Israel’s 2018 Eurovision winner Netta is a burst of colour onto the global pop scene. Raised in international school in Nigeria before returning to the Middle East, Netta has made a statement since winning the fifth season of HaKokhav HaBa. Though a newcomer to the music scene, Netta Barzilai has come to stay. With huge quirk-pop hit ‘Toy’ and a career defining feature with Afrobeat megastar Mr Eazi on ‘Playground Politica’ the sun is still rising on her career.
Banku pioneer, creative visionary and one of Africa’s most streamed artists globally Mr Eazi needs no introduction. The ‘Skin Tight’ hitmaker boasts one of the most star studded collaboration lists including: Beyonce, J Balvin, Giggs and many more. Mr Eazi has not only built an unshakeable music career but has devoted his life to nurturing emerging African music through talent incubator programme emPawa Africa.
Mr Eazi joins forces with Netta on her playful and energetic new single and video ‘Playground Politica’.
Clash sat in on the conversation as Mr Eazi and Netta dive into three gripping topics – Collaboration & Playground Politica, The African Influence and Survival.
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PLAYGROUND POLITICA
NETTA: Well, the track started a really long time ago. The place I am creating from is very therapeutic for me, it’s very healing and because of that, in the last year I really focused on my childhood traumas so, a lot of my songs that I’m going to release after this are going to be specific scenes from my childhood and the main one will be me leaving Nigeria. My father worked there, in construction and I actually got to grow up in a very specific special way in Ibadan. This track is really supposed to capture how – happy, how limitless, and how amazing it was for me up and till I left and to really bring out a side of me that nobody really knows, a playful childish side and also a lot of influence from Afrobeat.
I finished the track, and it didn’t feel complete. It felt very flat. The whole track is about togetherness and me missing that together feeling after being isolated after I came back from Africa (Nigeria) and I needed another voice and I was just “spitballing” just saying who is my favourite Nigerian artists and I had a list of like two or three and Mr Eazi was one of them and when he responded that he would do it. (Excitedly) This is where you come in, I didn’t believe this was really happening. do you want to maybe say what happened when you got the track.
MR EAZI: Yeah, I mean my team sent it to me, Ikenna sent it to me, and he actually sent it at a time where I’m working on my new album. I’m not trying to work with anybody erm, I was working on a joint album with J Balvin and then I was like no I’m not going to do this anymore I just want to work on my own stuff. (Netta giggles) So I was surprised when he sent it to me because I’m like you people don’t send me any features because I was feeling like I was doing all these experiments musically, like fun experiments and I love them all the stuff I do like that is non-traditional afrobeat because I’m a creative period. I think he didn’t even send it to me directly. I was in the studio, and he sent it to E Kelly, and he just played it and it sounded totally different. It sounded exciting, it sounded like a soundtrack of like – you know I watch a lot of cartoons so it had that bright innocent energy and everyone that was in the studio – I have not even told Netta this, everyone that was in the studio loves like hip-hop and grime and everybody was like wow what is this, so I think that was the selling point so I spoke to Netta and she explained what the song was about and the connection with Nigeria.
After that, I didn’t touch the song. I didn’t play it anymore until it was time for me to record and I recorded in Cotonou where I was recording my album. I just played the song and again, there was a different set of guys in the studio who don’t listen to this kind of sound normally and when I played it, it was the same reaction as the last time and I just jumped into it. I tried to take all the energy from what she had explained to me and like, go back to 99’ and speak about Nigeria 99’ which is like my biggest memory of the year 1999 and speak about my friend Larry who I don’t even know what he looks like right now he was my closest friend at the time and the coolest kid in school and just kind of put all that energy into the song in my own way it was a done recording.
NETTA: I love what you’re saying. When you hear a track and that gut feeling you trust when you hear something and then you need your ears fresh, and you wait like 2 or 3 days and then you hear it again and you expect to feel the same way…
EAZI: Yeahhh!
NETTA: I also create from this specific place like from a feeling. I very rarely feel the same about stuff three days after I make it. Like I do something, and I deal with that I hate it but, with this specific track, every time we did something I felt very very strongly that this is something that is so special and so unique. Something about the production and melodies, the mixtures the cocktail between the Afrobeat and my accent and the nursery rhyme kind of stuff it’s very special and when I heard what you put on it, I was so relieved. Because it’s such a personal experience. It’s therapeutic to me and for me to hear it, it was like hearing oh my God its complete now! It was exactly what it needed in terms of, another perspective of something that is bigger, and I just want to thank you so much for giving a piece of yourself in it!
EAZI: It’s my pleasure, my pleasure thank you so much!
COLLABORATION
EAZI: I think on my side, collaborations are very tricky especially when it’s the label forcing the artist to do the song, so the artist doesn’t actually care about the song or want to do the song and then you just feel it. Versus, actually liking the song and you go in and do it but, it’s not what the person wants and its okay if that’s not what the person wants and because of egos, it might get oh I did my best on this record and this person is saying they don’t like it and I think I did my truth to (‘Playground Politica’) it. So maybe, it’s even in that spirit that’s why I was like, I’m not on collaborations any more I just want to do my own thing.
The last person I collaborated with – obviously before this song – that I felt like okay this is honest this is organic, was Balvin (J Balvin). We do songs and you can hear it on those songs that there are no expectations, it’s not like we’re trying to make the number one song in the world we’re actually just trying to have fun and express ourselves on the music and that’s what this feels like as well. The difference is, I like to keep my topics very light and talk about light stuff because I think there’s just so much craziness in the world but on this song, there’s still that lightness and positivity but at the same time it’s deep. I actually get an opportunity to talk about like when I say, “Take me back to the days” there’s a part, “We know they look at your face cuz we no say mommy and daddy got us whatever the case” going back to that time in your life you don’t have to worry about anything like you’re not worried about food or bills or what somebody thinks or what somebody said or this twitter or this journalist or like even your health.
You’re not even thinking about your health, you don’t even know enough to know about your health and what you should eat and what you should not eat, and you trust mom and dad if you’re blessed to have a mom and dad. It’s like you just feel like anything in the world that happens, mom and dad have got you and they’ll fix it. But then you grow up to this point where I am right now and you realise mom and dad don’t got you for everything, there’s a limit right, and now it’s on you. So being able to escape in the song to that part. Every time I hear that part of the verse it’s like I’m escaping back, and I hope that’s the energy. So, this collaboration wasn’t tricky like recording the verse and everything wasn’t tricky. It was less tricky less formal and there was a lot of freedom.
NETTA: This is why Mr Eazi is such a great collaborator. And actually, before I approached you, I listened to stuff you’ve done with other people because it is so tricky to do stuff with other people and to merge styles and create something different and there’s always that question, do we meet? Do we do it together? Or just have you hop on it and see what happens. And I feel that every time I hear something you’ve done with other people, I hear a lot of originality, a lot of yourself, and a lot of heart and I realised that I trust this and it’s going to be okay if you just take this and do what you’re going to do also because of your past as a producer and as I said, I was so relieved and I’m glad I trusted my instinct and I was so glad that you turned out to be, even though you’re so big, such a true artist and you saved it and I’m really, really thankful.
But he is right, collaborations are very very tricky for me. I can say that the best time is to work remotely for me because to create, is like working out, like therapy you need to be very intimate with people in the room and very free and when I have that space alone, I can bring my true self. The fact that we did it remotely really helped the two forces. I just believe the result is a bomb.
THE AFRICAN INFLUENCE
MR EAZI: I think in a lot of ways I am a productive of my environment and that changes over time as I soak in everything but at the crust of it, it all started in Nigeria my career has taken me to appreciate that when people mention Africa I’m not just thinking Nigeria I’m actually thinking about the unique differences in cultures and different energies. So, when I think Africa, it’s not one destination in my head. Even growing up in Nigeria. Having a mom from the East and a dad from the West, if anything I’m growing up and getting influenced and the most reason why I am easy about different people, accepting of people’s traditions, beliefs cultures, and orientation everything is because of how diverse being Nigerian and being African and growing up in Africa lent to you. Right from a very early age, growing up and going to an international school where I had the blended diversity of Nigeria but also international students from very early just made me understand diversity in a different way and just accept it as one of the beauties of life.
NETTA: Where was your international school?
MR EAZI: Sango Otta it’s in Ogun State, I don’t think you’ve been to Ogun State.
NETTA: I haven’t but my father works there so he travels a lot from Ogun state.
MR EAZI: Oh word?
NETTA: Yeah, from Ogun State to Ibadan.
MR EAZI: Yeah, it’s close, it’s close. Oyo state is close to Ogun state so I see how.
NETTA: It’s actually so crazy that me and you, like you were born in 1991, right?
EAZI: Yeah, I was born in 91.
NETTA: It’s funny because in a separate world we could’ve grown in the same way in the same school. So, to be joined in the song by someone that could have been in my class, this is why this is so very special. I actually remember very specific stuff and very specific sounds. Culturally I remember a lot of what we learnt in school which was a lot of Yoruba songs. But I really think that the thing that I left with was, I was in a very small classrooms with two kids from Nigeria, a girl from Japan, a boy from England and two girls from Kenya and the fact that being different isn’t the thing because everyone was different, everyone spoke in different dialects and different accents and it got me to be very independent and very creative you know. A peculiar star but everyone was their own peculiar star.
The trauma for me was, to move from that to Israel, my little brother was diagnosed with Aspergers and there was no way of us treating that in Nigeria at the time. My mother was from Israel. She didn’t know anything so in one day she took us away and we flew back without even the chance to say goodbye. I was immediately put in the first grade with 40 white kids in a classroom and then you realise, you’re the fat kid with the accent that is also very very sensitive… and in a big splash you understand, hey, there is a thing called difference and when kids label you it sticks. I believed for years that: I am unworthy, that I’m uncool, that I’m unintelligent, that I’m not worthy of a boyfriend that I am not worthy to be a social leader and I immediately stopped being happy and I believed for a very long time that I left my happy kid in Nigeria.
Survival is a word that’s consistent in the music industry but what does this mean for artists in the current music climate?
MR EAZI: Survival means fighting every day. It’s a constant fight.
I’ve been touring since 2016 and that’s part of surviving, giving yourself your own space and time to get away from the labels because survival to them is an unfair fight and there is not enough push for equity participation. At the end of the day, you as a creative are being judged by a journalist who doesn’t even understand or have context about you, you’re expected to subject yourself to someone’s uninformed opinion just because they’re from a big publication. But survival, there’s a beauty in it. Right some wrongs, keep creating an art-based ecosystem. It’s beautiful but it’s war everyday.
NETTA: It sounds so frustrating.
MR EAZI: As I say, accept it, it’s beautiful don’t worry. Times like this remind you that at the end of the day the music lives and when you’re talking about authenticity the more reactive we are as creatives, the more we can rise above.
NETTA: These words mean so much to me and thank you so much for educating me. It’s very inspiring. Thank you. I experienced survival in a different way, being from Israel and coming from this complicated place, I am experiencing that I’m often accused of my country’s actions. I’ve experienced a lot of venues declining my performance because of where I come from. It’s a tough conversation even in this conversation.
I just want to bring people together. If you tell me where to perform to bring peace, I’ll do that. My whole aspiration is to bring people together and to just change this narrative. This narrative of hate. This narrative of hating someone different and I hope by bringing more light to this subject darkness will fade.
MR EAZI: Definitely I think these are good times. Good times to rewrite perceptions and every time I’m in a place where I’m told you shouldn’t be talking your business, NO. As an African boy from Naija I will talk about my business. I will sit down in that room and argue my contract with you so that the next time your perception will be, oh these guys love to handle their business and that way I have changed perceptions just by being myself.
NETTA: I love how frank you are. Even the fact you said earlier that, the label is making the artist. You’re saying stuff that is frightening to say and frightening to speak about and i’ts very inspiring. I’m afraid to speak about how much I deserve. Artists are coming from a place where they always need to be grateful for the stage, our words, our lyrics, its singing, it’s performing. We should give it for free. As a woman in this business and as a contestant in a reality TV show I am always underpaid. For years and years performing in bars earning a lot less money than fellow male singers and it’s very difficult to change that nature, to know your worth and to speak about money because this is art.
People can question what you’re doing all the time. I almost always feel like I don’t deserve it but I’m working on it. By talking about it and by speaking and demanding what I’m worth so I can relate a lot to what you’re saying.
Words: Ath’e Zihle
