Lojay Ready for the World

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From the streets of Lagos Nigeria to The O2 Arena London, Lekan Osifeso Jnr, also popularly known as Lojay has become an artist we’ve all grown to love both in the local and international space.

Before his hit with Sarz, “Monalisa,” Lojay had already made a few heads turn in the Afrobeats scene with songs like Whine and Bubble, Over the Bar, and Alomo. It’s no surprise the fast-rising star got to grace the O2 Arena with sounds from his EP titled “ LV N ATTN '' released on the 4th of June 2021. At the Wizkid in O2 Concert, the artist got to perform a number of his singles, including his hit song with Wizkid titled after the EP LV N ATTN. Since his performance, Loja Has been booked and busy, from performing at the recent FENTY Africa launch to giving the world a surprise remix to Monalisa featuring Grammy award-winning R&B artist Chris Brown.

In an interview with MTV in 2021, Lojay gave a little insight on the journey to creating his joint EP with Sarz, “If there’s one song that brings feels to me it’s LV N ATTN with Wizkid” the artist expressed to MTV Interviewers. After what appears to be a whirlwind of shows, coupled with his rise to fame, we had a chat with the artist to unravel what a day in the life and mind of LOJAY is like from the music, and personal style, and everything in between.

Photographed by Roderick Ejuetami

We dug deeper into the what is a day in the Life of Lekan, oh we mean Lojay is Like, and it was much simpler than we would’ve imagined, he said; "A typical day in the life of Lojay is to wake up and make music unless I have press rounds or I’m taking a personal day but the usual is to wake up and go into the studio, that’s where I spend most of my time".

From the simple life to talks about fame, it was time to speak with the rising star on how he has grown a huge fan base both nationally and internationally over a short period, and how that made us curious about what it has been for him, “I’m extremely grateful for all the love and support, words can’t even describe the level of gratitude I feel towards everyone supporting me and making my dreams come true. Keep pushing the music, keep showing love, I genuinely love every single one “It just gives me the drive to keep going!”.

Photographed by Roderick Ejuetami

A couple of people who seem to have caught the Lojay wave, describe the artist’s sound as unique but also fitting in the Afrobeat scene. We wondered if he considered having what we are now calling the Lojaysound. He went ahead to describe his sound style of music as “constantly evolving” “From the music I dropped before the EP to the things I’ve been working on recently, down to my vocal texture. I don’t think I’ll ever be comfortable at any point for too long because I feel the need to evolve the sound and take it to a different place. Iwrite better, flow better and sing better.”

It was only fair we did a bit of snooping for the fans to figure out what the artist’s plan for the future was following the success of LV N ATTN, and he didn’t disappoint. We got to learn that he is currently working on a body of work, anEP that is scheduled to drop this year. “After a couple of songs definitely -the people want new music! - It's more music, more visuals and I’m booked all summer so I can’t wait to see everyone vibe to my songs - it’s really about to be a long year!”

Photographed by Roderick Ejuetami

Describing his music as very intentional, very edgy and heavy with melodies, we couldn’t agree more with the artist on how the tone of his voice makes his style of Afrobeat a lot sweeter to listen to. Of course, to conclude the interview, we had to touch on the 4 Hip TV Awards nominations, especially the NextRated Song of the Year. The 2022 Headies would be Lojay’s first year at the award ceremony, and in his words; he never imagined he’d be one of the nominees not to talk of being nominated in four different categories, he also mentioned that while he was working on the EP he never thought as far as the award show.

Photographed by Roderick Ejuetami