Chunes!

Bella Alubo is an alternative R&B, Pop and Hip Hop singer and songwriter, formerly signed under Tinny Entertainment. I got the opportunity to interview her for the #WomeninMusic series which is my exclusive way of celebrating our Women History Month. The most common thing in all these interviews I’ve been hosting has got to be the soothing voices of the ladies so far. Let’s delve into it so you can get to know some things about Bella and her music that you never knew about…you’re welcome.

So how did music start for you?

I’d say I started music as a writer. The first things I ever wrote were probably stories…when I was like 6 or something, I’ll be like once upon a time, there was a girl who this and that so that’s how I started writing. Before I became a teenager, maybe I was like 9… I had a diary and I just used to write stuffs then my sister had a songbook where she just wrote lyrics and I’d just read the lyrics even though I didn’t know the songs. I just tried and made my diary entries kind of poetic like that till JSS1, I started doing literature and I learnt about what poetry was. I started attempting to write poems then I was like 14, I had this friend that we started making up lyrics with…we called ourselves Ebony and Ivory (chuckles). She was Lebanese-Nigerian and yeah, we used to write lyrics and be like we were going to sing them and then I actually went on to became an actual musician . I recorded as a rapper for the first time cause I was in a studio with some rappers who had read some of my poems and they were like “since you write poems, just rap it…its essentially like rap” and then from there it was rap and rap and some covers, I ended up adding up melodies when I got signed and moved to Lagos. I learnt about freestyling, including melodies and that’s how music started for me.

Would you say your sound has evolved from the beginning of your career?

Yes, I would. My sound has definitely changed from the obvious fact that I was a rapper when I started and now, I’m more of a Pop musician slash I dunno (chuckles again)…I’m just doing what I want to do so yeah my sound and writing has evolved. Obviously with experience, you get more skilled at what you are doing so I definitely believe I’ve grown as an artiste and a person and that reflects in my sound.

What do you like to do apart from music? Your hobbies?

I really like connecting with people, you know when you have these deep conversations with people where you feel like you feel each other’s souls. There are a lot of things that come into play for that to happen; a lot of listening, talking, openness, open-mindedness. I also like taking pictures of myself and playing dress-up, going out, aesthetically pleasing foods, taking pictures of things I find interesting, cooking sometimes. I love cartoons and watching shows on Netflix and yeah, I like my family.

How’s your creative process like?

My creative writing is essentially; I write my thoughts down a lot…i guess journaling or writing in my diary taught me that. I can just be chilling and I think about a line in a song and I just write it down in my notes. Only God knows how many notes I have in my phone some dating back to like 2014-2015 and sometimes I re-use them and put them in songs, sometimes they inspire other times when I go to check them. The beat also inspires my directions and creative process. I just stay open-minded and in tune with myself.

What was the inspiration behind “Don’t Trust Geminis” ? (I love that song) ,

Thank you! I’m glad you love the song. The inspiration was basically; when you feel like people are two-faced…like you see one side of someone and then another side that you weren’t expecting or never thought you’ll see and you know the Zodiac sign Gemini is like a two-faced coin/twins. It was inspired by my feeling that sometimes you can’t completely know someone. Parts of the song was inspired by someone who isn’t a Gemini so it’s not like all Geminis. It could be any star sign.

What do you think is essential for female creatives in the industry? What are the challenges as well?

Essential… I dunno what is peculiar to only women in music but I know every artistes need fundings in some way even if you can organically start growing your fanbase. For equipments, branding, your clothes,hair I feel like you need fundings. Not everyone is a producer, sound engineer or has great style or can do great makeup, dieting or whatever I dunno. We all have our strengths but sometimes you need to hire experts to do the rest for you and that costs money so women in music needed funding. Same challenges faced by women in other industries you know… there’s the risk that comes with the minority, the prejudice sometimes discrimination and all of that but God dey…God is alive.

Do you play any instruments?

No, I don’t. I just have a surface knowledge on the Guitar and Piano…like really surface level knowledge.

Do you collaborate with upcoming creatives? Which upcoming act has ever caught your attention?

I collaborate with anybody that I’m feeling so I don’t even think of who’s upcoming or anything like that. It’s just like if I’m feeling your sound and it’s bursting my brain or if I actually connect with the song…you know how you hear a song, just any song and you are vibing to the song so if I like any song I can jump on it. I feel like artistes are eternal and even if you haven’t released any song and it’s there in you, it’s there so I don’t know who’s upcoming but yeah I collaborate with a lot of artistes. The new artiste I like is Ezi Emela who was featured on my album. I think her voice is beautiful.

Do you have any soon-to-come projects? When should we be expecting it?

Yeah! I always have a project coming. I think I really like to drop songs as projects because it just allows people experience me more. I feel like people connect to me and my music best in the way I intend when they listen to it as a project. I’m either going to do one short EP or LP or I’m just going to put all of them into one project and it’ll be my LP or maybe my debut album…i just have to decide but I have a lot of unreleased music that I’m sitting on that are really good. Some of them I need to mix and master, some I need to have the beats made properly and all that; just finishing processes.

Message to your fans…

Thank you so much to everyone who supports Bella Alubo music still. My super blow hasn’t happened yet and my brand is still growing so for everyone who’s patient with me, who pays attention and still supports me even as things are not always easy. The brand continues to grow, every year the numbers are growing; it’s something I don’t take for granted and bless God for. So yeah if you support or you are one of the ReBELLAZ, then big love to you.. I love you so much thank you and thank you Axara for this interview. Byeeeee!!!

Thank you so much Bella for this interview. You take fire pictures by the way! I’m sure you guys got exclusive infos from this interview. Go follow Bella Bentley on Twitter @BellaAlubo and on Instagram @bellaalubo. Here’s a link to her songs as well : https://linktr.ee/bellaalubo

I know you enjoyed that! Come back for more interviews. They won’t stop rolling in. It was nice hanging out with you today… Ciao.

Xoxo, Axara.