You may remember Jidenna from his 2015 hit, Classic Man. Cut to 2019 and he’s recently dropped his new album, 85 to Africa, which revolves around unification and emphasizing the harmony we have as human beings. We got the chance to talk to him about his new music, along with his style and hopes for the future of the music industry. Check it out.
Who and/or what inspires your style?
My style evolves like any artist and right now I’m really inspired by 4 main people from the past. I’d say the Marlon Brando, James Dean, Fela Kuti, and Andre 3000. Everything I’m doing right now with 85 to Africa is a mixture of those four people and three different eras. So you have the Fela Kuti with the high-waisted pants that usually have some African print. Then you have the Andre 3000 sometimes with the hair, the bandana around the neck. Then the white tee tucked in is the original Marlon Brando/James Dean kinda feel, so I’m mixing those together.
What’s the message you hope people take away from 85 to Africa?
Right now we need to continue to build a global highway between the diaspora and the continent. The album is an album that revolves around unification. It’s specific to people of African descent; however, for any human being that is part of a diaspora, which means pretty much everybody in the world, we all can relate to the need to connect, the need to unify. I think in America, even now, we are separated into different tribes because there is a head of state that is trying to highlight our differences, as opposed to our similarities. The previous head of state highlighted our similarities. So to me the message of 85 to Africa is to unify and emphasize the harmony we have as human beings. I think that’s what this highway is all about.
If there was one thing you could change about the music industry today, what would it be?
I would change the way that artists, really the position of artists in every single aspect of what we do. A better way to say that is, I would change the business structures of artists. A lot of our income goes to very high gross percentages. People take 15%, 20%, 5%, 10%, left and right. This happens to major label artists, but also independent artists as well. In any other industry these kind of numbers would be absurd. To me, the business structures have to change. Also, the idea of a manager and an artist is an old traditional model and I think there are different positions that I encourage people to look for. I’m building them now with my team; Director of Operations is one. I just met with Alicia Keys and she has a Visual Director, someone in charge of all of the visuals, which is a subset of creative direction. I think there are different ways to innovate and for some people it takes until they’re an A-list world pop-star. My hope is that we can come into the game like some of these young trappers are doing and innovate around their business structures.
A lot of my dream collaborations would be to collaborate with dead people. I’m joking, but serious. I’d would’ve loved to collaborate with musicians that have already come and went. I would’ve loved to collaborate with Bob Marley. I would’ve loved to collaborate with Fela Kuti. I would’ve loved to collaborate with Nina Simone, and with Prince. I guess now, I wanna collaborate YBN Cordae, my homie J.I.D, H.E.R., my homie Saint Jhn, Diana Gordon. There’s a bunch of people honestly, but those are a few right now.
Lighting round! Describe each of the following in one word: Who you are, what you value the most, and what you’d be if you were a food item.
Swing on over here to check out 85 to Africa.
origamiaround
yousharknotpass
dailybridgerton
stormborns
snowghoul
