by Blossom Maduafokwa
“I was just playing around on Logic and I got this bass sample that really spoke to me,” Gigi Atlantis says of her latest release "GTK in a calm tone that would remain for the rest of our conversation. “I just started singing along to it, and then suddenly I’d written something that I realized was in response to ‘body count.’”
A Lagos-born vocalist and songwriter, Gigi Atlantis has lived an expansive life between Lagos and London with brief stretches in Paris. Wherever life has taken her, music has been a recurring element trailing alongside her. “I grew up listening to all sorts of different things,” Gigi says. “As well as having musical theatre and classical music as a background, with my school music lessons.”
When I ask if music was always it for her, the answer is simple. While there were dreams of being a lawyer, stints of fashion designing, and years spent studying film and media at university, music, ultimately, was always the final answer.
Gigi began toying with production on Logic in her third year of university, creating music of her own, and sharing it with friends. Soon, she realized she never wanted to stop. Her voice found life in Nigeria's burgeoning Alte music scene with her debut single, "Tequila Crush", alongside Grammy-nominated producer GMK. “I don't think anything, in particular, pushed me to release the single,” Gigi reflects on the single. “We had just kind of done the record, so I decided it was time to share it. It was easier before to have something and decide to share as opposed to now, where you kind of need to have a rollout strategically planned. Then, I was just excited about it and wanted to share it with the world.”
The dream-like whispy tune was followed by the more freeform single, "2020", the buoyant Afrofusion tune “Wahala on the Rocks”, starring British-Nigerian talent, Fasina, and "Deathproof", the standard Alté number assisted by Alté ambassador and personal friend, Boj.
Across beats, both assertive and restrained, Gigi's calm alto lulls listeners, imparting a deep emotional pull throughout her singles. Her sound confluences diverse influences exposed to her during her childhood, from her music lessons spent singing along to Etta James and Amy Winehouse to her CD-era soundtracked by R&B and Hip Hop. “My mum refers to it as neo-soul,” says Gigi of her sound. Even with only a concentrated selection of songs, it’s indisputable that listening to Gigi feels akin to healing for her and her listeners. “I just like to make the music that I feel in the moment,” Gigi explains. “I can be influenced by where I am, what's around me, who's around me, or what feelings I have and what headspace I'm in. Sometimes I'll just go to my notes and start writing lyrics and everything will flow.”
Such multifaceted stylings within the context of Nigeria's heavily Afrobeats-centred music scene caused the artist's sound to get quickly branded as Alté, particularly due to her connections and collaborations with the genre's critical players. To the layered question of her place within the Alté scene, Gigi offers an equally layered answer. “I respect the new wave movement and if people consider me a part of it, then that's cool. Personally, I don't try to be in any specific category. My influences vary. But at the same time, I wouldn't step away from a category just because of the idea that it’s not letting me be an individual. Unless I was in a box and unable to do anything and unable to create things. But it's not a limiting thing.”
The Alté tag, however, became almost inescapable with the release of “body count,” a single off of Odunsi the Engine’s 2020 project EVERYTHING YOU HEARD IS TRUE. With its slick lyricism, bouncy production, and a lineup of leading women within the alternative scene, “body count” quickly became an Alté anthem, one where Gigi carried the hook with an assertive, spoken command.
“With body count, I thought the mass reception was cool. I thought the song had a lot of youthfulness and a lot of vitality and girl power, and I thought that was cool,” she says. “But when a lot of people thought of me, they thought of ‘body count,’ which was different from all the other stuff that I did. It felt a bit like it was going to confuse people about my sound.”
The discomfort of being misunderstood became difficult for Gigi to avoid, particularly as someone for whom music was deeply personal. This year, following a 3-year hiatus, Gigi has released a new single titled "GTK". The track is a reflective R&B fusion tune that’s blue and bluesy, sultry and introspective. Its tranquil beat is crafted by none other than Sholz, an expert selector at Native Soundsystem, while British-Nigerian MC Tau Benah assists Gigi as he glides on the production with ease. Gigi’s repeated refrain - “You’ve got to know yourself” - is a loving nudge to her fans to become better acquainted with their spirits, as well as a reflection of where her mind has been for the past few years. The track is full and soulful - one that holds in it all the tenderness that Gigi has for her craft.
“The message at the base of the song, the foundation, is to know yourself,” Gigi tells me. “The first verse is about reflection, about knowing your heart, and not feeling the need to deal with the public for your own self-opinion. It was about realizing that the public may perceive you in a certain way, but you know yourself, and that I could brush past the responses of people who would make assumptions after hearing ‘body count.’”
With her heart at ease, Gigi Atlantis now has the year in her hands, and she’s ready to mould it into any style she pleases. “I'm not trying to step back,” she says determinately. “Now that I'm back, I'm ready to do a lot. My energy is here, I'm up, I'm ready, and I'm feeling creative. I'll be singing live more too, I even did a private party the other day. My mom was like, yeah, you need to get some coaching so that you’re not so awkward on stage. [laughs]”
Her determination is both heartwarming and exciting, and it’s impossible not to feel thrilled at the notion that she might continue sharing with listeners the same calm that she has found along her musical journey. “I feel like I've been - we've all been - through a lot of stuff,” Gigi tells me thoughtfully. “And as the years go by, we all have a lot of stories to tell. So I'm ready to tell a story. I'm hoping that it will be this year. It should be, so we shall see. Fingers crossed.”
Her artistic identity is secure, her mind is set, and her heart, more than ever, is open. Gigi Atlantis is here, and if “GTK” is any sort of indicator, she’s here to stay.