Blaq 02 stretches his creativity and over-achieves on new record.
Blaq O2 told us up front, in his intro to the music scene “I’m a superstar.” The metaphor wasn’t just about dominance so much as it was about flamboyance. Blaq O2 represents a generation fluent in fashion and social media, not just a recording artist but a kind of creative director whose personality and sense of world-building comes through almost as loudly as the music. That he could turn a line as bleak as “Burst” and “Connect” which were his previous two singles and he made those hit tracks into a sing-along and made them more vital.
Born Christopher Onyedikachi, but popularly known as Blaq O2, he made the first leap to national relevance by moving to Lagos from Benin city, where he was brought up. Moving to Lagos changed him as he was able to connect with other creatives and focus fully on his music gift. Since then, he has released catchy singles that have endeared him to new urban audiences while also connecting him back to his roots and listeners back at home in the east.
His new single “High Spirit“, which is his second release for 2024, is a song for the youth and speaks about the ongoing events in the country. The track was produced by Kulboy and it is tailor made just for the mainstream.
On “High Spirit“, Blaq 02 turns the notch up for a heavy rhythmic record which oscillates easily between Hip-Hop and Highlife. The record is very much Hip-Hop in its bounce and cadence, but even more spiced up with traditional elements that gives it a fresh advantage and distinguishes it from anything listeners have ever come in contact with. Blaq 02 uses youthful grammars to express the struggles that youths in the country currently face making it so relatable in a way that shows how much he can relate to their reality.
While he acknowledges the struggles, he also speaks on the youths’ forms of escapism from these struggles. He sings on how they have to deal with these struggles with the influences of drugs in order to retain their composure and face the realities they find themselves in. While this is in fact true because it’s quite common in the society around us so much that it now seems like the normal, although this writer stands against it, however, it doesn’t change the actual reality of many youths in the country and validity of the record’s theme.
What makes records of this nature pass the test is not only their intentionality in songwriting to speak on a societal theme, but also execute it quite thoroughly without losing its initial essence of entertaining listeners. For example, Ajebo Hustler’s “Last Week” with Jeriq explores such similar themes thoroughly and excels as a record that resonates and thrills listeners. On “High Spirit“, Blaq 02 delivers such a profound all round performance that lays out the full powers of his talents. Not only did he explore the theme thoroughly, he also took himself time to lean into the reality and conjure out exactly what’s needed to pass the intended message even down to the lingua used, he nails it with sublime precision.
When intentionality meets with creativity and ability to deliver, the results most times are always extraordinary. On “High Spirit“, Blaq 02 achieves such extraordinary results and delivers one of the best conceptually thought out records of the year in the Nigerian music industry.
