Interview: Cardiff, UK Based Artist Blank Face Talks About His New Single "25th Floor" and How He Represents His African Roots

We connected with Cardiff, UK based artist Blank Face for an exclusive interview to discuss his very DOPE new single “25th Floor”, which was produced by his friend Dan. We also got a chance to pick Blank Face’s brain about the origin of his name, how his African heritage/culture are reflected in his music, his creative process for the 25th Floor song, and much more.

After reading our Q&A with Blank Face, be sure to connect with him on Instagram and check out his other DOPE tracks, including “Almost There”, “Sunflower Love”, and “Badman”, on Spotify!

You were born and raised in Nigeria but now based in the UK. How would you say that your African heritage and culture are reflected in your music?

That is a hard one ha ha, it depends on how I'm feeling to be honest. Like for instance, "25th Floor" and "Badman" don't reflect my heritage at all but in "Sunflower Love" you can hear the huskiness in my voice at certain bits to emphasize my heritage while representing an African woman and that African love often spoken about.

In my song "Almost There", I broke into my local vernacular, "Pidgin English", to emphasize the roots. Essentially, I do a lot of Afro fusion with western styles. I do have a few unreleased tracks that are strictly Afro based or me coming in with a strong Afro style on a westernized beat. I guess in clearer terms, the way I slur my words, or speak in local tongues, certain references in my lyrics and huskiness in my tone is how I represent my roots.

Tell us about your stage name "Blank Face"; where did it originate and what does it symbolize?

I came up with Blank Face a couple years ago in the kitchen of my flat with a couple of my house mates. I had a lot of issues with going into music because of my family background and was worried that I would reflect as a black sheep since I wasn't doing gospel music and going into music has a bit of a negative stereotype in my country.

I was thinking of copying an old Nigerian artist called "Lagbaja"; we had similar but different circumstances in common. His family were well respected professionals and it was expected for him to be a doctor or a lawyer and he wasn't in a position to debate his pre-determined future. So he came up with a persona releasing music where he hid his face and name and became a sensation for years! Till date no one really knows who he is, crazy isn't it? I wanted to just post music and not even show people who I was or my name like a secret grind.

My friends objected straight away ha ha they were like I deserve the exposure. Anyway, I suggested Blank Face to my friends as a Schoolboy Q reference. I absolutely love his "Blank Face" album and persona, and based on my circumstance just brainstorming about then it took a deeper turn cause I wanted to release music across different genres so it just made sense.

Artistically speaking, I'm a blank canvas who is painting a beautiful picture with different colours a.k.a sounds under one identity. Versatility and creativity are the new vibe; I believe in vibes not genres. Music should be free from too much technical and should come from the soul.

We're blown away by your new single "25th Floor"; big ups to you on this release. Tell us about your creative process for its development and how you and the producer Dan made this song happen.

So it's a weird story; the day I released “Badman” I was chilling on the 25th floor of an apartment and came up with the concept cause I was just blasting music in the kitchen and looking at the scenery, absolutely beautiful! Then Dan came round from Gloucester to come record with me in Cardiff and played me some random beat and I was like "That's the one!!".

I then got a chance to spend time on the 25th floor again luckily and we set up studio there. Got a bit faded and we were just vibing on the beat. The beat got me freestyling and I just kept recording my random freestyles singing the same phrase "25th Floor" on repeat and started building on it. There was this one time we didn't record and personally it will be the best version of the song. I didn't know he wasn't recording and he was too shocked to tell me cause it would break my flow ha ha but that's the concept origin.

The song is also based off a girl I was fancying at the time; she was being long to link up after our first date and my feelings at the time were hopeful and I imagined a whole scenario of us chilling together on the 25th floor, tripping at the views, talking about shit and listening to music and all that lovey dovey stuff ha ha. We spent the entire night on it layering all the vocals, freestyles for background effects and the whole ethereal vibe and were very satisfied. The song has crazy amount of vocals in the background, it's crazy!

It wasn't all a bed of roses, a month later I found out that the recording I did wasn't clean, meaning my vocal was dipping in and out and it wasn't possible to mix the track. It was heart wrenching as that meant I had to do it all again. It's impossible to recreate that kind of energy and sound and it took me 5 hours to even get close to what I did in the first recording.

My other producer Sippy was mixing the track at the time and we had sorted another session in Bristol to re-record. There was a whole dilemma of trying to re-create the original which turned out not possible and I approached it with a different and more aggressive energy and still didn't like the song so I decided to mix the two sessions' recordings together and Sippy did an amazing job with the mixing because I was a stressed about the sound and not liking a lot of what I was hearing ha ha.

It took about 7 - 8 versions to finally get the track to where it is right now. Dan was fuming at me for a time because of the back and forth. We were fed up with the tune but we all really wanted the best possible version which we achieved in the end and that's the story.

With all the blood, sweat and tears put into the creation of the “25th Floor”, can we expect a music video for the song to follow?

I will get a music video but might not be as soon as people would expect it; definitely doing videos this year though. I got plans for a remix and a remix video with an artist friend of mine. It sounds really good so far.

As a songwriter, what do you look for in the beats/instrumentals that you end up writing lyrics to?

Energy. It's weird to say but I need to be able to understand what the beat is saying, what kind of energy or vibe is it giving off and then what relation does it have to my life or someone around me. I normally ask the producer what he/she was feeling at the time or what they think the beat represents and I write along that to resonate with the sound.

One thing I love about the tracks I've done is that they sound like it was made for me, which just shows how much I resonate with the beat itself.

By the end of 2020, what are three things that you hope to have accomplished musically this year?

Ah that's easy to say; I want to have 40 songs in my backlog, to have performed in a different country, published a website, a lot of collaborations, released two music videos and an EP.

Connect with Blank Face: Instagram