Budding singer Dami Oniru dropped by at the Pulse office to talk about her journey with music so far.

Oniru shouts out her mom for the music influences growing up, says her mother would listen to songs from Brandy, Beyonce, Usher, Jaheim and Keyshia Cole, as well as her uncle who would play a lot of music on his personal deck.

“She used to have like this case containing about 300 CDs so every car ride was a different experience musically.”

Dami was a member of her primary school choir but it didn’t dawn on her until year 9 that she had a talent for singing and has not looked back ever since, singing together with a mate in school.

A final year student of International business and management, Dami started recording music in 2015 but put out her first record in January of 2016.

She recounted how nerve wracking it was for her releasing to the world her first material, the lovely R&B song ‘Iyawo’ because she wasn’t sure how these strangers would receive the song. The feedback she got did turn out to be great, and this encouraged her to continue releasing music.

In December 2015 Dami Oniru started a label imprint Chase Music with fellow artist Jinmi Abduls, under which she released the ‘Iyawo’ single.  The song got a reggae remix by Odunsi which Dami totally prefers even to the original. She hopes to work with “The Engine” (Odunsi) on her forthcoming EP which she has no direction or release date yet, for now, saying she is just recording music at the moment.

Dami doesn’t like the term new wave artists which she and a group of other emerging artists are referred to as in some quarters. She also talked about not wanting to be put in a box, saying it tends to limit the artist’s creativity.

“I don’t like being put in a box I feel like if you’re being put in a box, then you are not being allowed to fully express your creativity musically.”

Speaking about being termed “Soundcloud artists”, Dami says it’s really not fair to class artists as such she would rather not be classified as one, explaining that Soundcloud has been an easy, cost-effective means for artists to put their songs out there.

Music is the easiest way to express herself because as she explains not everything is discussed amongst friends and family, they are usually brushed aside, so music provides an outlet for her to release those feelings and thoughts.

Her song ‘Fallin’, for example, Dami tells Pulse was about dealing with the loss of her grandfather, though many assumed she was singing about a guy.

On her recent performances at the 90s baby Sound Off and The Lemon Curd 2,

Dami explained further that she just wants people to appreciate her for the music and not necessarily wanting the focus on her.

“They don’t even need to know my name I just want them to hear my music, I don’t need people to know what I look like cos I don’t like pictures.”

She talks about breaking out from her shyness as she has begun having  to perform on stage to an audience, adding that whatever activity helps her to explore her creativity is welcome.

Her stage performance has also helped her prove to her detractors that she does not employ auto-tune in her recording as it doesn’t sound good on her voice, making her detest it, though she’s fine with any artist that uses auto-tune so long it sounds good on them.

Dami Oniru talks about not yet having a manager because she is looking out for the individual that genuinely has her best interest at heart and vice –versa, not someone trying to be in her business primarily for the financial gains.

With the label Chase Music, Dami noted that she wasn’t part of the movement again for personal reasons, needing her own space for a while at the time. She tells Pulse she likely won’t be returning to Jinmi Abduls’ Chase Music because she feels they will be fine without her. She, however, is proud of how far the label has come

“We are both going to get to where we are going, but everyone’s path is different so I don’t think Chase is a path for me now, I am doing my own thing.”

Asking whether there is a gap that needs to be bridged between her generation of musicians and the mainstream Nigerian musicians, Dami thinks it won’t take too long to catch up.

“They have an advantage over us because they started when the music started to pop and now they have the international exposure, but I don’t think it will take too long to catch up.”

“With the way we’re going and the amount exposure we have and in our generation alone we are a lot and if we continue to support each other keep doing features shows and the fact that with the Sound Off and Lemon Curd, people my age are doing that, we don’t need the big event planners, with that amount of support I feel like in no time we will catch up.”

“And Odunsi and Santi are already doing that, they are already charting billboards, Spotify, they are helping us that haven’t charted Billboard yet but have the same amount of exposure. Like if somebody goes to Spotify and sees Odunsi, they are going to see a Dami Oniru, Remy Baggins, Lady Donli, Tomi Thomas, they are going to somehow discover all of us.”

" Our music is different from that of Davido and Wizkid, I know everybody loves Afrobeats but sometimes you wanna hear something different from Afrobeats, and to me, most of the beats are the same, it’s just all drums. Sometimes I want to hear Odunsi vibes, or a mellow Santi vibe or ‘Ice cream’ by Lady Donli, it’s not all the time loud music that you want to jump to.”

Dami likes to see herself as an R&B artist though some do class her music as Alternative, and she is fine with that. But she makes it clear she doesn’t do Afrobeats or dancehall reggae.

“I personally say I do R&B, I think that’s because I like R&B, I haven’t really defined my music but I know it’s not just R&B, I don’t do Afrobeats, I don’t do reggae, dancehall, so probably alternative would be the best way to class my music.”

“I’m not trying to focus on one type of music because I feel like there is like so much more I can give and there are much more sounds that I can explore, I’m always open to trying out new stuff, but not Afrobeats, I have beef with Afrobeats.” Dami chuckled.

On her creative process of writing songs, Dami says she doesn’t write on paper because when she does try that method, all the words in her head tend to disappear, so what she does is record or write it down on her phone, or record the idea in the studio to help with direction she wants to take with the song.

Dami also noted that she likes to involve people she works with in her writing process, explaining this when she talked about writing and recording her verse for her feature in Odunsi’s ‘Farabale’.

The singer speaking on why she thinks there are not as many female musicians in the Nigerian music scene as the male counterparts, blames it on the poor structure of the industry and the general way it is in the world with males dominating. “There is no sense of full equality,” she says.

But she’s proud of female artists like herself doing their thing, mentioning the likes of Niniola, Tiwa Savage, DJ Femo, Lady Donli, Eva, AT, Davina Oriakhi, among others, that are encouraging other females discover their sound and do music as well, hopefully.

On her artist development side, Dami says she is trying to break the bad habit of starting to learn something and not finishing. She mentioned watching online videos to help with vocal training, also touching on playing the piano.

Dami is also considering learning sound engineering, taking inspiration from musician Simi that mixes and masters her own songs. Oniru also credits can Jinmi Abduls who taught her how to go about recording music. She plans to build her own personal studio where people can come and use the space even when she’s not around, and also because it saves cost of producing music.

On her plans to release more music, Dami hopes to release material soon, and she’s just going to keep recording song, then arrange the ones that sound alike and good together for the EP. On the project, she plans to explore other sounds different from her typical R&B and also hopes to work with the majority of new emerging female artists on the EP.

Speaking on how she gets to like a song, she says “I’m really into beats, If a beat gets me then I like the song, but if the beat is not nice then I will listen to the lyrics, I like lyrics that make sense, that hit home, I don’t even have to be able to relate to it.”

On the driving force of her music, Dami Oniru sees it now from the spiritual angle, saying the loss of her grandpa made her turn to God, and that’s what her song ‘Fallin’ was all about.

“Now my music is probably going to be more spiritual than it was before because dealing with my grandfather’s death made me really turn to God and that’s what ‘Fallin’ was about. In ’Fallin,’ I was writing about my grandfather but I wasn’t talking to him, I was talking to God,” she said about looking up to God, for help in dealing with her grandpa’s loss.

Dami Oniru will be releasing a song titled ‘Prayer’ that talks about her daily spiritual journey ups and downs, which should be incorporated into her EP as she explores different sounds therein.

Catch more of Dami's music on Soundcloud.

Interview by Abiola Solanke and Segun Akande.