FLOHIO Is Setting The Pace

If down to earth were to have an image to put to it, FLOHIO would be the embodiment of that image. The Bermondsey-raised, South East Londoner migrated from Nigeria at a young age. Flash forward a couple of decades later and FLOHIO has formed a stand-out sound, infused with a melting pot of influences that only a metropolis like London can form. FLOHIO has countless achievements to her name, not to mention a spectacular COLORS performance and a brand new twelve-track project under her belt. Clash sat down with FLOHIO to talk through her influences and what the process of creating her debut album ‘Out of Heart’ means to her.

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It’s a sunny Friday afternoon, FLOHIO’s debut studio album has just been released and her cadence when we connect is, for want of a more accurate phrase, electric. Buzzing from the high of a completed project and a new challenge conquered she explains to me what spark started her journey into music. “I have an older sister. So when my sister goes out, everything’s in her room, she’s got the CD’s the TV. I was forever sneaking into her room and discovering new stuff. I kind of fell in love with those rap songs, she would have them for whatever reason maybe the artwork was nice or she was trying to get inspiration from a hairstyle that someone’s got. I saw a lot of what she was doing as well as a promoter in the club scene too.”

She lights up when talking about her sister, the influence she has had on her is unmistakable and this energy spreads further in FLOHIO’s life. When I ask what moments stand out to her since 2016’s ‘Nowhere Near’ EP she’s quick on the response: “Travelling, having my friends with me outside of ends because everybody was here with me from the get-go. Being able to go abroad, you know, looking over and having a moment, everyone’s having a moment, everyone can’t believe where they are. I appreciate those moments because it makes sense, there’s no point in doing this if your day ones aren’t really around you.”

“It never feels like work,” she adds. “Being able to be in control of what I want to do and be in control of my life. I think those are the things I hold on to, it makes it seem real, I wake up and do whatever I want to do, and no one can tell me anything”.

Believing in herself and her capabilities proved to be the thing that held her in stead until the rest of the world caught up with her. “I’ve been told that maybe you shouldn’t rap or whatever. It’s such a man’s world! ‘Maybe you should try production. Maybe you should try this.’ People have tried to stray me away from this direction. But now it’s the same people that come to my shows. In my head, I’m like: I told you!”

“That’s the story of the world, you got to take a chance on your soul before anyone you know, if you don’t push it forward who else is gonna push it for you? You’ve got to take the risk first so that everyone can see. It always takes a village you know, but the underdog comes up.”

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Even though FLOHIO might have been the underdog in some spaces, she wasn’t seen as such by those closest to her. “I was quite a musical kid. I was supported with being musical, growing up in church and being around instrumentalists. Live music has always been dominant in my whole life, Music was heavy in our culture. So I’ve always been growing up around melodies, and hymns, I was in the choir. I had to help out in Sunday school because my grandma and all of them were reverends. I was heavily into that whole gospel music. I grew up in a massive Anglican church. So, you know, the big chords that fill the size of the whole place!”

The relationship between music and emotional sensation runs deep in FLOHIO’s sound, reminiscing on younger days spent in church staring up at organs. “The guy would be screeching and I can’t wait till everyone starts singing so we could hear them chords go off. It was something I always wanted to have in my music, synthesisers and all of those things I used to hear back in the church. That’s why I wanted to do an album. My singles, they’re more in-and-out tracks. At the moment, this is how I’m feeling right now on the day. For the album, I wanted to go back to that nostalgia, the origin story. Which is why it’s more melodic, singing a lot, and a bit more vulnerable”.

This vulnerability across ‘Out Of Heart’ comes out most potently on ‘Grace’ where she exercises new limits to her genre-bending, crackling hip-hop beats and impeccable double-time flows. Delving into how her sound came to be, FLOHIO comments: “That’s one thing I think helps my music as well, being unique or different or outside. I have different spectrums going on in my head and I want to be able to showcase that.”

I ask if she could place an atmosphere or a setting to her music and what it would look like; she responds, “I’d think of it in two places. Number one, it’d be driving on a long road trip, it goes into the nighttime. The other is a house party, somewhere on the top floor, but not even a crazy one, an intimate one. It’s chilled and we’re overlooking the scenery, but it’s got to be high up. I like to smoke and, look over the horizon and you have the music in the background, bringing serotonin and serenading the scene.”

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It’s clear that this particular creative process has served its intended purpose in her life. “This project helped me with clarity,” FLOHIO states. “At the start of it I was confused as hell, man, I was in a haze trying to figure shit out. At the start of the lockdown so 2020, everyone’s minds were rattled. Everyone was going through a lot. The only place I could go was the studio.”

The time spent working through her psyche was not a process she resents. “I love writing alone. I’m a tailor with it. I spend a lot of time on a line because I want it to sound so nice; yes, what I’m saying but how it sounds too, and the placement of it when I’m putting it on a beat, or wherever it is on the track. All these little things count to me. How many words or how many syllables, those little things count to me. Numbers are also very important. Numbers are music to me.”

Continuing, FLOHIO details how precise she is with the make-up of her tracks and how that afforded her an avenue to express some difficult emotions. “At that time, a lot was happening, breakups were happening, going back and forth with family and friends, and trying to figure out what’s my career gonna be like when we come out. A bunch of questions. The only outlet I had was the album, going into these sessions, recording the songs, and writing what I truly feel.”

“The one thing that I got out of it was clarity. I was in a noisy place with myself, and I wanted to get out of it. You have your plans, but the universe has its plans also.”

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FLOHIO’s debut album ‘Out Of Heart’ is out now.

Words: Naima Sutton