The more obscure artists have learnt to take advantage of covers as a tool to help improve visibility and grow an organic fanbase. Over the last couple of weeks, multi-hyphenate hip-hop artist, Alpha Ojini began a cover series, remixing a bunch of well-known songs into 1-minute covers that were shared across his social media pages. Due to demand from avid followers of the series, the rapper has now put out ‘Ten Minutes – My “QuickBars” Compilation’, a loose playlist comprising the covers.

Being a low stakes release, the mini-tape heightens the DIY charm attached to the covers, listening like a pyrotechnical showcase meant to serve as an easy to point of entry to newer listeners and also help earlier listeners track his musical growth since his buzz garnering debut album, ‘Half Price’, dropped last year. Copping inspiration and retooling musical elements of songs ranging from Teni’s “Uyo Meyo” and Rema’s “Dumebi” to Wizkid’s “Fever” and J. Cole’s “Middle Child”, Alpha covers a smorgasbord of themes on ‘TMMQC’. The personal throughline, though, is that Alpha uses the tape as an assessment of his rise from being relatively unknown to teetering on the cusp of the mainstream.

‘TMMQC’ is a follow-up to his two-song mini-project, ‘Hatchlings’, from earlier this year, both precursors towards his sophomore album set to drop sometime in the coming months.

You can stream ‘Ten Minutes’ here.

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