At the start of the year, internet sensation and comedian Sydney Talker announced himself as the CEO of new record label, Neville Records, and also announced its first signee, Khaid. Not too long after this, Khaid showed off star power as he delivered one of the biggest songs in 2022 so far, “With You” — a romantic number which garnered the attention of listeners shortly after the release, and landed him a spot on March’s edition of ‘uNder’, NATIVE’s Best New Artists column.

Now, Khaid is pulling listeners into his world with the release of ‘Diversity’, a debut EP that shows the Afro-trap artists’ range and pen game. On the 6-track project, Khaid flows melodiously, and broaches coming of age themes, including romance, the circumstances of his upbringing and self-assurance. With production from a wide range of producers from Ozedikus to Mage, ‘Diversity’ is a collage of vibrant sounds that will appeal to young (and young-at-heart) listeners. In conversation with The NATIVE, Khaid breaks down the six songs on his debut tape.

 

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“With You”

“With You” that’s the first song on the Ep. Coming up with the full Ep took us 2 years but “With You” in particular took us 5 months to mix, master and do everything. That’s the first song we were going to release so we had to put more energy into the production and everything. Creating It was fun but not always fun, you know everything has hard times so it was fun putting it together with my boss. I just had some melodies in my head so my boss actually called me and said “can you just come to my house let’s put this out”. So I went over, he’s a creative person because he spends time doing creative things so for him to go wrong creating is just not possible. So he was just like can you put this here, put this here and I just listened and that was how “With You” came about. 

“Ski”

“Ski” is a different and new sound, a very new sound. I’m trying to just bring this type of trap sound to Nigeria to make it an essential part of music in Nigeria. On the Hip hop side we’re lacking a little bit so “Ski” will promote Hip Hop. Coming up with “Ski” was like getting inspiration from street life the way the streets are. Instead of putting it on Afrobeats, I thought about doing something different. So we did it on a trap beat. The melodies, everything is to inspire more people that are doing trap music. I’m not saying I’m the pioneer or anything, I’m just saying the song will ginger a lot of trap artists to do more. 

“Apako” 

Yeah, I love this track so much. It’s just like a reflection of my past life. Once you’re listening to it you’re basically listening to my past story. Instead of coming up and telling you a story just listen to “Apako” and you’ll understand how things were for me at the time. It’s actually a street type of vibe, this is how the streets are most of the time. It’s not like the streets are always bad but the streets are full of fun, sadness, happiness, deaths and many other things. So I just put all that on “Apako” so people know the real me. Hearing my trap side might make people think i was a privileged kid but i wasn’t. The song will make you know yeah this guy is from the streets, he just had an opportunity to do stuff. “Apako” was sounding too raw for the Ep, there’s actually 2 songs like that on the Ep but we had to take off some songs to put them when we were finalising the EP. 

“Blessed” 

This is also a trap sound. “Blessed” is basically just me saying I have God by my side there’s nothing anyone can do. I always have to infuse Godly things into my lyrics. This song “Blessed” just shows how far I’ve come and how far God has guarded me. Basically it’s more like a trap sound but once you calm down and get to listen to the song you’ll be able to relate to it properly. 

“Fire” 

This is an amapiano sound. We needed something to make everyone dance, i can’t just be spitting bars without making people dance so Fire just had to make the EP because the EP wasn’t sounding complete. Everybody needs something to dance to so I created “Fire” for my own purpose and for fans too. I just wanted to be listening to it just to feel my vibe. I was in the studio and my boss was hearing the background play of Fire. He was like i can hear this stuff you’re doing, don’t you think we should put it in the EP?” At that point I was like okay we need “Fire” on the Ep. It’s like a combination of everybody’s opinion into 1 so before we can remove and replace we have to go through some steps and it’s just a little bit stressful. Everybody liked the song so i was just like since everybody likes the song why not. 

“Bad Man”

“Bad Man” was just out of happiness, we were just vibing the first day I saw my boss. We had to get producers, make the beats to create a perfect song. That’s how Bad Man came about, it really wasn’t anything too serious. 

Listen to ‘Diversity’ here.

ICYMI: JESS ETA FINDS HIS VOICE ON ‘PLAYING WITH FIRE’