When Laycon stepped into the Big Brother Naija house, he had one aim: “promote my music.” He won the show, and now his art is winning, writes Joey Akan
Lycon
“Bro, good to finally meet you,” Laycon says, stretching out an arm. We hug, smile and I move towards a seat. A golden Lhasa excitedly circles and sniffs around the room as Laycon, dressed in a two-piece suit, explains her utility. “That’s my dog, Greece,” he says, rubbing her back and directing her to a metal kennel in one corner of the room. “She likes being touched.”
Laycon has spent the sunny afternoon in his Lekki home in Lagos, working to get his debut album, Shall We Begin, from his hard drive and into the phones, playlists and hearts of everyone who cares to listen. There are photo shoots to be arranged. Documentation needs uploading. Signatures are being chased and added to contracts, and a barrage of calls constantly inundates his iPhone, which is never far from his hands and ears. A member of his management team, Tarela, interrupts periodically to seek approval and get clarity on new engagements. Turns out there’s a rehearsal with a live band scheduled on the mainland. “I rehearse a lot, even when I don’t have an upcoming show,” Laycon says. “I just have things I have to do to move to the next level, and this is one of them.”
Sitting pretty beside the living room bar, a foosball table betrays Laycon’s hobby. I ask after the game and his interest in it. “You want me to flog you, let’s go. Let me teach you a lesson,” he says as we move to the table. I stare at a huge portrait of the singer hanging on a wall. Laycon makes good his promise. I get totally dominated and handed a bottle of water for hydration as he brags and makes little victory dances.
Lagos born Laycon, Olamilekan Massoud Al-Khalifah Agbeleshebioba, is on a winning streak in life. Big Brother Naija reality show winner. A personal reality TV show on the streaming app Showmax. Recording Academy performance sets. Writing a profile of Davido in the Times. Social and brand endorsement deals. Performances in foreign countries. And an army of stans who unite under the positivity of his Icons moniker. It’s all coming together for the Ogun State native who has spent years pursuing a direct path to music success and stardom, only to acquire it via reality TV. The Big Brother Naija season 5 winner became one of the biggest beneficiaries of 2020, a year when a pandemic held humanity back. Laycon appeared on our screens as a soft-spoken, intelligent musician who could spit a mean bar while teaching you about the rudimentary methods of pasteurization. Dreadlocked and creative, he coasted through weeks of confinement before winning on the back of popular support.
“I saw a means to a means,” Laycon tells me. “It’s not even a means to an end, that’s the funny thing. The music is still a means. And I took it. And to God who made me, I was just thinking, ‘Spend two weeks there and leave.’ Because in my mind, what would people see in me? Because I’m going to go there and talk about my music all through. And you would understand when you watch the reunion because a lot of the things they were talking about there, I wasn’t really bothered about. Because I was like, I’ve done what I want to do, unless I just want to keep talking about Shall We Begin here. That shows that I just went there for one purpose, and that was the purpose. Music. I came out and I’m facing the music. And yeah, it’s this way because it was meant to be this way.”
It’s always been music for Laycon. Long before the blinding lights, the screams of fans, and microphones shoving their way to get his story, the young rapper had made music his life’s mission. He made the decision in 2009. “It was the year Novak Djokovic won his first Australian Open, because I remember vividly,” he says. Laycon’s older brother had linked him up with an orientation camp for the compulsory one-year paramilitary training program, National Youth Service Corps.
On one of their social events, he signed up for a talent exhibition contest, beating multiple contenders to emerge third. The achievement blew his mind. “I wasn’t even a Corper. Those two [other winners] were. I just went there, I think I rapped, and I won a TV or something. And my brother was like, ‘Oh, wow, music.’ That’s what actually changed everybody’s mind in my house about music. ‘You won this thing because you just went there to rap?’ I said yes. He said, ‘Oh, cool, cool.’”
Laycon tested the limits of that family acceptance. He lived on the edge of it, often running in danger of losing familial approval. Between 2009 and 2012, he turned down admission to four different universities because they would take him away from Lagos and his dream of music. “I knew if I travelled to Ekiti, if I go to Ondo, if I go to Osun State, music don end. I don’t think those schools have the same avenue Unilag had then for music. So that was what was in my mind. Maybe I didn’t think about it in depth. But on the surface, it was, ‘How would I be able to grow as an artist?’” he asks. “They said these people go to Unilag freely. They said this place is close to Unilag, this studio is close to Unilag. Let me go to Unilag. So for every decision I made, it was with music at the foundation. ‘Would this be able to help me push this music thing very well?’”
And even when University of Lagos finally opened its doors for him, he struggled to find the balance between the arts and academia. “I had to sacrifice my social life. I knew I could not do music, do school properly and still have a social life. I tried it in my first semester—I got 3.6 CGPA and I wasn’t happy about it. So I had to abandon my social life. And then focused on music. But it got to a point where I had to pick between project defence and a meeting with one of the top music execs,” he says. “I ditched project defence—I got there late, I couldn’t do the defence. I almost had to rewrite my project the next year because of that. But ultimately, it was always this or music. And it would always be music.”
Laycon also got the chance to leave Nigeria for football. A family connection put him on a football scout’s radar. The agent played his highlight reel for a number of clubs in England. Impressed by his movement and skill on the ball, the clubs demanded for a trial in Europe. Laycon turned it down. It was a tough decision to make because Nigerian society places a huge premium on footballers who leave Africa for distant lands and opportunities. “Mikel Obi was balling and he was getting this big money in Chelsea, so everybody wanted to be a footballer,” he explains. “But I wanted to be an artist. It was music for me. So I dumped that path for music.”
Nigeria has a trodden history of reality TV stars who fashioned successful careers after a boost from TV shows. Musicians Timi Dakolo, Iyanya, Omawumi, Niniola and others carry the torch for the reality-show-to-music-fame industrial complex. But they all found fame from music-centric shows. Big Brother Naija has produced many housemates who have attempted a post-show music career. Only Laycon has found a way to build a career providing instant returns, with the promise of more down the line.
What makes Laycon the real deal is his talent. Originally given to rap, Laycon dropped four projects—including the introductory Who Is Laycon? EP—prior to getting into the Big Brother House. As his star rose within the game and viewers fell for his charms, his music enjoyed the attention. First his numbers continued to climb, moving from a few thousand to millions of streams. By late September, when he emerged winner, he was north of 20 million streams. “I was on 103,000 on all platforms before I went into the house. And when I came out, it was 7 million on all platforms. And that’s crazy. ’Cause from when I came out till #EndSARS, and after that when I put out ‘Hip Hop,’ the spike was high and I had over 20 million. So from 7 million, I don’t know how that happened. Right now, it has over 40 million streams.”
What did that jump in numbers mean for him? It made him an elite artist who could leverage the sustained spike for more. On his return to studio and music, his record label rewrote his contract to reflect the change in status, keep him happy and give him a better deal for future projects. It’s the right thing to do, Laycon believes. Artists need validation from within and without. And an improved contract communicates that on different levels, speaking to both ego and pocket. It’s important that a renegotiation happened. “It shows that without you even having to talk about it, a whole lot of people are thinking from your perspective too. What you’ve brought to the table, what you’ve added. The positivity that you’ve brought. It is actually reflecting in the relationship and the way business is being done,” he says.
Laycon’s debut album, Shall We Begin, was an instant hit with his fans. Designed as an introduction to the fly life and upper levels of recognition and success, it unfurls into rap and pop, both sides often blending for effect. Singles “Wagwan” and “Fall for Me” made radio rotation and playlists, becoming hits in Nigeria. And in June, he delivered a performance of “All Over Me” for the Recording Academy/Grammys. “It basically just shows my diversity and versatility as an artist,” he says. “That was my aim for the Shall We Begin album. Because it’s Shall We Begin. Moving forward, these are the kinds of things you should be expecting. Not just me rapping alone, not just me singing alone. But me always doing what you don’t think I could do.”
For his next steps, Laycon is releasing a new album, I Am Laycon, as a soundtrack to his reality TV show on Showmax. The 10-track LP delivers on his hip hop promise, taking fans through some of his most intricate wordplay and world building. It’s a project that he’s obligated to release, even though he isn’t finished pushing Shall We Begin. But that’s what stardom and music success does to you. It makes demands on your best and worst days, and you have to answer to them.
We talk for hours, between mouthfuls of pizza, in and out his SUV, trash talking about foosball and sporadic engagements from fans and an industry that takes and takes and takes until you’re out of things to give.
