Author: Blossom Maduafokwa

From her artist debut as a bespectacled teenager at the age of 17, Lady Donli has always felt somewhat larger than life. Whether she is birthing creative worlds alongside her fellow Abuja stars, like 2014’s “Mr. Creeper” assisted by both Tay and Sute Iwar, or electrifying listeners with 2021’s thunderous production “Thunderstorm in Surulere,” the Afro-Alternative star has consistently meshed a myriad of sounds informed by her global backgrounds in Abuja, Lagos, Toronto, Kaduna, and more.

Employing everything from jazz to Afrobeats, Donli’s career has seen her journey through multiple eras with distinct overarching themes, all tied together by expert genre-fluidity and a particular smoothness that has come to define her sound. In Enjoy Your Life, Donli was a self-proclaimed “Cash Mummy” committed to jaiye, rolling out languorous highlife-laced tunes that pushed a generation to embrace all the leisure that money, love, and life had to offer. In her EP  W I L D, Donli was just that, oscillating between the coy sexuality of “Dragon Fruit Freestyle” and the emotional yearning of “Searching.” While she has used the moniker throughout the years, Lady Donli has now formally slid into the era of the “Pan-African rockstar.” She is giving impostor syndrome the finger, wielding continental sonics to show the world her unending capabilities, and requesting affirmation from no one but herself.

She kicked off 2023 with the release of her correspondingly titled project Pan-African Rockstar, which featured Donli’s unfiltered expression and offerings from African stars Obongjayar, Kah-lo, and Congolese vocalist Pierre Kwenders. With its collection of empowering anthems, the project enthralled listeners worldwide, and now Donli is committed to giving back to her global audience with an international tour. Off the back of her thrilling Lagos dates at intimate music venues, and her most recent Accra concert only weeks ago, Donli has kicked off April with a North American tour. In anticipation of her introductory New York date at Baby’s All Right, a famed venue known for hosting global talents, we sat down with Lady Donli to talk about all things touring, creative evolution, and Pan-African Rockstar.

Let’s talk about Donli and transformation. I feel like this international tour is the next step in fully embracing the radical self-confidence of the Pan-African Rockstar era. What made you decide it was time to step into this particular role after you’ve already had so many influential eras throughout your career?

As a young woman transitioning from being a teenager into a young adult, to entering my late 20s, so many things have changed in terms of how I perceive myself. This current era of my life is really just about me gaining a lot of self-confidence because in those other eras, I hadn’t really been as confident as I ought to have been. I was changing and I was still trying to understand who I was. I've always had to kind of understand myself in this space where there were so many eyes on me, because I've been putting out music for so long. A lot of what I perceived to be me was also other people's projections of what I should be.

Over the past two years I’ve spent a lot of time just reconnecting with myself and reconnecting with the energy that I wanted to be able to give and who I wanted to be. I've always been super interested in my identity as a Black woman [and] as an African woman. So, I just started tapping more into that identity of my love of Pan-Africanism and my love for all the different identities that have made me this person that I am. For me, Pan-African Rockstar was really just about talking my shit and not being scared of the repercussions. Just being like, you know what, Fuck everybody, respectfully. I'm just gonna go for it regardless of whether I'm accepted in the industry or not.

How are you able to evolve so seamlessly while preserving the essence of Donli?

I think as I grow, evolution is just something that happens organically. What I was interested in singing about when I was 16, is not what I was interested in singing about at 21, and so on and so forth. I've watched some of my favorite artists in the world give us eras constantly, and it excited me. I've watched Beyonce in this Renaissance period, and I remember buying her first album and also experiencing the same thing with Rihanna. It's always interesting seeing pop stars evolve so seamlessly. I always felt that was part of the experience of music-making because it allows you to express yourself in so many different ways.

In terms of the cohesion, especially now that I have a much better understanding of myself, the music will always be me fundamentally. For me, cohesion is super important because it's just a key part of storytelling, so my listeners can go on this journey with me.

What’s the key difference between the creative processes for this project and last one?

When I dropped Enjoy Your Life, I had a system and a team in place, so it was easier to navigate around certain connections so that the album would be received better. With Pan-African Rockstar, I really did everything by myself. When I dropped it, I didn't have a manager, I didn't have a team, I was just navigating every single aspect of it by myself. Like submitting it, creative direction, all of that. So by the time it came out, I was just so burnt out that I couldn’t do as much as I would have liked.

One thing I'm trying to gift to myself now is the knowledge that an album doesn't need to die because it's been out for a couple of months. There's still so much that can be done with the album.

I was happy with it because people liked it. I knew that I had created a cohesive body of work and that it was being perceived as a cohesive body of work. So whether or not it's been listened to far and wide, I know that every day I have an opportunity to do something that opens it up to a new audience. That's sort of my goal with this tour; I want the album to live for another year. So I'm not in a hurry to drop another album.

How did you navigate not having a team and working independently on the project?

In terms of production, I've always mostly been head on when it comes to that because I'm very much a melody writer. Jms is the person who I worked on the production with; we've been friends spanning maybe eight years now. Sometimes I would start something then send it to him because he's good at drums or he had something that he would send to me - that’s kind of how it worked on the project. I knew what I wanted to make; it’s an album I worked on for almost four years.

[Working alone] was still difficult in some segments. For instance, trying to clear records. I have featured artists like Obongjayar and Kah-lo, so having to navigate clearing those records was really an exhausting process for me. Obviously I have a lawyer, but I always had to be at the forefront of different conversations, having to reply to all the emails to the artist teams, make the spreadsheets, plan my release parties. Whereas if I had a team or I had a manager, they would take care of that.

What’s behind you being the one doing so much of the work?

To be honest? I haven't found the right people.

I get that. And I hope you do. Regardless, the project was executed in such a way that it’s surprising to hear that it was a one-woman thing.

Thank you.

Even while working alone, you were able to make a project that was really sonically compelling. We're all used to you incorporating indigenous Nigerian sounds in your music. You’ve drawn from highlife, Hausa music, and in this project I hear a lot of Fela in terms of delivery. What primary influences were you trying to channel in this body of work?

There are specific albums that influenced me with this one - one of them was Tasty by Kelis. I know it's not necessarily African but one of the things I love about Kelis is her diversity as an artist. If you listen to that album, it's just so free-flowing and so beautiful. Another person is Santigold. I was just listening to a lot of these women and I was just like, Wow, the range is incredible.

I'm Nigerian and I'm African so I already have this background of listening to Afrobeat, Funk, and Highlife - all the music that has already influenced me in Enjoy Your Life. The question is, how do you include this many different genres of music but make them also sound like a cohesive body of work? And that's just by making sure that some of the elements are similar throughout - be it like the guitar, which is very prevalent in the entire project, or the drum patterns, or the way I level vocals.

Intentionality is part of what made your project such a breath of fresh air in Nigeria’s scene last year, especially as we watched the mainstream music scene homogenize and become quite saturated. How are you preserving your authenticity in the midst of all this, especially since validation isn’t necessarily guaranteed when making good music anymore?

I've just detached. I practice detachment in terms of like I don't belong anywhere, I'm not in any scene - I’m just making music. I'm going back to my roots, which is that I love making music and I'm going to keep on making music. Luckily for me, I'm fortunate enough to be able to tour and to be able to really look at my community and feel assured that I can have all these people come and know the records word for word - that's real life and that's impact.

I always say that in Nigeria we have a really bad approach to music and community. It's like if it's not 10,000 people or 5,000 people, it's not real. But this December, I had over 1,000 people come for my shows in Lagos over four weeks. I'm going to go to all my shows across North America and that's real for me. I don't really focus on the industry anymore. I focus on my community because that is a legacy. Even if it's 20 people, 50 people, 100 people. Whatever it is, that's real life.

Luckily, this year is a new year. There are a lot of newcomers on the scene, so it feels like things seem a bit more promising. What are you looking forward to in 2024?

I’m really just looking forward to collaborating more with producers and artists. I’m looking forward to doing what I can, you know, not what I think I should be doing. I'm not going to drop singles because everyone is dropping singles. If it feels like the right time and I have the right way to support a song, then yeah. If not, I'm still actively promoting Pan-African Rockstar.

Your career has spanned eras in Nigerian alternative music and Nigerian music at large. You have two projects under your belt, and you’ve worked with different artists across the scene, from Alte mainstays to the likes of Mr. Eazi and Davido. What’s next for Donli?

I would love to do more executive production and creative direction; that's where I want to end up. I want to work on albums for some of the biggest artists in the country. I think that a lot of our albums in Nigeria lack cohesion and that we don't really roll out our music - it's not fun anymore. As a fan of music, one of the things I love to see is when artists I like are entering new eras, and you can see that through the visuals and the marketing. I would really love to do executive production and just create real eras with people.

Once your tour begins, what’s one main thing you want to get across to your international audiences about Donli, the Pan-African Rockstar?

I just want people to really feel like I am giving it my all. I think it's important for them to see that what I am doing, I enjoy. Because for me, when I'm on stage, it feels like that is what I was ordained to do. I want people to be able to see that as well. I want them to feel like they're watching something that was designed for that space and for that time.

So that's really what I want this era to portray to people. I want them to see me or watch a show and say, Wow, this is the Pan-African Rockstar. I want them to go away without necessarily needing to define what a Pan-African Rockstar is, because they've already seen it and felt it.

Lady Donli is performing at New York’s Baby’s All Right on April 24th.

Check out our Exclusive HERE for your chance to win tickets to the show!