Did You Know? Nonso Amadi, ‘Tonight’ singer, started out as a rapper

Nonso Amadi, R&B/soul singer, started out his music career as a rapper and did not start singing until he needed choruses for his rap records.

Amadi made the disclosure in an interview with Tim Westwood, a British disc jockey.

He said: “I actually started rapping first. I kind of needed choruses every time I did my rap songs so I started singing myself, and it actually picked up. it did quite well for itself.”

The singer said a career in music was never on the table until ‘Tonight’ became a commercially successful song.

“The crazy thing is that I was never going to take music seriously until that record came along properly and it started bringing money in,” he said.

Commenting on his brand of music, the self-taught music producer said he looks forward to a time when the Nigerian audience is more receptive of other genres that are not Afropop and Afrobeats.

Amadi said: “I need to still draw the people to the kind of music I’m making.

“Right now, it’s still the club kind of songs that are doing well over there, so they need a bit more convincing that there is still this other lane that you could actually enjoy but it takes more than one person to do.”

Describing his sound, he said: “It’s a bit more soulful, even though it has the Afro influences, has the percussions, has the chants.”

He added: “That kind of lane isn’t very popular right now in Nigeria. Everyone just wants to do the commercial stuff. I feel like it takes a bit more people that are having an impact to make it an actual movement where it is recognised as its own category under Afrobeats.”

Here is a video of Nonso Amadi freestyling on Westwood’s show.

In 2018, Amadi was stripped of two Headies nominations after the organisers of the awards announced that they were given in error.

The singer lost nominations in the ‘best R&B single’ and ‘best vocal performance categories.