In June 2022, PDSTRN, born Bennett Obeya, captivated rap fans around the country with his performance in the eighth season of the Hennessy Artistry VS class. The Lagos-based rapper worked his way through the fiercely-contested competition, impressing judges M.I, Ladipoe and Vector at each round and eventually defeating underground rap phenom BarelyAnyHook in the finals. 

“In the underground scene, BarelyAnyHook at the time was someone you wanted to get on your song. To be honest I never thought I was going to win,” PDSTRN tells me of his triumph one afternoon in late August. He seemingly had it all – witty wordplay and punchlines, a menacing flow and most importantly, personality – but just about a year before his rise to the top of the 2022 VS class, the rapper had choked in the first round of the same competition, and vowed never to return. 

Born in Ojodu Berger, a bustling suburb that sits between Lagos and Ogun state, PDSTRN didn’t always harbor dreams of being a rapper. A nomadic childhood which saw the rapper shuffle between Lagos and Toronto meant he didn’t really fit in with his peers and he also didn’t settle on a career path as early as other kids did. His dad, a retired boxer and avid sports fan, initially wanted a career in sports for him as well but he remembers his mum not buying into the idea. “When my dad saw I had some interest in football as a kid, he wanted me to go to a football academy but my mum wasn’t having that. She wanted me to go to school and get a formal education,” he recalls fondly. 

It was during his time in school in Toronto – the 7th grade – that PDSTRN finally found rap and began to nurture aspirations of being a rapper himself. Even though he grew up listening to a lot of music thanks to his grandmother, his mum and her younger sister, rap was largely absent from his early childhood. “My grandma used to play music from artists like Tope Alabi, Baba Ara, Shola Allyson while my mum’s younger sister used to play stuff from acts like Faze, Artquake, and Dr Sid. My mum, when she was around, would play stuff from Brick & Lace, Enrique Iglesias, Shakira, Spice Girls, and a shit ton of Bollywood,” he tells me of his early musical influences. 

Nas’ ‘Godson,’ however, represented PDSTRN’s gateway to rap music. After he got introduced to the legendary American rapper’s sixth studio album by some friends in school, he went down a rabbit hole of rap history, acquainting himself with seminal albums and discovering artists that have since helped shape his own artistry, and have also remained prominent sources of inspiration. “After discovering Nas, I started to find other rappers,” he recalls. “I began to listen to a lot of Cudi, Eminem, Goldlink and a couple of other rappers.”

After his introduction to rap, PDSTRN began to write his own bars and freestyle for an audience of mostly friends. “One day I tried rapping in front of a couple friends and they thought I did okay but one guy goes: ‘Nah bro that was pedestrian.’ I didn’t even know what the word meant in that context so I went home, looked up the word and then decided I was going to choose that as a stage name,” he tells me of his early freestyling days. In 2018, he moved back to Lagos from Toronto and after months of sharpening his rap skills, and signed up for that year’s Hennessy VS class. Unfortunately, he was not accepted on his first try and decided to try again the following year where he got knocked out in the radio rounds of the competition. 

He tried for a third time in 2021, this time far more confident and armed with even more sharp bars and punchlines, but he couldn’t make it past the first round again after choking on stage. “I remember going into the restroom and just bawling my eyes out because I knew there was nobody there that I couldn’t beat with what I had,” he says, recounting the unsettling experience. After a fruitful conversation with rap legend M.I led to him seek professional help for his stage anxiety, he returned in 2022 and prevailed in swaggering fashion. 

Since his victory at the 8th edition of the competition, PDSTRN has slowly but surely established himself as both a competent rapper and a well-rounded act with a desire to constantly expand the scope of his music. “The Prologue,” a two-pack single which came a few weeks after his Hennessy triumph, put on display the sort of sharp punchlines and fiery energy that helped him come out on top in the 2022 VS class, as well as his eclectic taste and influence. This desire to be a musical omnivore of some sort has helped foster collaborations with like-minded acts like Sholz, one half of NATIVE Sound System, who he is set to release a collaboration tape with. 

“Shoutout to Temi, [Discovery Deck founder]. At the time she was still at Discovery Deck and I used to send her a couple of my songs and she would give me some feedback. One day she just hit me up and tells me Sholz is working on something and she gives me an address to go meet him in an apartment,” he tells me, explaining how his relationship with Sholz started. The two hit it off fairly quickly and worked on a couple of songs together, one of which ended up on Sholz’s 2023 EP ‘Breakfast In Lagos.’ A few months after their first encounter, Sholz reached out to the rapper to work on something more elaborate. The two began ideating about the project in October 2023 and about eight months later, ‘ROCK, PAPER, SCISSORS’ was officially complete.

PDSTRN speaks of the forthcoming tape highly. He also relishes the opportunity to have worked on a project with Sholz, the talented producer and DJ who he describes as very meticulous. “From the sequencing, to the recording, to skits, even down to the sound of my chains. I learnt from him that these really minute and intricate details can be very important to the development of an entire project.”

“Idan,” the lead single off the project, gave a teaser of what’s to come, once again showcasing PDSTRN’s dynamism and lyrical prowess, both of which is nicely underscored by Sholz’s infectious drums. 

And while ‘ROCK, PAPER, SCISSORS’ promises to provide refreshing and distinctive music from two incredibly gifted acts, for PDSTRN, the ultimate goal with this project and his music in general is mental emancipation. “Whether I’m talking about women, money, whatever it is, the goal is always to present my actual reality. Art needs to be angry, it needs to be provoking. I believe art is an instrument for social change and so whatever form of art you’re doing, I believe it has to provoke people in some way. That’s how I want people to take my music.”