Azanti – Heart Parts & Nostalgia
With his debut LP, Nigerian soul singer-songwriter and producer Azanti fully unleashes the sonic versatility and dexterous songwriting he offered glimpses of on his preceding projects, 2020’s collaborative project with his mentor PsychoYP, YP & Azanti Vol. 1, and his 2021 self-titled EP. “I could go R&B today, and tomorrow, I could be making dancehall record or I could be doing the most Afro piece, or I might be on some salsa,” Azanti tells Apple Music. “I’m constantly trying to infuse genres and sounds that you don't hear in Afrobeats. I feel like I'm a music scientist. I study music a lot, and I try to expand my musical palette.” It’s perhaps a natural result of an upbringing that spans Abuja, Angola and the UK—but for Azanti, it’s intentional. “That’s the reason I'm constantly trying to make things that I've not heard before,” he continues. “I make music consciously thinking about, ‘Okay, I want it to be a melting pot of all these cultures and genres, so all these people can relate to my music’.” That diversity of sound allows Azanti to explore the many nuances of a romantic cat-and-mouse game across Heart Pars & Nostalgia’s eleven tracks. “This album is a whole storyline,” he explains. “The ‘heart parts’ are records about how a girl made me feel. The ‘nostalgia’ part is me looking back on it now, because most of the songs are about the chase—when you're trying to get the girl. So the whole album is, ‘I tried to get the girl; I got the girl; we’ve done something; and now there's the catharsis’. And there’s some kind of nostalgia, where I'm thinking about the past and I want to go back, even after I've complained about chasing.” Here, Azanti (Nathan Ayomikun Otekalu-Aje) breaks down that narrative journey, track by track. “no.1 LoVER” “This album is, if you look at it properly, [is about] it’s the chase; then you get the girl—then [you encounter] problems. So this is the beginning of the chase. This is when I first properly meet this girl. She's giving me mixed signals, but there's a line I say: ‘All of the validation way you no dey gimme e dey make me confuse’. So when you are not giving me the validation that I know you want to give me, I'm getting confused. It’s basically about mixed signals. I know what she wants, but she's not telling me straight.” “WANTS AND NEEDS” “So on ‘WANTS AND NEEDS’, I can tell she's probably interested. She's finally showing me signs that she likes me. I'm letting her know how much I want her, and how much I'd do to keep her, which is just regular for the chase. When you're trying to chase a girl, you need to let her know what you're going to do, what you can do.” “Gettin’ Hot” “It's a feel-good record. In the storyline at this point, we're in the club. ‘Forming’ is when someone is acting bougie; they're acting all Hollywood and that. The whole concept of the song is that we're in the club; everybody is supposed to be bussin' it down. Normally, I know she be bussin' it down but because I'm here, she's not being as energetic. In this song, I'm trying to just tell her to loosen up, relax and just have a good time. You can't be playing on me, shorty. Let's see where it can go. This was produced by Ramoni. This is my take on amapiano, and I didn't want it to sound like any type of amapiano I've heard. And I just love the experimental feel of the record.” “TWiSS & TUrN” (feat. Odeal) “This is basically when I've found the perfect time to talk to this girl, but I hesitate, and I'm letting her know I hesitated because she's on my mind and really don't want her to play with me. I'm almost scared of getting hurt because when I love, I can love really hard. So in this song, I'm basically taking time, because she's on my mind and she's twisting me up and she's getting me moving weak. This is letting her know where I stand with her; how I want to be serious with her. I love Odeal's songwriting, and where he took the direction for this story.” “jULie” (feat. The Cavemen) “Sonically, this is one of my favourite tracks. This is highlife music—and for someone in my age group to come on and drop a highlife love song, I feel like that's a testament to the fact that I'm willing to take my musical creativity out of the box. ‘jULie’ plays a very central part [of the story] for me, because this is where I feel like I've decided that I can't get her out of my head and I'm just like, ‘I didn't expect to be this strung on this girl’. The Cavemen came through with a verse and I love the outro they did—it made the song for me.” “PreSSUre” “As the name entails, there's a lot of tension starting to build up between me and this female. This is the breaking point. Right now, you know the tension is high, you know exactly how I feel. It’s a bass-heavy soundtrack to the end of the chase, and I basically give her the lowdown on how she can't keep playing hard to get. I'm trying to encourage her to take hold of the things she wants and to play an active role in trying to get me. This is the make or break moment to see whether she takes the bait.” “late4dinner” “So now I've finally had a chance—she gave me a chance to have dinner. Obviously, I'm a man, and I'm a human being and make mistakes, and I'm late for dinner because I'm trying to catch a vibe with a different love interest instead of dinner. So I zoom, zoom because I don't want to be late for dinner. It's just a test of my human nature. It's just a point of weakness, and I wanted to express that in the songwriting. So even though I just got a chance, I like the girl yeah, but I'm obviously still an artist. I’m talking to several different girls and I can make my way to the next one easily. But I still want to make her know that she's actually the main one, still. Working with LONDON on that one was blessed, man. He's one of my favourite producers, period.” “Vanity” “Now, me and the girl, we're in a place where we're past the chase. We're done stunting by this time. So this is me telling her how much I love her. It's a sappy song—it’s the rosy parts. All that matters is that we stay together. It’s a love song.” “Antenna” “This the plot twist. On ‘Antenna’, this girl is cheating on me with one of my friends. And his name is Takena. In the song, I go, ‘Because your antenna points to Takena’. So on this one, I'm basically confounded—she’s telling me she wants him now. How can you tell me you want him now after we've been through all this, after six chasing songs? I chased you with six songs, and I probably had a good time for one song, and you're already cheating on me with my boy.” “FeeL Too MucH” “Now, I’m telling her my pain, how she betrayed me. ‘Why did you want to go tell me all those lies, why do you want to watch everything go by?’ So that's what I'm just trying to express to her—I feel disappointed. I don't want to feel too much of that negativity. Sonically, I wanted it to feel really luxurious and I wanted to feel like I could play it live and not lose the essence. And I wanted to stay musically complex, with the piano solo at the end. I just love the musicality of the record; I love the space; the beat had to breathe at that point. Big Fish, the producer. pushes me a lot, and he always puts me on path, because I love making R&B; I feel like that's my strength. I like putting emotions in my words and my melody.” “peace” “I wanted this record to feel the way you feel at the end of a Disney movie—some Cinderella-type s**t. I wanted it to really invoke some form of nostalgia. So on this one, it's just my nostalgic self, wanting her back. Even though she's done all this bulls**t and I've done some bulls**t as well, I know she's my ‘peace’, and I'm here. All these beautiful things could be turned very gloomy when she’s not around. So after I just complained and feel too much, this is obviously an emotion I'm not trying to let go of.”