Introducing an emerging star with a heart of Soul

Bem Abu is an artist on a mission to spread love, healing and peace through music. A Minna Native, the singer who loves to log his guitar creates melodies from the wind, a thought, experiences and many others.

He talks to Pulse Music today, about his earlier years in music, his creative process and his song ‘ Never Before’.

How long have you been doing what you do? How did you get started?

While I cannot quite place an age to when this journey began for me as in the case of other people, I have been doing this for a long as I remember you know; started from being a member of my primary school band to member of the church children's choir, to a member of the defunct SB5 group to representing my secondary school in annual competitions. David Tukura who was one of my sunday school teacher and the person in charge of coordinating the children's choir helped me discover the singing side of me else I would have just being like a floor member.It happed that for whatever reason he had always wanted me to lead the songs so I would do the first verse and Maureen Joshua who is an amazing singer and choir member also will sing the second verse and after every ministration, people will literally walk up to me and say I like how you sang that song, I like your voice and all that and because it came quite frequently, I began to ask what it was about my voice. This would be how I started. Being a part of my primary school band required me to drum only not sing as it were.

Is there an early memory you’d like to share about getting into your craft, such as when you realized this was more than just a hobby or a passion? 

From the start, it was just something I enjoyed doing and so there were times I would stay up all night and watch music videos almost like a vigil then go to school and sleep almost all day. Along the line, I just realised that the music had a stronger pull on me versus any other thing I would try my hands on and from that point on, I would listen to a lot of music from Boys II Men, Musiq-Soulchild, Neyo, India Arie, 112, and quite a lot trying to ad-lib like they did you know just basically experiment with what these artist did on their songs. All these affected my school work making me stay home two extra years to pass WAEC and get into the university.

How do you describe your sound/what you do to people you haven’t heard before?

I like to describe it as Urban Afro Soul, R&B and Pop music. Just the other day I was talking with the prodthing, of my single ‘Never Before’ and I said to him we need to experiment more and try out other angles to the music because I feel like the listeners haven't been wowed the way I want yet. We need to evolve into something very striking. As it were we have only achieved like 70℅ of that effect.

Who are your influences? What is some advice that has stuck with you?

Even though I am generally influenced by amazing music regardless of genre, I have a very long list, some of the names on it includes: Cobhams Asuquo, ASA, Timi, the late Only D of Oasis of Love, India Arie, Boys II Men, Yanni just to mention a few. Advice that has stuck with me are 'Never give up'-Wilson Joel, 'If you work hard enough, you just might earn it' -Cobhams.

What do you hope people take away from listening to your music?

I hope that my listeners can find strength through my music, believe in themselves again, love again, do the right thing, be bold enough to look beyond their fears and reach for the sky.

Tell us a little bit about your new project, such as concepts/themes, what inspired you, what the creative process was like, etc

I am up one morning playing a few simple chords on the guitar and ‘Never Before’ came to me from melody to lyric all from start to finish and I just knew there is something about the song  so I recorded a voice note and sent to two people I respect a lot, we shared the same view about it then I moved to work on production. Though foreign music has influenced me great deal, I realise the 'africanness' of a work of art determines the amount of attention it gets here at home so I tried to capture that lyrically without necessarily sounding cliché and that is what Laitan Dada who Mixed the song tried to get me to achieve while we recorded. I had to do quite a number of takes to get that right. Then  Nsikak an amazing guitarist came through with his interpretation with what he played and the rest happened. Also, I knew I wanted to talk about the subject of love without using words we have heard over and over again yet be simple and reach a wide audience as much as possible. 'NeverBefore' is my attempt.

What does the rest of 2016 look like? What can we keep an eye out for?

The goal is make more music basically and of course perform where I am invited or giving the opportunity to and most importantly continue to evolve.