Song Exploder - Omah Lay - Never Forget

Episode Date: November 16, 2022

Omah Lay is a Nigerian singer, songwriter, and producer. He’s one of the young stars of Afrobeats, the West African genre that's become a global phenomenon. His new album Boy Alone features a collaboration with Justin Bieber. But for this episode, Omah talked to me about the song “Never Forget.” Boy Alone was Omah’s late father's nickname, and the song “Never Forget” was inspired by him. For more, visit songexploder.net/omah-lay.

You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs, and piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made. I'm Rishi Kesh Hirwe. Just a heads up that this episode contains explicit language, including discussion of a lyric that contains the N-word. O'Malley is a Nigerian singer, songwriter, and producer. He's one of the young stars of Afrobeats, the West African genre that's become a global phenomenon. His new album, Boy Alone, has had multiple hits, including a collaboration with Justin Bieber. For this episode, Oma talked to me about the song Never Forget. Boy Alone was his late father's nickname, and the song Never Forget was inspired by him.

My name is Stanley Omar Didier and I'm also known as Omaleh. My father's name was Boy Olin. My father is that guy who came out from a very, very poor family and left the village and left his friends and went to the city all by himself and found his room. his way, found my mom and I settled down. He was one of the first persons that ever did that in his circle. So people started calling him boy alone. It was like, yeah, he did everything by himself. No matter what anybody says, he would do it alone. So much of the reasons why people called him boy alone. I had so much of that in me. I came from a very, very, very poor family. and all by myself, I got to where I am today.

It's been like 13 years now since my father passed. But I've always known that I wanted to make a song for my late father. I don't know if it was the right time. But yeah, I miss my dad. Shamsie is the producer behind Never Forget. He made the beats. My name is Shamsie and I'm a music producer from Nigeria. He's one of the best music producers that I've ever worked with.

So I was working. I was in a studio that night and he played the beat for me. I made that beat sometime in 2019. I started with the drums. Then the pads. So from there I went to my bass line because I'm really particular about my bass. Yeah, I wanted this Afro-groovy bass. Like something is coming, be scared. You don't have an idea of what's one. coming next.

Send this beat to a couple of people and they didn't send me songs back. Like nobody was like feeling the beat like that, but I was hearing something different. Like he just played and he wanted to move to the next beat. And then I was like, no, no way. I knew it was special, so I just waited for the right person. When I had the beat for the first time, there was this thing that it gave me. It felt like there's this feeling of heart for so long and somebody just gave me. me a platform to express it.

I took a pen and my notepad to write. I just started writing about my dad and everybody that I've lost. I'll never forget. I'll never forget, ganga. I'll never forget you. I'll never forget, ganga, ganga, ganga. I'll never forget you. I'll never forget.

I'll never forget. Losing a lot of my friends while growing up. I wanted to make a song for soldiers who died out were. I wanted to make a song for the people who died at the Ensign protest in 2020. Ensign is a movement in Nigeria that's against police brutality. And in 2020, the protests got really serious and thousands of people came out marching against police brutality. And a lot of people lost their lives.

you know being a boy in a very tough environment we never cry like i can't remember the last time i cried not even when i lost my dad because i'm always around my guys and stuff i guess all that stuff kind of like have stayed inside me for the longest from like since i was like 12 or something and being in the street being so hard on myself and stuff like that and i said i don't know what to do i don't know what to do I don't know what to do without you. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. Oh, I don't know what to do.

I don't know what to do. Oh, I don't know what to do without you. And then the second line that I wrote was, I have been niggering. Like the word nigger. It simply means that I've been in the streets. I've been hustling. I've been intelligent.

Nobody gets around for this in military. Everybody will a day Die like in anton road like in millipage I've been negren Like I have been so hard I've been in the streets I have been through it all Like I've been

Hustling I've been doing everything That a young black boy could do to survive One thing with the whole song is It's not just me Everything that I said in the verses About myself and my hustles and my struggle

Those are the same thing my dad went through when he was a boy. Because this is the life of every normal black kid in the whole world. And not just black kids, every kid probably who doesn't come from like a very wealthy family or something like that. Yeah, it could be sad to anybody,

but to me it's reality. It's just me telling you my story. And a million-on-one kids out there who's probably going through the same thing. From Islam's I come. Oh, Marimbrain' boy. I know love is war I know God is God

that will never stop till the war is won tell the kids I'm born and the ones we lost I will never forget I know love is war I know God is God I will never stop until the war is won

tell the kids I'm born and the ones we lost that I will never forget I was really, really depressed. I was so unhappy with life and everything. I had three different therapists. And the only person who I could actually tell my problem was the microphone. The microphone was like my best friend.

As soon as I turned it on, it was like a relief. And I'm just writing. I'm just putting melodies to my thoughts and saying everything. that made me feel a lot better. Yeah, and then after that, I sent it back to Shemzy and he started reconstructing it and adding some elements where they were needed. Yeah, I added some post-production.

That's when I had one bell sound. Dun-dan-da. Dun-dun-dun-dun. So the vocals gave me inspiration for me to finish the beat. Bashi ni me linguan guang-gaw. Bashi-ni-me-ri-quai. That's my native dialect. I'm calling out to anybody who's out there who can hear my voice right now,

who feel like their boy alone, who feel like I'm telling their story, who feel like they've lost somebody. If you can hear my voice right now, just dance, forget about everything, forget about all the struggle, and just dance. At the same time, I'm talking to my dad,

his spirit or whatever. If he can hear my voice right now, wherever it is, let him dance. I don't care if he's in hell, if it's in heaven. But if you're out there and you can hear my voice, dance.

That is a very, very local thing to do. Like, that stuff is something that they used to do in the records in the 90s. Before I was born, we have this music. called High Life and I heard my father my dad play a bunch of records

when I was young with that thing it just felt like since I was speaking in my native dialects it just felt so much more like to add something from way back so yeah I did that stuff I don't even know what it's called it's just me it's doing a kind of spiritual I guess never forget it was not supposed to make the album

I recorded and I sent it to my team Everybody was like, uh-uh-uh. I don't know what happened, but nobody was like really feeling it. My team was kind of like the beat was up-tempo for side lyrics. Some people was not feeling the chorus. They said it was too personalized. That was it. I kind of lost hope on the song because everybody was like,

I kind of felt like I was the only one who was feeling this. So I just put a song in the vault. And then with time, it took three months, four months. And the thing with the song was, every time that I came back to the song, it feels new. And then I felt way more confident and I added the song to the album. And it made more sense. Yeah, I just wanted to make a song for the people that we lost.

And I'm so grateful. I'm so happy that I did it like Never Forget. And now here's Never Forget by Omelay in its entirety. Everybody willa day Die like he and turn road like a milibate I've been a drink Way before Maca Jackson sing Billy Jane From nighting billy-din

Where before patur and gins In Willimmy See my eyes don't see the days Ordinary person like you know go believe it So I'm cold and shivering I hide my veins Visit songexploder.net to learn more You'll find links to buy or stream

Never Forget. I have a new album of my own coming out on April 24th. It's been about 15 years since I last put out a full length, and this is the first one that'll be out under my own name, Rishi Kesh Her Way. I started making Song Exploder when I was feeling lost in my own music career. And then for over a decade, I've gotten to have these incredible conversations about the process of making music, talking to other artists, and it made me completely rethink my relationship to music and my way of writing songs.

And this album is the product of all of that. It features contributions from some of my, favorite artists, including some folks that you may have heard on this podcast, like Iron and Wine, Kevin Morby, Vagabon, Fenlily, and the producer Phil Wine Rope. I'm going to be on tour playing in cities across the U.S. starting in April, and I'm trying to bring the spirit of the podcast with me. So every show that I'm playing will begin with a conversation about the album with a different amazing guest moderator in each city, like Adam Scott, Samin Nasrat, Jason Manzukas, Josh Malina, Minjin Lee, Ken Jennings, John Roderick, John Roderick,

Austin Cleon, and more. They're all going to be my conversation partners on stage, and then I'll play with my band. The album is called In the Last Hour of Light, and the first couple songs are out now. You can listen to the music and get tickets for the shows on my website, rishikash.co, or just go to songexploder.net slash live. That's songexploder.net slash live. Thanks. Song Exploder and the show's theme music were made by me. I produced this episode with Craig Ely, with artwork by Carlos Lerma, music clearance by Kathleen Smith,

and production assistants from Mary Dolan. Special thanks to Theo Balcom. Song Exploder is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, and network of independent, listener-supported, artist-owned podcasts. You can learn more about our shows at Radiotopia.fm. You can follow me on Twitter and Instagram at Rishi Hereway. and you can follow the show at SongExploder. You can also get a SongExploder t-shirt at songexploder.net slash shirt.

I'm Rishi Kesh Hereway. Thanks for listening.