When I speak to Victony, I notice he has an uncanny air of calm. His words are carefully considered and his voice has a lilt that evokes the whoosh of a gentle evening breeze. It’s around this time last year. The year is drawing to a close, which means his annual Bonfire Concert—which I would attend—is imminent. Mirroring his mellow aura, our conversation meanders, taking leisurely stops at an array of topics. His aunt, Linda Opara, who’s also on the call, even chimes in. She tells me he’s not always taciturn. Sometimes he is more boisterous. “With friends, there’s never a dull moment with him. He’s either cracking jokes or mimicking some funny personality.” I notice Victony’s icon on my laptop screen jerking around excitedly: he’s laughing.
We start talking about his debut album Stubborn, which many regard as the best Afrobeats album of 2024. He asks what I think. “When one listens through, they get the feeling that you’re excavating portions of your personal life, even though you don’t divulge too much detail,” I reply. When you listen to Stubborn, a 14-track compendium of sonically varied tracks bound together by the theme of defiance, you feel as if Victory is on the cusp of divulging intimate knowledge to you. You wait with bated breath, it’s on the tip of his tongue, you feel it. He dances around it, skirts it, teeters at the edge of absolute vulnerability. Surely this moment of revelation will arrive, you think. It never does.
Hearing my characterization, he tells me: “That’s as close as I could get to being vulnerable. Future releases will be more specific because, putting out the album, and the reception by my fans, everything has given me the confidence to put myself out on records a bit more.” Listening to the Very Stubborn, an 8-track EP which he recently released, will leave you feeling like, after years of observing him through the scrim of celebrity, you finally have Victony within close distance. The project is of course replete with bangers; we get all the good stuff we’ve come to expect from a Victony project.
Consider V.S. Freestyle, which, by way of its blasé songwriting structure and feel-good melodies, calls to mind Fireboy’s Peru. Here he sings about his busy itinerary—the result of chasing money—before segueing to lyrics in which he lusts over a brood of women. But lyrics are not the focus here, melodies are. His usual knack for poignant melodies is on display here. Sometimes, like on the hook, it feels like he’s floating ever so slightly above ground as his voice flutters; gravity is a suggestion for him. Tanko and Skido, which feature collaborations with Afrobeats greats Terry G and Olamide respectively, also benefit from a palpably joyful atmosphere. In another world, Tanko is the official AFCON theme song.
But the project is at its most successful when Victony slips into a diaristic register. As he excavates emotionally fraught experiences, through lyrics that pulse with disarming honesty, you feel as if you’ve finally arrived in his world. Way Home, featuring Shorae Moore, can feel intense. It’s as if his primary intention here is to disgorge years of pent-up emotions in the three minutes the song runs for. Trying to right his wrongs; wending through dark memories; doing damage to his lungs and kidneys: are among the topics he explores.
“I was seventeen with a dream now I'm feeling like a slave to the dream I've been chasing,” and “If I check my Twitter they compare me to Benson, compare me to Rema, compare to Omah Lay gan/ But they don't know where I come from,” are just two instantiations of the trove of poignant lines that speckle the song. In some sense, Way Home feels like the more lucid companion to Street Affair, from his Stubborn album. He’s still a young man navigating the vagaries of adulthood and trying to find his way back home—home, here, being something close to childish innocence.
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