Olamilekan Moshood Agbeleshe, fondly known as Laycon, shared how his love for rap began, and those instrumental to him having a career in music.
The reality star who went into the Big brother house with the intention of promoting his EP, said.
“My dad used to play songs from K1 De Ultimate, Ebenezer Obey, King Sunny Ade, Haruna Ishola. Listening to songs by these musicians in the morning before going to school and after coming back in the afternoon made me fall in love with music and wanting to make music.
Apart from these local musicians, I really loved Michael Jackson and James Brown, especially Michael, he made pop music and danced a lot. I really wanted to be like Michael (laughs), they influenced the whole idea that I could be an artist while I was in high school, though, by then, I had started listening to other new types of music and there was a new style budding inside me, then my love for local music died but I still go back to them. It was always them that started it for me”, Laycon recalls.
Speaking specifically on rap, Laycon said his first attempt at testing the water at rap music before building a career around it was an act of self-discovery; he never liked rap music, “Riding Dirty” by Chamillionaire was the first rap song he ever listened to and he discovered he could spit. He was good at it and it came effortlessly.
“I started rapping to the extent where I didn’t feel like singing no more but I actually realized I still had to sing”, Laycon added. He is ardent concerning growing as an artist and he further stretches how he became a rapper and why he chooses to rap; “I put in a lot of work trying to grow as an artist. I put in a lot of time and effort into my music and as for rap, it came easily for me, I enjoyed it. When I’m rapping, it’s a whole new vibe for me, you see a new me, a different person. I think a lot of people are beginning to realize that when I’m talking to you is different from when I’m rapping. You see a different demeanour from me; I could be respectful talking to you but when it’s time to rap, I’d be doing something else. Crazy thing is, for me it’s real. It’s not like I’m trying to fabricate things, I will tell you what is on my mind, what is real, what I have experienced in another angle…in different ways, in different forms to try and make you realize that there’s a different angle to things. If a particular type or form of music allows you to express yourself that much. I feel like the term rapper turning to singers or rapper turning into commercial artiste is just all bants because I feel like it’s music, it’s you expressing your emotions. You can express it anyhow, that’s why it’s music, It’s art. You can’t tell an expressionist artist or a person who does pointillism why he’s doing what he’s doing, he’s trying to express himself. If I want to express myself in this way or in another form; if I feel like I can get it out there in another way while still maximizing with the fact that a lot of people would love it and I would make money from it, why not do it as long as the person is doing something proper for themselves the right way they can? I don’t think anybody has the right to say “don’t express yourself this way”…there are different ways to classify art; for me, it is rap. It allows me to do any type of music I want to”.
He cites Jay Z, Nas, Andre 3000, MI, Vector, Olamide, Drake, Kendrick Lamar and J Cole as artistes who inspire him sonically.
“The thing about me is, I listen to almost everybody and get bits and bits from everybody, I feel like there’s nothing one person is saying that is invalid, there’s always something new from everybody even though the person might be mimicking somebody else, I believe there’s a new thing you can learn from that; everybody inspires me”, He said.