Issue 47 | December 2018
MOELOGO In-between and beyond by Oris Aigbokhaevbolo
Two
of the best albums from Nigerian artists this year—MI Abaga’s Rendezvous and Show Dem Camp’s Palmwine Music II—feature one man. He was born Mohammed Animashaun in Lagos. But these days you would find the man now known as Moelogo in the UK, where he relocated to 2001. By the time his breakout track Pangolo was released a dozen years later, he had worked with the well-known British acts Kano and Chipmunk. He had also performed in the Gambia with Jamaican act Busy Signal. He is the first UK Afropop act to get signed to Island Recorrds. His first EP, Moe is My Name, Music is My Logo, dropped in 2013 and then he got a Giggs feature in 2014. These moves by a relatively young artist were noticed by the MOBO Awards in both 2015 and 2016. The latter year also saw the release of his second EP, Ireti. By then his music had mellowed from the club-pop of ‘Pangolo’ to a decidedly cooler sound. The notion he seemed to be showcasing is not just uniqueness—he has said a reason he makes music is “One of the main reasons I make music is to let my pain out and be true to myself rather than trying to fit into what everyone else is doing” but also his versatility. “I can call Bayo today or tomorrow and be like ‘yo! let’s do a rock song’, and it could be a rock song but it could still have that element of Afrobeats in it because I’m an African person so I’ll always portray that in my music,” he told Purple Rust in 2015, before adding, “I feel like my music is for everyone. I’m tryna make music that everyone can relate to – that Indians, Chinese people can listen to even though they don’t understand what it is…” Perhaps the true breath of his eclecticism is most evident in the array of artists he has worked with since ‘Pangolo’. Giggs, Kano and Chipmunk might represent the UK set. But Ghana’s Sarkodie put a call through to the man through the UK act DJ Abrantee. A producer they had in common was the link to get to Davido. Both featured on the remix of 2016’s ‘Penkele’. As a measure of his awareness of African, the song takes its title and some cues from an older track by juju master King Sunny Ade. “I'm not really picky but I need the person to be musical and spiritual,” he said about working with producers in Nigeria and the UK. “Energy is very important. Once the energy is right, anything can happen. Music will flow. You start thinking of things you were not thinking of before and you start bouncing off each other’s energy and ideas.”
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