Before Banggz became Banggz,the emerging  rapper/producer extraordinaire based in Canada’s capital city, Ottawa, he was Damilola Isa Salaudeen, a young boy raised in Lagos, Nigeria, with a persistent love of beats and bars. Through life’s challenges including immigration struggles and grief, his love of storytelling remained a constant way for him to get out of his head and uplift his community by telling their stories and speaking life into them. These sentiments inspired Banggz’s debut album, 4 THE BANGGERZ (2024), a project which proved his ability to craft infectious party starters including “OUTSIDE” and “WAKE UP”. “The whole idea [of 4 THE BANGGERZ] was escapism…making sure everyone was good, but I realized that I can't really do that if I don't help myself first,” he said. Followinghis debut came a few years of deep reflection amidst inner and outer turmoil, prompting him to write his new album, Love, Banggz, a coming-of-age story that plots a path between the formative stages of his life through love, loss and grief. “I wrote a love letter to my childhood self, he explained.” 

One of the main tenets of Love, Banggz is the inherent nostalgia that comes with the retelling of a life story. Many of the songs speak candidly about love, a theme which Banggz says is central to his identity, particularly on “Pretty & Gorgeous”, “Love Letters” and “Blackberry Luv”. On the album, he embraces everything that comes with it, including heartbreak, while acknowledging his own flaws. “It's really important for me to tell my younger self that I love him, and it's really important for me to give myself another chance at love romantically, friendship-wise, [and with my] faith.” To capture finding love in the early digital age, Banggz wrote “Blackberry Luv” with the help of past Ottawa resident and rising afro soul/jazz singer Anaïs Cardot. 

In this quest for love, Banggz is entirely inspired by his faith in Allah. After escaping insurgent violence in Jos, Nigeria, at the tender age of 3, he was changed forever, but it wasn’t until his faith was rekindled at the age of 25 that he fully surrendered to divine will. Since diving deeper into the Islamic faith he was born into, he’s found inner peace and defined his values, which he calls “unshakable”. Banggz has also been able to navigate loss and grief through his faith, especially through the loss of his grandmother 4 years ago, another prominent theme on the record, especially on the introspective first track, “Don’t Leave Me, Please”. As he makes peace with life’s curveballs, Banggz is no stranger to feelings of regret or failure, but he remains grateful for it all. “When you say failure, I immediately think gratitude…I feel blessed to have become the person that I am today.” 

To create his most authentic music yet, Banggz leaned on live instrumentation to capture the jazzy, R&B inflected hip-hop soundscape that most of the album lives in. As executive producer, he made sure the production reflected the realities of the songs, most of which were initially written as journal entries and poems. “If you write an album called Love, Banggz, you know, you better make sure that you know it's really 100% honest, and the best way for me to do that was to just make it myself.” A star instrument that he made sure to include was the talking drum, which is prominent in the Yoruba storytelling tradition. “I needed [the talking drums] to move around the album a bit, because I'm talking about my life story. I wanted the instrumental to talk in that sense too.” For features, he picked people who inspired him, including his good friends jev. and Anaïs Cardot, two Ottawa acts whose talents have gone global. To Banggz, jev. is the kind of rapper and friend who motivates him to see his own worth. “[jev.] trusts his taste so much, watching him really helped me, and listening to him helped me trust my own taste too.” On the previously released “JAM ME!,” jev. and Banggz combined forces to create a highly captivating track, perfect for the dance floor. Banggz’s best friend Anaïs Cardot also has a similar commitment to her own taste. “You’re almost scared when working in the studio [with her], and it's because her ear does not lie. If one note is off, she knows.” Both remain personal and professional sources of motivation for Banggz; their recent successes do not intimidate him. “I don't really see it as [an] ‘I wish it was me’ type of thing, because for me, it's even great. If I didn't have somebody to look to who's my peer, I think I'll be in a worse situation.” 

Speaking of Ottawa, Love, Banggz is also a love letter to Canada’s capital. Though Ottawa is often derided as a boring city with no entertainment offerings, artists like Banggz have bucked against those expectations. “Shout out to Ottawa, very underrated city… I love this place, man. The support is wild.” Though his sophomore project is less community-centric than his last, it still pays homage to his community, which has supported him unconditionally even when he finds it hard to ask for help. Part of Banggz’s offering to his community on this project is the phrase: “It’s your duty to learn how to enjoy yourself”, which is repeated on the second track, “Worldwide Banggerz!”. He believes that enjoyment is not just something you receive; it’s something you have to learn how to bring from within to those around you. To sum up his convictions, he says, “At the end of the day, the reason why I'm doing the things that I do, it's all gonna boil down to God, my guys, and love.” 

Banggz hopes that this new record causes listeners to feel and listen more to those around them. He recommends listening to it in totality, in order to grasp its full message. “This project is one of those ones that years from now people will look back, and then they keep hearing new things as you grow because I grew to make this album.” As he prepares for the release of the project and a potential tour, he is fully focused and excited for what’s to come.