Godwin… From Kaduna To Nirvana

NIRVANA, the haven of perfect peace, is not really a place that exists, except, well, in the consciousness of life’s romanticists like Godwin Josiah Gaza. The Kaduna- bred musician, professionally known as Godwin, aptly captures the feeling of such rare serenity in his just- released EP dubbed, Road To Nirvana.

Godwin, who’salsoanacclaimedfilmmaker, with nearly a decade’s experience, presents a snapshot of grief in Road To Nirvana. The EP was first released in 2022, five years after his mother’s demise, and it was temporarily taken down last year from streaming services, following a record deal with the Sony Music’s Columbia Records. “We needed to repackage the project to reach more people,” he said.

Among the euphony of Soul/ RNB music in the Nigerian music scene, Godwin thrives as a unicorn in plain sight. His fluid and lithe vocals, buttered with poetry and drowning piano chords have spotlighted him as a Soul/ RNB maestro par excellence. The multifaceted creative weaves a voice that packs just enough melancholia and harmony to soar with ease. His music, as soothing as it is introspective, has peaked in demand among Afrobeats lovers, many of whom are now drawn to therapeutic African pop.

Before music, Godwin equally thrived as a film director, creating unbelievably good scientific fiction ( sci- fi) films with his brothers, under a collective called The Critics Company.

Together, they went on to co- create evergreen projects with global names such as Morgan Freeman, Kemi Adetiba, Lori Mccreary, among others. And it was also during an exhibition of Ogun Ola — a short film created by them and produced by Morgan Freeman’s Revelation Entertainment — in Frankfurt, that the stars aligned for Godwin. However, making music has always been his childhood dream and a personal therapy for the past few years.

With a community of listeners swelling across Nigeria and Europe, Godwin is among Afrobeats’ noblest recent entrants. He catches up with Guardian Music, opening the curtains into ‘ Nirvana’, while sharing his experiences with making music as a coping mechanism; his exciting new record deal with Columbia Records; living in Europe; and why he would never stop making music for catharsis.

You have been in Europe for a while now. What’s going on there?

I

HAVE actually recorded my album. And that happened here late last year. So, since then, I have constantly been working here. A label that I’ve signed with, Columbia Records is also in Europe. So, I think I’ve spent most of the last year being in Europe.

How has the experience been making your music outside Nigeria where you grew up?

Um, I’d say the approach is really different. The approach has been significantly different, becauseworkingwithgermans, it’s, youknow, you have to be early. But good music is good music. Just little things that they put in place, but in terms of the art, once the art is good, that is really all it takes to create really beautiful work. So, yeah, in terms of work, it feels like how it always does when I create; it’s just such a beautiful feeling. But of course, e, it’s a very different environment, if you put t the physical qualities in comparison, like it’s very cold here mostof thetime. So, Ihavetofindawaytoadapt away toadapt to work in those conditions to be honest. Like I said, good music is good music. usic. It really doesn’t matter where you are, you ou can actually sort of create it.

Take us back to how you started your creative life?

It started with my exploration with my brothers, the filmmaking collective. And the thing is, while we were actively making ng these films we made and we still make, it really lly never really occurred to us that we were creating ting art; so we didn’t put it in the sense of a mission. It has mostly just been that we were having aving fun and it was really nice to, you know, make ake all of these things. So, for the most part, it kind nd of integrated into us being artists, then we were filmmakers and it was just really fun to create eate throughout our young starting age. And d then Kaduna is my home. It’s where I was born n and raised. I think what Kaduna did for me was give us the platform to create freely, not necessarily cessarily physical support, but, you know, the e hostility you get when you film something in Lagos, you would not get that hostility in Kaduna. aduna. I would really say people are more open- en- minded to supporting you. They just need to o really understand what you’re doing. And they’re hey’re willing to offer support in any way that t they can. So, that is, that’s what makes Kaduna na very differentfrom, youknow, theotherpartsof rtsof thecountry. That was where it started; really, ally, I think my first introduction to actively creating ating art started from there. But prior to that, t, I was always writing music because I’ve always ays been a big fan of music. My dad used to be a very huge collector of music. Every single genre enre you can think of music wise he used to have a cassette or CD for: rock, music, soul, r& b, everything. So most times, there’s just always music. usic. So I think as a child just listening to Aretha a Franklin, listening to all of these people, I didn’t dn’t know who they were but just singing along g to the music , I feel like that did something to my voice then. Now, I’m actively pursuing it as a career.

When did you start recording music?

I think in 2019, that was the period eriod where I actively decided to pursue music. usic. I realized howmuchicouldnotkeeprunningawayfrom ing away from this burning passion that I’ve always lways had for music. So, with my little knowledge dge that I had with film, I already really knew how to work around audio; because the thing about editing audio for film and music is that it’s t’s very similar. The tools are so similar. And when enidecidedto I decided to venture into music, I knew for a fact that doing covers were the best way to start; because apart from the problem that I really did not know how to go about the singing thing. ng. I also had a confidence thing that I really needed eeded to work on. What I started doing was I just t actively started making covers of music that I really loved. And this meant recreating the covers in my own version, but one thing I decided ided to do was stick to the words of these covers sbecause because Ifelt I felt like it would be kind of intrusive ive to change what the lyrics of whoever actively vely wrote the song made it to feel like. I made de a decision towards only changing how it sounded sonically with the instrumentals. And nd while that was happening, it was certain that hat I was supposed to work on an original project. oject. That was something I always had in mind, because when my mom passed away, in 2017, that was something that also kind of pushed shed me back into music. But not actively, because ause I was not consistent.

But music became therapy for me. We used to have this older generation of musicians where I used to live in; so we had access to a studio. So, I was actively just listening and watching people create music that was really instrumental to helping me get out of those depressing moments. So, in 2019, I lost a friend from school. And it’s interesting because this guy used to live in the same town with my family. And we went to school together. So, getting the message that he was dead was kind of moving because he’s someone that will always say, “Maybe one of these days I’ll finally come see you.” But that never happened. He passed away. I remember I was going to the shower to take my bath and I started singing what turned out to be the chorus of a song called ‘ Now’ in the EP, and, to be honest, that was the beginning point of actually actively working on the project. That was the first idea of what the Epwould EP would turn out tobe. to be.

What is your typical creative process?

My workflow has changed compared to when

I was working on Road To

Nirvana.

However, looking back to what that process was, this was also a time where I was working on what would be my biggest film project yet. And it was a film that was a collaboration with Morgan Freeman’s production company, Ogun Ola, the short film. I was actively working on that and directing that when I was also working on my first musical project. So, there was really no time for the music to happen. So, any window of opportunity I got, I would work with

Feeny. Feeny happens to be the guy who produced and mixed all the songs in the EP, and is a very good friend from Kaduna, as well. And the moment I realized that I wanted to work on a project, I knew that I did not want to produce myself; because of everythingthatiknewwas thing thatiknewwas coming in terms of other projects. So, I would send him a very rough sketch of what I believe the whole song is going to sound like. I just make the noises with my mouth and sometimes I just play on my piano and send him a voice note and what he does is he recreates what I’ve sentinhisownintersent in his own interpretation. He sends me what he believes the composition for the song would sound like. And then with that I just write. When I get to a point where I feel I’ve written enough for, maybe, three or four songs then we set a date to record. At some point when I was down the line of finishing g the project. p j I felt like some lines were not evoking the emotions I wanted them to invoke. So, I collaborated with a poet. Her name is Debbie Johnson, and she is a very good friend as well. She helped to rewrite certain lines in some songs, like two songs. One of them was the song ‘ Ile’.

Read the remining part of this interview on www. guardian. ng