Singer talks working with MI, Cabo Snoop, Yung L on debut album

Hassani's music began to really resonate with many in 2016 after releasing the hit single 'Gentleman' which earned him a nomination for Best Male Vocal Performance at the Headies that year.

His fan base has since steadily grown. This year Ric has released a couple singles that have been well received by his growing fans, such as 'Marry you', and 'Only you' which has a lovely music video.

The singer granted an interview to Pulse on Monday August 14, 2017 where he got talking about his music journey and the road to his forthcoming debut album.

Ric is currently an indie artist running the label imprint Riverland Records. He talked about being approached by some labels for a deal but so far has not come across the one that matches his expectations.

So he and his team have had to do with putting up a structured label as they were beginning to attract the right businesses, and needed to be seen as having a structure.

“Before now I have been doing things on my own, and we just decided recently to make it more formal and give it a name because we are now attracting a lot more business and people would want to know that you have a structure.”

Building up to the release of his debut album, Pulse asks the singer about the inspiration behind a previous body of work he put together in 2015 named “The Acoustic EP”.

Ric mentioned that he likes the feel of acoustic music and put that collection out for people to enjoy, and has since then grown in confidence about the style of music he wants to be making.

Hassani also narrated how he gave a lady fan of his a treat and how she was really grateful for it as she had been going through a lot with personal and family issues.

Ric Hassani spoke about his working relationship and how he creates the ‘magic’ with a close producer of his - Doron Clinton who produced his hit song ‘Gentleman’ and recent single ‘Only you’.

“We always create the music at the same time, it’s almost spontaneous at times, working with him is fantastic.”

He also spoke about his love for Malawi, where he has toured in recent past; and working with two big artists Sonyezo and Tay Grin out of there, as well as interesting collaborations to expect on his debut album such as working with Chocolate City's MI Abaga,(who he says is a dream come true for him) and Yung L, and also Angolan artist Cabo Snoop.

Ric is planning towards having album listening/live acoustic sessions alongside Doron Clinton, and a series of pop-up shows around Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt. He also plans to tour Botswana, Namibia, and hopefully South Africa after studying the music business terrain of the Hip-Hop and House music rich country.

Addressing the gist about people seeing him more as a fashion icon than a musician, Ric says he is fine with that. For him, it’s about expression, creativity, and branding.

“As a musician, you have to look a certain way for your brand, I don’t mind that at all. it’s all still expression and creativity, I hope to even get into the fashion business.

That’s the thing about expression. Idris Elba started as a DJ and now he’s one of the greatest actors, Will Smith started off as a rapper and now he’s one of the greatest actors of all time so the thing with creativity is you never know where it leads you.”

On a lighter note, Ric Hassani lists traveling, eating, gisting and watching TV series as activities that help refresh his creativity to do music.

Ric also gave a very interesting personal tip on what helps keep his vocals in shape for recording music.

"The African Gentleman" is available for pre-order now on iTunes.

Video of interview with Pulse to come later.