New school artist is a sweet combination of talent and wit

Mabel “Bella” Alubo, a new school musician, signed in December of 2016 to Tinny Entertainment, same label housing ‘Jagaban and ‘Omo Alhaji’’ rap act Ycee stopped by at the Pulse Nigeria office on Friday, May 12, 2017, to share with us her journey into the challenging yet beautiful world of music.

It all started with writing stories poems from her early school days, and later graduating to writing raps, she tells Pulse.

“I had always been writing, First I used to write stories, then it became poetry, then it became song lyrics. I had an actual book I used to write my poems.”

After her secondary school education, Bella met with some rappers and producers trying to follow her  music dreams and by this time she had started listening to and having some influences by Western rappers such as Lil Wayne.

On rap coming naturally to her, and not being something everybody can do, Bella believes it’s just a matter of putting your mind to it and persisting at whatever skill or talent you desire to have.

Bella also likes to think that there is a Hip Hop culture in Jos town where she was raised from, evident in her being influenced and learning from the Grip Boiz, MI, Jesse and Ice Prince who are all products of Jos city.

She particularly cites Yung L of the Grip Boiz as having mentored her, narrating how she would go to him after writing a couple of lyrics and getting quick feedback from him on how to write better, adding that she had not started recording by then.

On what then gave her motivation to record her first song, being a cover of one of Kanye West’s songs ‘Therapy’, she cites a random girl, a rapper she discovered on social networking app Tumblr as the reason, after listening to her rap to the same song.

And from then more covers to build her confidence came through, such as covers of Karishika by Falz, cover of MI’s King James and more, with Bella trying out singing as well on a cover of rapper Ice Prince’s ‘More’, up until she recorded her first singles ‘Testify’ featuring Terry tha rapman and ‘Tired’ featuring Miss Tunes both released in 2015.

This new found confidence soon gave birth to her first EP “Bella” in November 2015

And then her second EP “Bella 2.0: Lucid Dreaming” released in December 2016.

On what she thinks got her the deal with Tinny, Bella believes they were impressed with her catalogue, which would be a combination of the cover songs and EPs and the effort she put into it, given the fact that she was in far away Jos, which is now known to be a music hub in Nigeria compared to Lagos.

She also credited Osagie of The Zone Agency as ''the plug'' that materialized her getting signed, describing how she would always send her songs to listen to and help her pitch her portfolio to any label that may be interested. Soon enough, Osagie reached out to Tinny Entertainment seeing them as a perfect fit for Bella, as they already had a rapper in Ycee. Equally impressed, the deal was sealed.

Asking her how she felt when she heard of the development, Bella says it felt great, but admits she was scared amidst her excitement because it all happened really fast. She had just finished her Youth corps service over at Cross River state in November 2016  and the next thing in December of the same year was to travel down to Lagos to meet label boss Tinny.

“It was great of course but I was cautious and I was scared, because it happened very fast like In a week I had come to Lagos to meet  Tinny, he was ready to sign me,” she tells Pulse.

She also talks about her growth, having to write under pressure now that she’s signed. She explains that the label wanted to see how versatile she was asides the established fact that she can sing. A music coach is also taking her on lessons, she tells Pulse.

On her new single ‘Radio,’ whose accompanying visual she says would be out soon, Bella praises how amazing Ycee was coming through with his verses in such short space of time that he had another engagement to attend to.

On if she feels there is a ‘dryness’ with regards to Nigerian female musicians in rap and other genres, Bella doesn't think female rappers and artists generally are not largely present, rather, she feels it’s a reflection of the society and not necessarily women wanting to pull out of the game.

“I don’t think it’s dry, I just think the music industry is a reflection of society,” Bella says.

She explains that women face gender stereotypes that tend to set them back from achieving what they desire to, using her case as an example of how after graduating from school she was getting queried about having a boyfriend and when she was planning to get married, get a job and get settled in her husband’s home.

She also feels the femcees citing  Eva, Phlow, AT, and  MzKiss are working quite hard to be recognized for what they do but the industry tends to pay more attention to the male rappers. She also talks about the female rappers usually getting attention when they are either sexually appealing or stand out in some other way.

“Female rappers many times have to be hypersexual or Tomboy,” Bella says.

Bella on her stagecraft believes she will get better and is open to criticism and says it’s a growing process for her and would be working on fusing her music with her outward body language and see where it goes from there in being more captivating with her stage performances.

Bella also notes that she doesn’t believe any artist should box himself into one genre, “You should be the expression don’t let the expression be you,” she quotes. She likes to refer to herself as an artist or a musician and not a rapper.

Bella gives Pulse her current favourite five rap songs, a mixture of local and international, which are AT's 'Two of us', Kendrick Lamar's 'DNA', Big Sean's 'Bounce back', Ycee's 'Don't need bae' and Angel Haze's 'Resurrection'.

On the vision for her career, Bella wants to own a large catalog of music just like a Jay Z; build a brand that is bigger than just music, and also be able to go back to any city in the country and help a promising artist find his way up.

“I‘m also trying to build a brand in general which is not just surrounded by music just a culture that can fuse into any form of art and also I’m hoping I can get to a level where I can go back to Jos or anywhere around  and help other people who are trying to buckle their art.”