If anyone had ever told Chukwunonso Onwuli popularly known as Nolly in the Urban Christian gospel music scene that rapping Christian songs in Igbo would take him around the world, the Enugu-born Christian rapper would never have believed it but that is exactly what has happened to this gospel artiste. Nolly who has been featured in songs with the likes of Sinach and Limoblaze to name a few is not a newbie to the gospel music scene. He is well known in the urban gospel niche as that Christian rap artiste with a unique style of rapping his Christian lyrics mostly in Igbo.
In this in-depth exclusive interview with Onyinye Okonkwo, Nolly shares his journey from making secular music, to getting born again and making the switch to gospel music, the process and the trials of trying to live on the income from music and triumphs like meeting sinach, going on tour with her. He also shares his thoughts on some hot topics in the Gospel music scene, the importance of diversifying income and working on his second studio album.
Excerpts Below
TELL US ABOUT YOURSELF AND HOW YOU GOT INTO MUSIC
My Name is Nolly, Birth name is Chukwunonso Onwuli. I am from Anambra, I was born in Calabar, but I grew up in Enugu state.
I grew up loving Arts, loving music and I remember when I was much younger I loved dancing too. When I was in university I was in a dance group “Gospel by Dance”.
How did I get into music? When I was much younger I loved arts and all that, so When I was in SS2 me and my friends were in my mum’s shop when I wrote my first song but it was not gospel in any way. Then we formed a group comprising of myself and my secondary school friends(Boxy, Gizmo& Vanessa). This was in Enugu and was not in any way gospel, it was secular.
We were writing songs together and we didn’t record until we went for this talent hunt in Enugu, Keruzo Talent Hunt.
RunTown was in the talent hunt also, And we made it to the top 10 he was like in the number 10 while I and my group were Second. But then I had like 30 secular songs I’ve written but had very few gospel songs.
I was in a tug of war kind of because I grew up in a Christian family and the things they were singing about in secular music wasn’t the life I was living cause I don’t go to the club or pop champagne. I am a church boy but what I was seeing in the media was that and I was trying to emulate that. This internal struggle continued about singing one thing and living a different reality continued until I got into the university and I started going to church.
To be honest, I wanted to be a bad boy in school, the church wasn’t part of my plans but somehow God knows how he gets his children. So one Sunday morning I was just strolling in school and had no plans of going to church.
My university was the university of Nigeria, NSUKKA, while on my stroll, I heard the beat coming from the building and I was like “wow, what’s this”. You know God uses what we like to get our attention, out of curiosity I went into the building and it was people dancing and it was gospel music they were dancing to. That caught my interest so I joined that group in church, from there joined the choir and from there started hearing the word of God again. I realized that it doesn’t make sense to sing about what I don’t live in, that will be me lying and it made me realize that being a gospel artiste doesn’t limit me in any way as that was the mentality I previously had, that being a gospel artiste is limiting, that what you sing about is quite limited but I realized that I could sing about anything so long as I sing about it from the point of view of the Bible.
That was how I switched from secular songs to writing a few gospel songs here and there, then to writing fully gospel songs.
I realize that whatever I decide to do, whether it’s a musician, or a doctor, or a teacher or a programmer or whatever. If you see me or you communicate with me or you see whatever I do you should know that I am a Christian and this is my worldview.
This is what led to me doing gospel music.
YOU’VE BEEN AT IT FOR HOW LONG? (Professionally).
I’ve been at it for 10 years but I recorded my first song in 2010 and I released my official single and started doing it professionally in 2013. The first single I properly released online was “Jesus na su Igbo (Jesus speaks Igbo)” and that was in 2013. It’s been a long journey really.
YOUR FIRST SINGLE HAD GOOD REVIEWS Right?
YES, it did and It wasn’t planned cause I’d finally made this decision to do just gospel music and it wasn’t as if I had the funds. I didn’t have the funds, I was just graduating from school then, I just finished university in 2010 and in 2013 I still didn’t have a job yet but music was just what I was doing. I put out Jesus na su Igbo (Jesus speaks Igbo) with no promotion or anything. I just put it out on the internet and sent a lot of emails to a lot of blogs because there were no streaming platforms then.
Funny enough, from the blogs next thing I knew cause I was in Enugu then and my song started getting to radio stations in Lagos. So praise world radio, an internet station got it first and before I knew it, it was on cool f.m, it was on rhythm f.m and people were calling me like “oh I heard your song on the radio, in Lagos”. And I’m not even talking about the east cause it spread in Enugu.
I was shocked cause I didn’t promote it, as I didn’t have the budget to push it. So I think that was the song that made people start listening to me and I continued. Funny enough it was an experiment, I never started out thinking “oh let me rap in Igbo” cause the songs I wrote I rap in an American accent, all English and that was just an experiment between me and my producer and it just turned out that everyone liked it and I became nervous cause I was like can I continue this? I mean I can speak Igbo but can I? Cos I didn’t even consider myself good in Igbo but I’ve been doing it so………
HOW HAS IT BEEN BREAKING INTO THE MARKET OUTSIDE THE EAST WITH IGBO RAP AND CREATING A NICHE FOR YOURSELF?
I don’t think it’s been a challenge because things moved fast for me.
Two years after my first single, I moved fully to Lagos. What played out for me was that there wasn’t anybody doing gospel music like that so that made my sound unique and anybody who heard my music was just excited about it, they’re like this is so amazing because nobody had done gospel music like that at that time.
It made things easier for me because doors were just opening, I was getting lots of services without paying for them and I started meeting lots of top guys in the gospel music industry and was doing a lot of collaborations with them.
It gave me a push, so far I’ll say with the limited budget and being independent. So the music has done well.
YOU ARE NOT SIGNED TO ANY RECORD LABEL?
No, I’m not signed to any record label and it’s by choice. The reason is that I think I enjoy being independent and I love running my things myself and I think being independent gives you the freedom to express yourself and do your things the way you want. And I don’t want to land in a situation where I’ll have an agreement problem like I’ve seen some artists do. Cos I don’t think the gospel music space has gotten to that stage, especially for the genre of music I do. It might exist for the worship session or worship niche but for the type of what I do I don’t think Nigeria has a record label that could give me what I want so for lack of that I’ll rather be on my own.
IT MUST HAVE BEEN CHALLENGING FUNDING YOUR MUSIC YOURSELF ALL THIS WHILE
Trust me, it has been challenging but I think we’ve overcome most of the challenges now, though it was challenging in the past. You know when I moved to Lagos in 2015, I didn’t have an apartment and I had to stay with my friend and then we put out music without any income coming in from it. So we invest so much money in recording, paying the producer, sound engineers, and mix engineers and put it out for free on the blogs then because they were no streaming platform.
After doing those things you’re just left with whenever you’re called for shows or ministrations or church programs and that is if you’re even paid for the church programmes. The pastor might decide to tell you “you’re going places” or “God bless you” and you won’t say anything so you just have to go like that. Those times were tough because a lot of people will want to pay you with exposure but then they don’t realize that exposure was not what you used in recording the song and you paid a whole lot of people involved in the creation of the song and money was spent.
At some point, we had to even pay blogs to post our songs on their sites but thank God for the emergence of online streaming platforms, so now when we put out our songs people stream them. You get something back that can be used to create more music, so it’s like the music is funding itself, you don’t need to invest your other funds that should have been invested in other things.
DO YOU THINK THE GOSPEL ARTISTES SHOULD ATTACH A PRICE TAG TO THEIR MINISTRATION?
So for me, when going to events it depends on people that ask me. I don’t ask for a fee upfront but I make sure I ask for the details. I don’t ask for a particular price but I’m leaving it to your discretion to know that you should at least do something for someone that came to minister. Because at least I’m going to come with transport and I didn’t it everyone involved with “God bless you” money is what I invested in it.
So, for the issue of whether a gospel artiste should charge a fee when they’re called to minister, I think it’s good if the church recognizes that this is art also, so I’m not saying Gospel artists should charge for when they go to worship or in their church, there’s a part of serving in your local church but when God calls you and you’re now an artiste that creates music that transcends the four walls of the church or music that is now beyond just Sunday praise and worship.
I believe if anyone decides to demand for it I don’t think the person is wrong. It’s just a personal choice. It’s a thing of choice because they’re times I’ve gone for events personally where I didn’t charge anything and I wasn’t expecting to get anything back. I think that itself is what being in a comfortable place could do not where you depend on music to survive.
But there are a lot of gospel music artists who have sacrificed their lives to do this music thing and that is their only source of living, so trying to tell them that it’s wrong to demand a fee won’t be fair. Because they dedicated their lives to do this thing but then it’s just a really dicey situation.
SOME WILL ARGUE THAT IF GOD CALLS YOU HE’LL HAVE A WAY OF PAYING YOU. WHAT DO YOU THINK?
Because some people claim that God asked them not to do any other thing than Gospel music, you’ll hear pastors saying God asked them not to do any other thing, and it’s true.
I get the point.
When I Hear this thing I don’t know how to argue it because the person has said “God told me”. When you hear this it is easier for people to to believe that when a worship minister says it because I’m trying to be plain but it’s like they’re looked upon as holier than we who are urban gospel musicians.
IS IT THAT THEY ARE MORE HOLY OR THAT PEOPLE RELATE TO WORSHIP MORE THAN THE URBAN GOSPEL RAP?
Yea. I agree! So it’s more acceptable when they demand a fee and I have found that when the Urban guys demand a fee people are often like “who are you?” “Why are you demanding a fee?” “I’m just trying to help you”
That’s the vibe generally.
SO YOU ARE SAYING IT SHOULD BE AN UNSPOKEN AGREEMENT?
Yea. But to be honest I used to demand in the early years around 2015, and 2016. I would demand but I always use my discretion. So as the years went by I’ve grown beyond just doing music and I had another source of income.
So, music has always been something I knew God called me to do and if I didn’t do it I know I won’t feel fulfilled. So I’ve found myself going to events where they didn’t pay me and I wasn’t expecting to be paid.
SO YOU MENTIONED GETTING ANOTHER SOURCE OF INCOME. Which is great cos a lot of Christian creatives have been repeatedly advised to not rely on just their gifts or talents as a source of income. What do you think?
I think I learnt that the hard way. Because honestly the early years were tough and I don’t think I mentioned it when talking about my challenges. The early years were tough because having music as your only source of income, you can’t even predict when the income is coming.
It’s only when you have events and probably you have one event in Two months and let’s say you get paid 300 thousand in this event, I mean you don’t know where the next event is coming, probably comes in the next four months and you get paid another 250 or 300 thousand because you can’t argue.
And if you decide to start pricing it they’ll be like are you haggling? Is it about the money for you? But I thank God I experienced those things during those years because they toughened me, and made me more mature.
DID YOUR CHALLENGES INCLUDE HUNGER?
Laughs*
You have no idea…
I mean when I left home I couldn’t call my parents cause I promised myself I wouldn’t do that anymore. And my friend that I was squatting with also, wouldn’t have money and I wouldn’t have money, we would just sit down and be looking at ourselves. I remember then he was a producer and sound engineer and his name is okesoke, then he wanted to change his game, his valuation and all that so he stopped charging in naira and put up his price for his services.
He stops taking like this 20k, 30k jobs and his price is now 500 dollars. Those were the job he will start taking then and all that. It was a crazy moment and I thank God for now, I thank God for those days because I think they were the building days.
ASIDE MUSIC WHAT ELSE DO YOU DO?
I’ve not started making that public knowledge yet because I don’t want people to know I do something else asides from music. Because I thought it would be distracting but this year I started thinking I don’t mind revealing that part of me.
So yeah.
I’m into tech, I got into tech, after moving to Lagos, in 2016 I met Sinach and I toured with her on her “way maker” tour from that 2016 to 2019 ending, so 2020 now happened. We went touring as usual so when we were touring I would receive stipends. Even though it wasn’t that much but it was enough to keep me going. And it was better than waiting for events to get money. 2020 happened and there was no more tour but live performances in the studio, and it felt like I was back to where I’m coming from again.
The money wasn’t coming and that was when I got into tech, I first did a professional diploma in digital marketing and started my digital agency, I started building websites for companies, starting from building sinach’s website. I built her current website. The sincahmusic.com and several other websites so from there I got more curious about tech then I started with digital marketing then moved to web design, and then got deep into software development.
So now I’m a software developer as well as a musician.
WORKING WITH SINACH HAS TO BE LIKE YOUR BIGGEST COLLABORATION EVER.
Oh most definitely!
Yea cos she changed the game for me.
Meeting Sinach was something I didn’t expect.
I don’t even think I prayed for it.
WHO MADE THE INTRODUCTION?
When it happened I thought nobody introduced us, it was after it happened that I realized that my friend I stay in his house “okesoke” played a role in making it happen. He got a contract to mix a song for Sinach at a point so he was at her place as he was mixing I don’t know how my name came up in the conversation.
Sinach started asking about me and my friend was there so he said good things about me and all.
One day I just received a dm from Sinach on my Instagram account and I thought it was a fake page. So she said Hello Nolly how are you? I said I’m fine, she said where are you? I said I’m in Enugu and after a long conversation, I had to check again to be sure it was not an imposter and I saw the account was verified. So it’s indeed Sinach. She invited me to her event in Abuja and that was the first concert which is the first ever Sinach live-in-concert. It was 2016 and the year’s Valentine’s Day and I can remember it all like yesterday, she booked a flight for me and the hotel I stayed in Abuja to perform in her event.
And after I performed she told me; that so I know I’m part of her team right? Part of the team to minister with her and travel with her.
Because before I was really scared about my music because it was in Igbo I was like how will people in the international space understand? But then I performed in countries like Seychelles. Commonwealth of Dominica, the UK, Zambia and most African countries I went to. They were blessed and loved the music and it gave me more confidence to know that my music is not just for some particular people. It made me change my lyrics now, I don’t write so heavily in Igbo as I used to, I try mixing them with English here and there so my audience from other countries or other cultures will have an idea of what I’m talking about.
So meeting Sinach was the turning point in my career and doing that song “OMEMMA” with her was like the icing on the cake and it was a major achievement for me.
Also, the relationship between I and sinach is that of a mother-son relationship When I worked with her even when we were touring and all that and it was a privilege to learn from her.
WHAT ARE YOU CURRENTLY WORKING ON?
Currently, I’m working on my second studio album, I’ve been doing a lot of collaborations, and singles and I think an album is needed now.
The album should be dropping anytime this summer June/August, I don’t want to give a particular time but to be honest, it’s an amazing album and I’ve been putting a lot of work into it and I want it to be timeless.
ANY WORD OF ADVICE FOR OTHER YOUNG GOSPEL ARTISTS OUT THERE?
My advice to young people into Christian music is to Be authentic, and also Be sure that you’re called and trust God, Trust the process and don’t be in a hurry to ‘blow’. Get good, practice and be Excellent at what you do because the Holy Spirit is not going to make up for you not being excellent. Be excellent and most importantly be Consistent.
I believe consistency is a sign that you have faith. When you do something and you stop because you did it and it hasn’t yet produced results , that’s having small faith. For example when Elijah was praying for rain to fall again in Israel, he prayed and nothing happened he sent his servant to go and check and when he said nothing happened, he continued till he saw a little cloud.
And that is how it happens in your journey as a gospel artist or gospel minister.
Consistency and constantly improving yourself and working closely with God because as a Gospel music artist, you’re not just doing music, you’re doing the kind of music that will bless lives.
Not the kind of music that you smoke igbo and enter the studio.
