PHABZ — THE RISING TALENT BUILDING HIS FANBASE AS A MEANS TO SUCCESS

Phabz — medical doctor and artiste

“Success to me is building a solid fanbase” — Phabz

Fabunmi Ifeoluwa popularly known as Phabz, is a multifaceted talent who juggled medical school with his music career while holding it down as an entertainer par excellence in the university. Slowly climbing his way into our playlists, I had a lengthy discussion with Phabz about his career and future in the music industry.

Hello, Phabz. I am really glad to finally get the chance to have this discussion with you.

It is definitely my pleasure.

Do you want to briefly tell everyone who Phabz is? I have some things jotted down but I want you to control the narrative.

(laughs) About myself, you mean my personal life?

No, just who Phabz is generally. Or should I read out my intro to you?

I think you’ve done a good job with it already. I don’t think I have anything to add.

Perfect.

Thank you.

So we will dive straight into it. What is music to you and when did you decide to do music definitively?

I’ll start with the second question. I haven’t decided to do music definitively.

Really?

I haven’t put all my eggs into the music basket yet because it’d be a risky thing to do. The music industry is a volatile one. There’s a higher chance of failing than succeeding and since I’m yet to get a solid footing in the industry, I’m trying to balance both my medical and music career. For one to blow in the industry, you also need some money and that money is being sourced by my medical career for now. I’m taking my music more seriously for sure but until I’m very certain about my footing in the industry, I’d juggle both.

Dr. Fabunmi when he is not being Phabz

That’s smart.

So to the first question, what was it again?

What is music to you? A lot of artistes grew up with musical influences around them even citing the church choir as one of the influences? Was it the same for you?

At the heart of it, music is emotion. I see music as a very spiritual thing because it has been ingrained into every layer of civilization. Music is such a powerful tool as well in that, every body of work has a message to pass across. So when I make music, it makes me feel powerful like I’m able to impart a bit into my listener or anyone consuming my work. I have always been actively involved in music. Both my parents were in the choir; my brothers are also musically inclined, we all play different musical instruments. I even learnt to play the keyboard myself.

Interesting!

Yes, so music has always been a part of me. I personally didn’t join the choir till I got to the university but it did help me a lot with expanding my music theory, song writing, arrangements, playing instruments, playing with a band, directing a choir and all that. All those experiences have helped in my growth as an artiste as well.

Phabz leading the choir while in the university

Any influences from music you grew up listening to on the music you make yourself today?

There are two aspects to the music I grew up listening to. Music my parents listened to and music I listened to on the radio.

That’s so real.

My dad especially used to listen to the likes of King Sunny Ade, which was majorly juju and in some cases, love songs. These really influenced my music. We also listened to a lot of Ebenezer Obey back then. And the interesting thing about these guys is they told stories with their music. Every track listened to in succession, told a story. I like to reflect that in my work as well. I want my listeners to go on a journey as they listen to my music. I think consuming music is sweeter that way and this also reflects a lot in my upcoming project. Other artistes my parents listened to were Panam Percy Paul, Don Moen, and so on.

Songs that I grew up listening to especially on the radio included a lot of Wizkid, Davido, Olamide. I remember listening to Olamide a lot. There was the American phase, too, when I was listening so much to Post Malone. I think that was mostly peer influence anyway. I listened to Kcee a lot as well.

Oh wow, the days of Limpopo.

Yesssss, Limpopo.

Your age is showing.

(Laughs). The Old Mavin crew as well, the Dorobucci gang. Not the new age guys.

So you mentioned something about an upcoming project earlier. An album, EP?

It’s an EP. It can’t be fully characterized as an album.

Cover art for Genesis, an EP released by Phabz in 2021

That’s amazing. You are also particular about storytelling in your work. Now, in this day and age where artistes are shying away from albums and EPs in favor of hot singles to get the audience’s attention? Does this bother you or affect how you release your own music?

Not at all, it doesn’t bother me. At the end of the day, every artiste has their style and I won’t say artistes are letting go of bodies of work so to say. They just try to get attention by releasing singles first, ahead of releasing the actual body of work. It is a marketing tactic basically. Ultimately, it is after you are able to release a body of work as an artiste that you can go ahead to organize tours or shows. No one goes on tours with singles alone and unlike what people think, streams are not the major source of income for artistes. It is tours and shows that pull in more money.

You were very multifaceted in school, being involved in campus politics, getting distinctions while being able to combine that with being an MC and an artiste. How were you able to pull off all these with the entire misconception about medicine taking up people’s whole lives?

A lot of people ask me this question and all I can say is, I couldn’t have done it alone. God definitely helped me balance my time. I was able to do a lot of things and also do them excellently because there’s a difference between putting hands into different things just for the sake of it and doing them excellently. My academics weren’t suffering, I was getting paid to host shows and also being recognized as one of the best entertainers on campus. One of the things I did was plan myself well. I needed to be in the headspace to do certain things. Whenever exams were coming up, there was like a switch in my head that would flip and I’d know that I needed to focus more on studying. Once the exams were over, I’d flip the switch back to my creative side. This was how I tried to balance both worlds. Hosting, however was just me being myself, having fun and getting paid for it. Music wasn’t making me a lot of money then because I was just trying to put my name out there. So, hosting really helped my life. If not…

I’m guessing, there were broke days…

Oh, there were. And I was in a relationship at the time, so it wasn’t easy. Not like my partner was putting pressure on me but you know what they say; love is sweet but sweeter when money is involved.

Lover boy!! That leads me to your genre leaning more towards RnB, majorly love songs. Nigerians tend to favor more commercial sounds. Do you aspire to attain fame from your current sound or you’d lean towards the commercial sounds later on?

First of all, I think all of this depends on the fanbase an artiste has. We have the Johnny Drille, Ric Hassani, Chike, Kotrell and so on. All of them make amazing love songs but what distinguishes them from the other is their fanbase. This is also what influences how commercially successfully they are. A lot of them are already what I’d call commercially successful and some are still growing. For example, Kotrell. He’s definitely still going to get bigger. If you don’t listen to Kotrell, this is your cue to give him a listen.

I noticed you’ve been covering his music lately.

Exactly. That is what I am trying to do now anyway. Build my fanbase. I know I’m not exactly what the average Nigerian wants to hear right now, but you build with those you know enjoy your music. At the end of the day, it’s those people that would put their friends on to the music and slowly expand my audience. I could decide to push it to the wrong target audience to get likes and views, but I won’t be building myself a proper fanbase that would help me rise so much faster. I mean, look at Jon Bellion. Even after not releasing music for 6 years, he still has people streaming his music and anticipating what he’d drop next. That’s a solid fanbase right there. That, in my opinion also counts as being commercially successful. The Cavemen might also seem like they are not so popular because they are not what the average Nigerian wants to hear, but they are totally in a league of their own. You can’t mention highlife music in Nigeria without mentioning the Cavemen. So I’m not bothered by the average Nigerian’s idea of commercial success. I regard myself a great performer, working on creating my own fanbase which in my opinion is the key to being commercially successful.

That’s rather amazing. So that brings me to my next question. You’ve come a long way with Sanatii, your long term producer from the early days of ‘Temi’ and you were also credited as producer on your latest single ‘Close to me’. How did you and Sanatii develop this work relationship and how has it been transitioning into more technical aspects of making music?

Sanatii and I attended the same chapel in school. He’s one of the best producers I’ve ever met in my life. We became really good friends from being in the music department. He’d produce, I’d sing. When I blow, I can never leave Sanatii out of my come up story. So I released ‘Lovesick’ first in 2021, but the production was not very great because I was still learning about the production process at the time. He heard it and thought it could be so much better and he ran it for me alongside ‘ Temi’ at a free cost. When I wanted to release ‘Genesis’, I had worked on some of the beats as well, but I could tell it wasn’t there yet, so I decided to get some assistance with it. I was already thinking of the potential huge costs but I thought to myself, a closed mouth is a closed destiny. Let me just give it a try. I met with Sanatii at the time and he decided to charge me 5k for 5 songs. You don’t know what that means.

Phabz working on unreleased music

Well, I’ve heard producing one song can cost huge amounts going into millions so I’m guessing that was a huge favor.

It really was. While I do mix and master my songs now, I couldn’t then. So he produced, mixed and mastered five songs for me for 5k even bringing in Timi Dre to do the guitar on ‘Falling’ then. I didn’t have to pay for any of this. It was painful when he had to leave the country in late 2021 or 2022 thereabout. Although, communication isn’t as frequent as it used to be; we try to keep in touch as much as possible. To the second aspect of the question, I’ve always regarded myself a producer, it kind of saves me money. But it still helps to work with producers, it kind of brings fresh perspective into the music I’m making. In some situations, I still think I’m the only one who can bring certain concepts to life so there’s that. It’s kind of the best of both worlds, really.

‘Ike’ was a game changer for you with more than 5000 streams and I even became a fan then. Has it given you more visibility in the industry?

Ike was released in 2023 when I was almost backing out of making music. I won’t give you the backstory since you didn’t ask for it. (laughs). However, I remember the Genesis EP was released in 2021 and it did quite well with ‘Dance for me’ being a fan favorite. ‘Champion’ was released in 2022 and did alright. I hadn’t released anything in over a year and the beauty of being an artiste is releasing new stuff. I was just not in the headspace to make anything at the time. Then during the health week in 2023, the speaker during the symposium kept going on about “pursuing your goals”, “don’t be sidelined”, basically all these motivational speeches. So that got me going again despite it being less of a passion at the time.

Cover art for Ike by Phabz.

I wrote the lyrics sometime December 2022 and although the beat was for someone else, I reached out to the producer again asking if the person had used the beat and they said no. That was my cue. So I made the song, put it out in September 2023. I’d say the fact that it was relatable and the story that was being told with the song helped with the very positive response. Prior to the release, I’d just drop stuff on my social media like “Ike, why are you doing this to me” and so on. People seem to love back stories like that. Although, till now, no one really knows the actual story behind Ike and I love that for me.

You can use this opportunity to do a reveal. I’d call it an Exclusive and use it as clickbait.

If you ask me the question, I’ll tell you don’t worry. But ‘Ike’ got more than a 1000 streams on the first day and since then, it’s just being massive love all round.

I’m sure I was responsible for at least a 100 of those streams. I was streaming it over and over.

Thanks my G.

Anytime! So on to that backstory you promised? Phabz tells all?

(laughs) Alright, so there was this girl Ikeoluwa. I always liked Ike.

So Ike is a real person?

Yes, Ike is a real person. I always liked Ike since I got into the university. The feelings were always there and I mustered up the courage to talk to Ike about my feelings. I got turned down but we stayed good friends. Even after a long time, the feeling just wouldn’t go away. So in 2022, things started ‘sparking’ a bit, we would talk for hours, text and all that but it would seem I was the only one getting the wrong message. She only saw it as being a good best friend while I was there thinking relationship.

Ehya

Yh, so I think we had a long conversation about it. She told me her side and although I was heartbroken, I had to accept it. Ike came by in the heat of those emotions. You know “Ike ma se bayii”, which just means Ike, don’t do this. “For your matter long time wey I don dey chase”. So basically Ike is just about a guy liking a girl who didn’t reciprocate his feelings.

I hope the song helped you process your emotions and move on.

Move on ke? We eventually got together.

That’s really nice. You’ve talked about an upcoming project at certain points in the course of this discussion. You had a bit of hiatus during your internship year and now that is over, we’ve had several song covers from you. Can we look forward to more Phabz in the very near future?

My internship year didn’t give me the proper headspace to make music although I did write lyrics at the time. Now that the internship is over with, I’m trying to maximize the time to put as much stuff out there as I can, at least, till it’s time for that yeye NYSC. The song covers are to put myself out there and also get recognition vis a vis building my fanbase across various social media spaces. So, the EP has 9 songs.

Yes!!

(laughs) Yes, it has 9 songs, 3 of the songs on the EP are out already, those are ‘Ike’, ‘For dayz’ and ‘Close to me’. There’s an interlude track as well that kind of indicates a shift in the tone of the EP. You will understand when you listen.

I’m excited already.

So depending on how much money I have for marketing , I might drop another single before the EP or just release the EP as a whole altogether. I won’t share the title of the EP just because I’ve also not decided what the title is going to be. But I intend to create a lot of videos and build as much hype round the EP as I can.

Finally, where do you see yourself in the next few years?

Hmm…in a few years. Specifically, 3 years. That’s the maximum amount of time I’m giving myself with the rate of work that I’m putting into it currently. But I see myself being a part of the top 100 artistes in Nigeria, with a proper fanbase and doing shows at least, in Nigeria before global domination comes in. If a wedding with the Ike of my dreams happens along the line, I will take it. But that’s what I envision for myself, at least in the near future.

Phabz — a star in the making.

I genuinely wish you the best. Thank you very much for doing this with me.

Always a pleasure. This was a really good conversation. Thank you as well.