Meet The Nigerian act, pioneering Afrobeats across Europe – NonyKingz

Icelandic-Nigerian singer, NonyKingz, who relocated from Africa to Europe. Is an Afrobeat musician, expressing his emotion, and pioneering the motherland sound “Afrobeats” to the western world. In a mail chat, after he released the official visual for “Banye”, we caught up with him to know his plans towards the year, after he collaborated with Deejay J Masta.

Can you describe your kind of music?

I am an afrobeat artiste but afrobeat as a music genre is not of one type, there are many categories of music styles under afrobeat but what I can say about me and the type of music I do is that I am an unbelievably unpredictable kind of an artist because you can’t place me on a particular category, rather I would say my music is best described as a taste for every mood/emotions.

What I mean by that is my music is not particularly based on one kind of style or made for one particular set of people/ mood but my music is a big ship that carries everyone along,

I’m simply trying to say I put out music that connects every aspect of emotions/people, all of it. That’s why you can’t tell what my next release sound will be like.

When did you realise you could sing?

Wow, I can’t say a particular moment or time I realized, I could sing but I will rather say I started realising I could sing and not just only sing but I also started discovering my ability of creativity musically, That very first time I got connected with music and that was at a very early age of my life like seven, eight or nine years old, And how I got connected was through melodies. As a kid back in the day I don’t listen or understand the lyrics of many songs but the melodies stuck with me forever from there I use those music melodies to create my lyrics in other to sing the song lol, and that’s how it all started.

Growing up did you have musical influences?

Growing up I had a lot of musical influences like a lot because music has been part of what has kept me going ever since even without me knowing as a kid. I have always loved music, especially that kind of music that comes with a lot of sweet melodies, Like I said before, I love melodies and in my music today you will notice That I can’t do anything that doesn’t involve melody. As a child till date, Music has always been something that helps me remember a particular time or moment, it doesn’t matter how long ago, I can always remember each moment with music I have listened to or played around a particular time with emotions that come in those moments. So music have a very deep influence on my life.

As a songwriter, how do you draw inspiration?

As a songwriter & a music composer, My inspiration comes from everything like Emotions, experiences, and sometimes imagination.

I know many won’t understand this particular word “Imaginary ” but that explains what makes music highly spiritual, because every other people sing from experiences or what they know that had happened to someone but imaginary is slight kind of different because I put myself in an imaginary situation or mood that doesn’t exist but yet the emotions that come with that particular emotion feels real, This might be too much for many to understand but it is what it is. And some of my craft is inspired by imaginary scenarios.

How would you describe the Nigerian music scene?

Nigeria music is now becoming a global music, not just Nigeria tho but also African music as a whole Nigeria has played a huge part in taking African sound to where it is now, and all accolades go to the legendary Fela Kuti then down to all musicians that have gotten our music this far both the OGs & we the new skol. every one of us is playing our parts also in this but still big respect to all the OGs because they paved the way for all of us. Nigeria music is a unique sound that speaks better than words, it’s a sound of culture, A sound of Africa.

What are the challenges you face as a budding singer?

Here is the best part of what I want to share with everyone back in Africa, especially those in the Nigerian music industry. My challenges are very huge but I never let those challenges break me rather they motivate me to put more work into my career.

First of all, I was born in Nigeria and I’m also an Iceland citizen, I moved to Iceland in 2016 from the Philippines where I was studying. Here is a little thing I want to share about Iceland. Iceland is a small country (An island) with a population of 300k plus people which is really small but my first challenge started at the same time when I came into the game newly & started my career professionally the same year, And found out that Afrobeat music doesn’t exist in Iceland which was kind of weird because every other part of Europe knows Afrobeats music genre because African music is global and getting more bigger so why is the case of Iceland different? That’s a question I keep asking myself till I made my investigation on that by meeting different African people who had tried making African music here but never succeeded because of no support from the industry over here and so on. I was even at a time advised to not push through with afrobeat music rather hip pop and all of the American style of music which I did for one time and doesn’t find much fulfilment in it because within me I know I can jump on any kind of music styles but I can’t keep up with what doesn’t define who I am, so I decided to go back to doing Afrobeats and trust me, it wasn’t going well. That’s where depression and all sorts of things I never could imagine myself passing through started, I was able to keep doing my thing without giving up due to my real passion for music and today those efforts I put in thinking I wasn’t getting anywhere brought me to be recognised as One and only real Afrobeats musician in Iceland on a professional level(No cap) and many people know about Afrobeats and who I am now but at the end of the day I can’t do it all by myself, now I need the help of the Nigeria media, promoters and so on, I have done it alone to come this far but I think it’s time our industry recognise what I am doing for the culture and help me out with their support so we can all tafrobeateats to the next level. I am saying Let’s Iceland and into what London/all of the UK and part of the world is now. Iceland is a beautiful place, people love music, especially a unique sound like Afrobeats. I can’t have much influence than I have already without a huge suppbackupk from our industry.