“Every time I create a project, I kind of create a different persona,” Nigerian hip-hop star Blaqbonez tells Apple Music. “Like my first album, Bad Boy Black [2018], that was the name of the persona. There was Mr. Bombastic, that was the EP after it [in 2019]. Bad Boy Black was a rapper, Mr. Bombastic was reggaetón type of artist. Then Emeka the Stallion was like, a bit of reggaetón influence, but [with a playful] voice: clean and different. And then [2022’s] Young Preacher, that was a mixture of Emeka the Stallion and the rapping Bad Boy Black.”
On 2023’s Emeka Must Shine, Blaqbonez assembles all of his sonic personalities to create a record that’s rooted in celebration. “This particular album is all of them, but inside each individual tracks,” he explains. “Every version of me is merged into every track. This album is a party. The pen is just fun. When you are having a late night, you don't want to think about your struggles, you don't want to think about everything. It's just the beautiful things in life. And I'm talking about cars, money, women—just having a great time. From the beginning to the end, it's a party.” Here, Blaqbonez takes us through the album’s key tracks.
“ROAD RUNNERS” (feat. Black Sherif)
“I think it's my best intro ever. Black Sherif was ridiculously insane. It's me looking through the lens of this guy that has got to these heights, but he’s still very aware of everything that's going on. People are like, ‘Where has Blaqbonez been?’ Because now I'm travelling a lot. Nobody ever knows where I am. And when I come [home], I'm one of those people that [won’t] tell you I'm back. I just come into the country below the radar—you are shocked when you see me. And so that's basically what the song is about. I've been out. I've been on the road, I've been distant. I'm just trying to get money.”
“6 BUSINE$$ DAYS” (feat. Projexx)
“This is just sexy music. It's about my lavish lifestyle. One time—true story—there was a girl that was with me overnight, and then she left in the morning. And then there was another girl that was literally on her way here when she left. And then another girl came at the same time and I put the other girl in the BQ [‘boys’ quarters’]. So the other girl was in the BQ, one was in my room, and both of them had no idea what was going on. So that was just three girls in a day, and it was just like, ‘What the fuck life am I living right now?’”
“LIKE ICE SPICE”
“This is not like anything I've ever created before. I told myself, I'm going to let the vibe lead, 100%. When I recorded the vibe, I was just mumbling words, and usually I try to make sense of everything—but I feel like sometimes you need to let the thing lead. So I told myself, ‘This vibe that I have here, I'm going to replace it with the exact words that sounds like it.’ The song is not even about Ice Spice or anything, it was just something rhymed. And I felt like Ice Spice has this way—when she came out, she used to always go down and shake her ass, and it was so lit.”
“NAIJA SHAWTY” (feat. Victony)
“I was in America for a month, and soon as I came back I had a night with one of my babes in Nigeria. It reminded me of what I had not experienced in a while. I’d been going all over the world, meeting people with different ways of thinking; different everything. And then you come back to people [who share] the same experiences and everything. I just felt more at home with her.”
“DOLLERZ” (feat. ODUMODUBLVCK)
“This is exactly what it sounds like—it’s just money and just bragging about getting dollars, buying designers. Just flexing, generally.”
“SHINE FOREVER”
“I think that's one of my favourites, ’cause it just feels like the way I'm bouncing and the things that I'm saying a lot of people don't know. There's a line on that song where I said, ‘If you really know this story, you go know I deserve.’ I feel like a lot of people just know me from when I blow up, in bling and stuff. So everything that I have, I feel like some people don't understand how much I deserve it. Emeka Must Shine is my 10th project. I've dropped a lot. I've been making music in school and hustling. I've been in the underground scene and everything. So this song was like my victory lap. It’s about being able to identify that not every time is your time, you feel me? People have their time. Just respect that and just keep working. I just focus on myself and shine forever.”
“BAD TILL ETERNITY” (feat. Zlatan)
“Given the death of MohBad [in September 2023] and everything that happened, it just felt like that song was talking about that. Zlatan says, ‘Dem no dey sell extra life for eBay.’ I say, ‘Big or broski, we dey here today.’ So it's just like a hustler’s anthem saying, ‘I'll be bad till eternity.’ There’s so many things that I've seen, so many struggles that I've witnessed—thank God that we are here now and we have money. It’s about enjoying and being grateful for what we have.”
“NO SLEEP $$$” (feat. Young Jonn)
“Earlier [in 2023] I was in a relationship, but I feel like the fact that I was working so hard and just in the studio all the time, affected the relationship. And even when we could have tried to fix it, I was like, ‘I'm working too much, I don't think I can accommodate something extra right now.’ It's like, right now, my goals are right in front of me and I need to achieve them, and I really do not want anything else to possibly stop me—no distractions. I don't want anything to distract me from this goal. For this album, I dabbled into so many different [sounds], so much that you're not expecting of me: an amapiano song, there’s a cultural song, there’s lovers rock/reggae—nobody’s heard me on those type of things.”
“BEZOS”
“The album is two things: It’s either I'm enjoying the life, or I'm trying to inspire people that the life you can get there. That's what ‘BEZOS’ is. Because every time I come out and I look at my life, I don't feel like I was meant to get to this point, get to this big and whatnot. I feel like everybody can aspire to be anything that you want, just work hard at it. And you can do it by being yourself—I'm living testament to that.”
“CINDERELLA GIRL (WHERE YOU DEY)” (feat. Ludacris)
“This is about a girl. We stopped talking for a while and it felt weird, ’cause we had a fight. It’s saying, ‘There's no other girl that I've met that does some things like she does.’ And I felt bad, but [she and I] started speaking after, so the song kind of helped.”
