10 Things We Love About: Lady Donli

Lady Donli’s rockstar edge is personified in almost every aspect of her being, from her deeply spiritual soundscapes to her flamboyant fashion style and her subversion of societal and cultural norms. It’s where the term ‘alté’ stems from as it stretches beyond the idea of solely making experimental Nigerian music and sets the notion of embracing an alternative lifestyle. Donli is part of an expanding pool of artists who are driving Nigeria’s alté scene into newer spaces; her addictive fusion of alt-jazz, highlife, neo-soul and psychedelic funk is one of the reasons why her music is well-received in large pockets across the globe.

In 2019, having released her flavoursome album Enjoy Your Life, a declarative title that wills listeners to do exactly as it says, the world was introduced to the multi-layered and poetic universe of Lady Donli’s Cash Mommy persona. An entity that channeled the spirit of old Nollywood movies, Cash Mommy quickly grew to be the people’s obsession. The money-making anthem ‘Cash’ was the first teaser to be released from the album and is fueled by the hustle and bustle life. Over a backdrop of funky highlife, ‘Cash’ set the tone for what to expect across the album - music that tunes you to the frequency of enjoying and appreciating the sweetness of life.

Despite the grim realities of the pandemic, for most artists, it was a season where they were still able to tap into their creative flow but Lady Donli simply needed a break. Soon, the weeks stretched into months as fans were left contemplating her whereabouts but Donli was experiencing a whirlwind of emotions and transformation away from the eyes of the public. Breaking out of her hiatus, she was then brimming with new ideas and perceptions that she packed into a 6-track EP titled Wild.

In this ‘10 Things We Love’ feature, Lady Donli speaks about abandoning old ideas of self and making new spaces for her evolution, the conception of her EP Wild and the teenage angst that fuels her songwriting.

We love the title of you EP Wild... The title of your previous project has a very direct message which is to enjoy 'Enjoy Your Life'. What’s the message behind Wild?

Lady Donli: Wild actually means ‘Where Is Lady Donli’. Before I dropped the project I was off socials for a year and anytime I would come on to see what was happening, people in my mentions would be like ‘where’s Lady Donli?’. that’s kind of what got the EP going - that energy. I didn’t have a name for it at some point so I was just like ‘I’m going to name it Where Is Lady Donli’ and one of my friends was like ‘Wild’.

We love the blend of sounds across the EP… During the creative process, what kind of things did you experiment with that perhaps you hadn’t done before?

LD: Okay so when I make albums, EPs or projects, I usually start with a name or a soundscape that I’m going for but with Wild it was different because I wasn’t intending on dropping an EP as I was working on my second album but I wasn’t ready to release it yet. So I said ‘you know what, I’ve been away for a while and I haven’t really dropped music’ and I have different folders of music, like albums and stuff that aren’t ready and stuff that I want to give other people, so I thought ‘let me make a little compilation of all these different songs that I’ve made throughout the course of the year and try to create a sort of synergy where it doesn’t sound like I’ve just dumped music but there’s a connection between it. I think with this project I tried to find the balance between music that I made in solitude to music that I made to just have fun. It kind of captures the essence of lockdown where it goes from really quiet times to really wanting to get out to that euphoria you get when you’re finally outside.

We love the themes across the EP but one of the more prominent themes is desire… What does that mean or look like to you?

LD: When I think about desire I think of a colour actually, I think about red because I also associate it with danger because a lot of times the things that you desire can be dangerous to you. There’s some sort of energy you get by looking at things or going after things that you clearly shouldn’t go after. I think it’s also youthful angst, when you’re young you’re trying to get everything. So for me, desire is a red flag that isn’t quite red.

We love “Put It On” featuring Shae Universe… How did you guys connect for this track?

LD: I’ve been following Shae for a while and we talk every couple of months. I had made ‘Put It On’ and I had a blank verse on that song for a while and one day I was at the beach - I had slept over at the beach and I was listening to all my music and I just thought about Shae. It was super random and it was 5am in the morning and I was in Canada, she’s in London so she’s awake and I was like ‘wow I think she would sound so good on this record’. I hit her up and I’m like ‘Shae, what’s up I have a song I want you on’ she’s like ‘yeah I’m down’ and I send it to her and she sends it back to me super quickly and she’s just awesome, I have so much love and respect for her so it was a link up that needed to happy. I’m super happy that we could make it happen.

We are obsessed with the visuals for 'Searching'... it’s such a delicate song but the visuals are a little bit uncanny, what’s the narrative behind it?

LD: Honestly for me the video is about transformation and rebirth, throughout lockdown I was swimming in those themes where I felt myself changing a lot- I felt like in one year I had grown three years older or a bit more mature and I feel like with this project and with my next stuff I just want people to understand that one era is over and that’s the Enjoy Your Life era and it’s not completely dead and gone but it’s giving room to another era and it’s still the same theme of ‘Searching’ where it’s like I’m searching for myself and I’m trying to understand who I am so I think the video is letting go of the past and letting go of angst and anything I want to let go of and just move forward. I’m ready for what the future has to offer and I’m ready for what the next era has to offer. I'm telling my fans that they should come with me on this new journey. A lot of times your fans are always like ‘oh I miss Lady Donli of 2019’ but for me it’s like this is a new era and I’m inviting you on this journey, let go of this with me and let’s get on to this new energy.

We adore your sultry songwriting style... What kind of stories are you trying to tell through your music?

LD:The misconception about me that I’ve always encountered is people always thought that I was older than I was. I Remember when I turned twenty and people were like ‘oh you’re at least in your mid twenties’, every single year I would turn a year older everyone would be in disbelief. I felt like there was some sort of disconnect between me and people that were my age so when I was creating Wild I just wanted to make a fun project that felt like summer and felt very youthful. A lot of things I’m saying can be pretty seductive in certain areas, it can be fun and deep and it’s just what I felt as a young adult going through the different emotions from extreme sadness to extreme joy to just wanting to be out with my guys to sexual encounters. All that energy that you get from those experiences and that’s sort of how it came to be. I just wanted to have fun, even in ‘Put It On’ when I’m singing my verse down to ‘MKK’ the word flow is just fun. I feel like you can tell I’m having fun because I am and I’m not taking it too seriously.

We love that you are a constant collaborator with Ragz Originale… How did this creative relationship begin? What do you think it says about the relationship between Nigerian music and the UK?

LD: I actually started working with Ragz because of Benjo Flow, I have a working relationship with Benji Flow and they’re in a collective Mini Kingz. So I started listening to Ragz’s music as well and I was like Ragz is pretty hard and he’s a producer as well, this guy is super cool. When I made “Set Tha Fire” I had recorded two different verses for the second verse and I just wasn’t feeling any of them as much as I should have, so I hit up my manager as he’s friends with all of them as well- I hit him up and I was like ‘yo, do you think Ragz would be down to do a record, I listen to his music and I feel like he’ll be a great fit for this song’. I send it to Ragz and he sends it back within a week; we’re not following each other at this point, so he follows me on instagram and I follow him back and then he say’s he has a song for me, ‘am I down?’ and I’m like ‘yeah sure’. He sends me the track 'No Doubt' with Knucks and I’m like yeah I love this song, production is hard. Ragz is actually one of my favourite producers and songwriters, he’s incredible. So I hop on 'No Doubt' and go over to London and we shoot the video and I hop in the studio with him to make some other record as well.

I think there’s a great synergy between Nigeria and the UK, one because it’s pretty straightforward to get to London for most Nigerians but also there’s just that prevalent Nigerian culture in London already, there’s so many Nigerians, especially in South London. So I think we just have that synergy and we already have so many British Nigerians at the forefront of popular culture so it will keep evolving from that. I feel like Nigeria and England have an unspoken marriage between those two places; when Nigerian artists are looking for inspiration they go to London, when London people want to have fun they come to Lagos in December. Our worlds just keep colliding.

We love the Alté community… As people are beginning to pay more and more attention to these artists, what do you think the future of Alté music will look like?

LD: I think it’s a global future just because a lot of the Alté artists are just very universally accepted in the sense that their music crosses all these places, it doesn’t get stuck in one border. You can meet someone that has popular music in Brazil or Spain and it just keeps on going. So I’m excited for what the future has to offer us, especially with new apps like TikTok and how new applications are merging and I know that there’s a lot of creativity in the Alté scene.

We love your Cash Mommy persona… Where did this stem from and what does she mean to you?

LD: I killed Cash Mommy, I mean she’s ever present but that was another thing I was trying to do in the video for 'Searching' - I was killing Cash Mommy. She stemmed from the energy of old Nollywood because when I was growing up I used to listen to an album by this artist and legendary actress called Patience Ozokwor also known as Mama G. When I was growing up she had this visual album that influenced me so much subconsciously and when I created Cash Mommy, it stemmed from my single 'Cash' and I was just like ‘what am I going to do with this new energy that I’ve gotten from the song?’. One day I decided to make a skit for my song “Suffer” and I just decided I’m going to call myself Cash Mommy in this skit and it just stuck and there was the energy that I went with as well with Enjoy Your Life because it’s really colour and and ode to old Nigerian music and an ode to the scene in general. I think another reason I stopped was because of the aesthetic generally linked to Nollywood because I have a have a lot of love for old Nolly movies and even old Nolly actresses that branched out into music, a lot of their stuff was underappreciated at the time but I go back and listen to it - those are classic songs. That energy really inspired Cash Mommy to come to life but I’ve semi-buried her.

We love your free spirit and the way it translates into your music… Were you always this way or was there a specific moment of revelation?

LD: I think this has always been me honestly. I’m super chill and super open and it just reflects in what I do. I’m always willing to try new things and I’m an outdoor person, I’m the person that goes out and wants to climb the tree or just wants to play around. That’s always been my energy.

We love your rockstar edge from the music to your fashion… What sorts of things inspire this side of you?

LD: It’s seeing the artists that I love the most and their energy. I love being on stage and I feel like it’s important for me to draw a difference between myself on stage and myself in reality so when I’m on stage the energy that I get is sent from my ancestors I can’t even explain it. I think it’s something that comes with the passion that I have for being a music maker but firstly it’s all the OG’s that I respected growing up; Belinda Fassie from South Africa was one of my biggest inspirations growing up, I just loved her energy, Erykah Badu and even down to people like Dennis Rodman and Fela Kuti, he’s an African rockstar. When you’re a musician it goes beyond your music, your showmanship is also important and when I’m on stage, I feel like I channel a new energy that even I can’t really explain because one, obviously I want to entertain people but two, I really love what I’m doing and I’m big on visuals. I feel like hearing and seeing are very much interconnected so when I’m on stage I want to look good so that it inspires you to watch me even before you listen. When I go to a new space and I get on stage, even though you don’t know me and even before you hear my voice something has attracted you to whatever it is that’s going on here. I feel like the energy just comes from within so it’s natural, I’ve never forced anything and whatever I do is already in me.