White Garment Church, Yoruba Proverbs Shaped My Music – Vector

Nigeria Musician, Rapper and Songwriter, Olanrewaju Ogunmefun David, popularly known as Vector the Viper, has revealed that his music background helped him stay atop in his music career.

Naijaonpoint reports that Vector said his Yoruba origin and his early Christian life in a white garment church made it impossible for him to be boxed into a particular corner.

In an interview with Arise News, the ‘Early Momo’ crooner commended the versatility of Nigerian musicians in the Afrobeat industry.

“Every artiste has the right to affiliate with music how they wish. Let’s not box anything in. I have been honest with my music and as a Yoruba boy, I was raised with words and proverbs and wise sayings. Those things form like the core background of what you do. But then, I was also exposed to music properly in the white garment church. So how do I box myself? Which is why I say I am just within the confines of music, he said.

Vector explained that ‘Rap-frobeat,’ a fusion of rap and Afrobeat, guarantees a musician’s versatility while maintaining originality.

“With Rap-frobeat, I realized that majority of the things that we claim will always lead to foreign intelligence to define and also even with Afrobeat, I have done a little bit of academic inquiry into it, but musically speaking. But Afrobeats as a music genre is probably in the recent past, the only genre of music that can embody different genres of music and still maintain its original identity,” he stated.

The ‘Crown of Clay’ crooner disclosed that he went into Rap-frobeat to prove to critics he could sing and was blessed with words.

“So, yes, there is Afrobeat like the one Fela has done which is legendary but the way that the contemporary artistes have been able to fuse things together. So, I then made Rap-frobeat because I feel like, especially those of us that came into the rap game, there is this misrepresentation that says because you are a rapper, you can’t sing, whereas in my head, as Africans, we are blessed with words,” Vector added.