. Roses and thorns surrounding them, their different colors represent how love can be soft, intense, or painful.”
Ahead of the album’s release on October 27, Mr Eazi is inviting the public to experience the music alongside the art at several multi-sensory exhibition listening experiences. The exhibition, which recently debuted at Accra, Ghana’s Gallery 1957, reaches the UK this week for the 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair, from October 12-15, at Somerset House in London, with additional exhibitions in other cities around the world soon to be announced.
ABOUT MR EAZI
MR EAZI is a musical innovator, business leader and philanthropist. As a recording artist, the Nigerian star is one of the most streamed African artists in the world, with over 4 billion streams, he is also the voice behind afropop hits ‘Pour Me Water’, ‘Skin Tight’, and ‘Leg Over’, as well as ground-breaking collaborations with the likes of Beyoncé and J Balvin. A serial entrepreneur, he founded emPawa Africa in 2018 as a talent incubator program designed to accelerate the careers of African artists. Hailed by CNN, Rolling Stone, Billboard and Forbes for his innovative approach to expanding African music’s global reach, he has grown emPawa Africa into one of Africa’s largest independent music companies, with a track record of breaking global stars like Joeboy and Major League DJz.
Born in Port Harcourt and raised in Lagos, Mr Eazi began his music career while attending college in Ghana. His first-ever recording, made on a whim, became an accidental local hit, prompting him to take music seriously. Blending touches of Ghanaian highlife music and pidgin slang, with Nigerian chord progressions and R&B vocal inflections, he soon developed a mellowed-out spin on afropop, which he dubbed Banku Music, after the popular Ghanaian comfort food dish. Arriving just as afrobeats music was exploding into global consciousness, Mr Eazi quickly became an international sensation, taking Banku Music all over the world. His global travels birthed two acclaimed mixtapes Life Is Eazi Vol. 1: Accra To Lagos and Life Is Eazi Vol. 2: Lagos To London – the rest, as they say, is history.
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MEDIA & PRESS: Please direct all inquiries to Ayo Adepoju: [email protected]
