Earlier than he grew to become NNAMDÏ, avant-pop wizkid Nnamdi Ogbonnaya paraded the streets of southern Chicago, going to DIY exhibits downtown that have been flourishing with younger punk and indie troupes. Ogbonnaya’s proximity to all of it is what impressed him to carve out his personal spot inside it. Just like the Windy Metropolis marvels who donned underground hats earlier than him, he got here of age domestically. “A few of me studying in regards to the music scene needed to do with older youngsters at college that had already begun stepping into that DIY world,” Ogbonnaya says. “Additionally, dwelling proper subsequent to Indiana, there have been quite a lot of punk bands being fashioned proper over the border. The remainder is the results of web sleuthing and music weblog obsessions.” That heirloom-like bestowment has appeared throughout Ogbonnaya’s work for a decade, however most prominently on his newest document, Please Have a Seat, which, at its coronary heart, is a love letter to town he grew up in.
Ogbonnaya made a behavior out of looking out by DIY venues to seek out locations to play, which is how he found acts he beloved. That neighborhood he grew to become part of was essential as a result of many Chicago venues have been 21+, and the budding younger arts motion wasn’t in a position to attend quite a lot of exhibits. “I began just a few bands primarily taking part in drums,” he says. “That ultimately introduced me to begin internet hosting exhibits at my of us’ home within the ‘burbs. Then, [we] started taking part in exhibits across the Chicago space and reserving our personal excursions shortly after.”
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In 2013, Ogbonnaya launched Bootie Noir, which filtered an uncategorical sonic palette, one which fused hip-hop, R&B, post-punk and indie pop. There’s one thing beguiling about his inventive blueprint. The songs are as limitless and impressive as they’re centered and meticulous. The present panorama of impartial music is crowded with “genre-busting” or “genre-defying” artists, creators embracing the margins quite than the everyday. However for those who have a look at pillars like Ogbonnaya, who has by no means been confined to any sure aspect, it turns into apparent that his sonic entanglements should not episodic, however a painstaking craft he’s spent years honing.
Ogbonnaya’s first massive track, “Artwork Faculty Crush,” is almost 10 years previous now, however it’s nonetheless as infinitely catchy because the day it dropped. It endures with new audiences, due to Spotify’s fixed playlist curations. “I really like [“Art School Crush”] and knew that it was going to be one in every of my hottest ones once I wrote it,” Ogbonnaya says. “It’s only a feeling I obtained. However even interested by it now, it’s wild that, for a way way back I put it out, it has been constantly added to new playlists and is, fairly repeatedly, the most-streamed track I’ve.” The track’s structure, which includes as many kinds as three minutes will permit, may be discovered on Please Have a Seat, in cuts like “Cautious” and “Good Ass,” which dare to amalgamate entice percussion, indie pop guitars, octave-surfing vocals and shiny synths into one enrapturing piece. In a world of oversharing and tendencies and virality, there are causes to be hopeful in regards to the longevity of the DIY scene — particularly when artists like Ogbonnaya take that dynamic pastoral and grandfather it into their very own work.
Earlier this yr, Ogbonnaya headlined a competition in Columbus, Ohio with Alex Cameron. SoupFest, an all-day odyssey of tunes and steaming bowls of brothy goodness, wedged itself right into a sizzling ballroom that after housed big-band acts through the Melancholy. By the point Ogbonnaya took the stage, the gang had glowed themselves into one communal stomach of beer, however, as he performed 10 years’ price of sizzling tracks, they littered the air with numerous cheers for him and chants of “soup.” Whether or not or not they knew the songs, it was like a fraternity reeking of craft beer and pork chili verde, and Ogbonnaya honed the power right into a blazing set that reworked the room into the hypest spot within the metropolis.
Ogbonnaya’s musical persona, and off-record character, was constructed for oddball venues and rowdy, all-in crowds. His 2017 LP Drool was a kaleidoscopic hip-hop joint that examined the bounds of experimental flows and preparations. The subsequent yr, Ogbonnaya would play a masterful Audiotree Far Out set from inside Bucktown Market within the Wicker Park district of Chicago. He’s no stranger to taking the form of no matter rundown joint will obtain him, and, in each occasion, Ogbonnaya is unrelenting in his show-stoppage.
Nevertheless it was 2020 that was, deservedly, Ogbonnaya’s yr. He launched the opus Brat in April, which holds “Wasted,” probably the greatest pop tracks of this decade. Over a month later, his three-song, punk-constructed EP Black Plight spoke in regards to the price of Black folks within the wake of emotional and bodily violence inflicted upon them by power-hungry, power-abusing folks. For a decade, Ogbonnaya has turned in a catalog that celebrates Blackness by reclaiming the genres that the Black neighborhood first blueprinted and putting them again within the forefront of indie rock.
[Photo by Dennis Elliott]
When the Chicago Tribune named him “Chicagoan of the Yr” that December, it was indisputably. “It was extremely necessary to me and a real honor,” Ogbonnaya says. “A variety of instances, I’ve higher exhibits somewhere else, and typically the place you’re from can appear much less enthusiastic about you than outsiders. So, getting that award was bonkers. I used to be actually simply specializing in my music and attempting to share it and convey pleasure to folks and assist nevertheless I can.” In 2017, VICE known as Ogbonnaya “Chicago’s weirdest musician.” His music has at all times felt so innately Chicagoan that, when he says he’s had traditionally higher exhibits in different cities than in his hometown, it’s stunning. It’s been some time since he’s had a bona fide present within the metropolis, and, after spending a while on the road competition circuit, he’s desperate to get again.
Brat was the defining NNAMDÏ undertaking, because it felt like a long-awaited mission assertion on artwork devotion and grappling with ego. Whether or not or not Ogbonnaya is a tortured artist is just not our place to know, however, on Brat, he revealed how plainspokenly acquainted his personal inner contradictions are. Nevertheless it’s 2022 now, and NNAMDÏ has returned, able to take a victory lap with Please Have a Seat, his most interesting work but, because it faucets into the persona of a virtuosic goofball who’s unafraid of his personal faults, which he’s totally embraced. “I’m simply attempting to be natural in my pursuits,” Ogbonnaya provides. “I’m equally foolish as I’m stern and reflective. I believe it’s a pure behavior that simply seeps into my inventive endeavors. [I’m] at all times hoping to broaden, evolve and study extra about myself by artwork.”
Please Have a Seat arrives in a rollout that’s extra celebratory than that of Brat’s was. As a result of the latter is so uncooked and tethered to heavy, buzzing maximalism, the various sounds shimmering throughout the previous may not arrive as profoundly. However don’t get it twisted: Ogbonnaya has by no means risen extra singularly than at this very second. If Brat was him at his most formidable, then Please Have a Seat is him at his most assured. “[Please Have a Seat] covers a little bit of terrain: confidence, trauma, consolation, how we react to life,” Ogbonnaya says. “I simply need folks to benefit from the good songs and let it resonate inside them.”
Ogbonnaya is, indisputably, one of many few artists remaining whose charisma hasn’t been compromised for the sake of creating accessible information. The sonic landscapes of jazz fusion, cosmic artwork pop, acoustic guitars, entice beats and pure silliness shouldn’t work collectively, however they do. And he’s going to maintain merging these sounds as relentlessly as he can. One second, Ogbonnaya’s circulation is poised and bumping. By the following track, he’s traded bars for a buttered falsetto. Album turns can typically arrive jagged, however on Please Have a Seat, the transitions are breathtaking. “I actually love piecing collectively a cohesive story that flows collectively. I believe album order and circulation is essential to a undertaking, so I do put quite a lot of time and thought into these particulars as nicely,” Ogbonnaya provides.
In an genuine presentation of his personal versatility, the singles of Please Have a Seat — “I Don’t Wanna Be Well-known,” “Anti” and “Dedication” — contact each nook of Ogbonnaya’s repertoire. In distinction with Brat, nevertheless, the songs of Please Have a Seat don’t conflict; they mesh. It’s as if the Chicagoan’s boldness has lastly locked in in totality. Most of that could be a product of Ogbannaya’s attachment to vocal melodies, which just about at all times kind the idea of his work. “It may begin with a voice memo or me playing around on guitar or keys, however it’s sometimes melodic,” he says. “I’ll discover the instrument that feels probably the most at residence with the melody and broaden from there. Normally, percussive components and lyrics come in the direction of the top, which typically surprises folks, with me being a drummer.”
Ogbonnaya is chameleonic. His footprint is throughout up to date music. Just lately, he opened for black midi and Jeff Rosenstock. 5 years in the past, he was taking part in drums for Vagabon. He’s taken turns as a bassist in Lillie West’s band Lala Lala and in addition performs drums within the instrumental math-rock outfit Monobody. He runs one in every of Chicago’s biggest indie labels, Sooper Information, with Glenn Curran and Sen Morimoto. Sooper’s existence started, as Ogbonnaya places it, “out of a love and appreciation for lots of the parents we have been associates with [who were] making dope shit.” The label doesn’t change the best way Ogbonnaya makes a document, however it makes him extra aware about how he desires it introduced to the remainder of the world.
Ogbonnaya wedges his manner into any musical area and thrives. The truth that we so typically don’t even notice it’s a testomony to his skill to rework with out commanding any type of ruckus. “Please Have a Seat can imply many issues. It may be you telling somebody to have a seat for their very own security, like on a airplane. It may be you saying it in a bragging manner, such as you simply juked [someone] in 2K,” Ogbonnaya says. “It could possibly be somebody telling it to you as a result of they need to train you one thing. The phrase offers strategy to versatility. In the course of the course of this album, it means all of these items at totally different moments.”
So typically, what Ogbonnaya items to his audiences are alerts of hope. Two years in the past on Brat, he gave us a mantra that proved extra well timed than ever: “There’s no must faux/You’re OK for those who’re not.” Now, in 2022, he’s nonetheless combating uphill like the remainder of us. “One thing instructed me I ought to keep/Issues may find yourself higher as we speak/Combat, battle, battle, battle by the ache,” he sings on “Dedication.” To mine by the infinite potentialities that music can provide is already an indication of somebody’s unrelenting curiosity. However to pause and provide some type of reconciliation to all the methods through which the world desires to beat down on you is simply as unrelenting and highly effective.
None of Ogbonnaya’s wizardry is new, however the stardom of NNAMDÏ continues to be climbing. He’s now passing his passions all the way down to hungry audiences searching for a hero. Few musicians make it to the opposite facet of the dialog — that interpersonal relationship with the elders of a metropolis’s scene — however Ogbonnaya by no means left residence, and now he is able to pay his loyalty ahead to the following era. The world of NNAMDÏ is one in every of electrifying neighborhood. And, in flip, the title of Please Have a Seat rings excellent, as Ogbonnaya is asking us to affix him, at his ever-growing desk, whereas he wades by the present and continues to problem the binaries of pop music by reinventing their each edge.
