'Emeka Must Shine' has 3 versions of me - Blaqbonez says about his new album

Blaqbonez is one of the rappers pushing the creative boundaries of hip-hop in Nigeria through his modern fusion and exciting personality.

In the interview with Nandi Madiba of Apple Music Africa Now Radio, Blaqbonez shared some insight into his new album titled 'Emeka Must Shine' which he says carries 3 different versions of him.

Blaqbonez stated that the 'Emeka Must Shine' movement is one that resonated with his fans even beyond the title and he decided to tie an album to the moment.

"When the Emeka Must Shine movement started, I could see that my fans related to it deeper than just a title. To them, it was my crowning moment. They’ve supported me all this time, they just want to see me win at a very high level. The Emeka Must Shine movement is like ‘We’re going to do everything to make sure Emeka shines, nothing is gonna stop Emeka’ and stuff. It’s like them just being fully invested, and they’re going fully crazy on the internet. People are just like ‘Emeka is shining! Emeka must shine!’ It’s so so crazy." 

On the album, Blaqbonez shares that he merged different personas across three different albums which comprise reggaeton, rap, and singing.

"Mr. Boombastic has a reggaeton-type bounce and vibe, right? It’s inspired by the Caribbean and Jamaican music. There’s Bad Boy Blaq - the rapper - then there’s Emeka The Stallion. Emeka The Stallion is the singer, the one that sings with a clear voice and everything.

What I did for this album, in each song there are elements of these three versions of me. It’s like I could be singing but then I’m flowing, I’m rapping and there’s a little bit of a reggaeton bounce and a vibe to it. I merged all the parts of me into one."

On 'Emeka Must Shine', Blaqbonez featured multiple artists, including Black Sherif, Zlatan, Victony, CKay and Young Jonn. He says the collaborations came seamlessly as the guest artists contributed their quota in helping him shine.

"Everything on this album came to me seamlessly. Everybody that worked on it, worked on it out of love so I’m really grateful that the whole process was organic and exciting. Even like M24, he was supposed to travel somewhere and he had to quickly try to get the verse to me. He’s not somebody I knew before, and we didn’t pay him, he just loved the song and he wanted to be on it, and that was really nice. 

You know Black Sherif paid for the studio session where we recorded the intro. The Zlatan song ‘BAD TILL ETERNITY’, he invited me over to his studio and showed me so much, love. And you know everything… it wasn’t like ‘oh, come and hop on this song’, or ‘you do this and my label is sending this to this person’. It wasn’t, it just felt like everybody collectively said ‘We’re gonna make sure Emeka shines this year, and we’re gonna give Emeka whatever Emeka needs." 

'Emeka Must Shine' is Blaqbonez's sixth project and it's scheduled for release on October 27, 2023.