American Nigerian musician, Jidenna burst on to the scenes with “Classic Man” in 2015 - an anthem that caught everyone off-guard and earned him a Grammy nomination for best rap/sung collaboration.
He quickly followed up with the single “Yoga”, featuring Janelle Monáe. It turned out to be another banger that had everyone “bending over”.
Fast-forward eight years later, and several collaborations with African artists, he’s set to release his third album titled “Me, You and God”, and regards this one as a “reinvention” of himself.
“I don't want to roll around with a mask any more. I didn't want to just offer music that people expected. I'm a little bit of a rebel like that, for better or worse.
“It's maybe a terrible move. I feel like I have that in my blood to switch, to move, to invent, to reinvent. And this album, ‘Me, You and God’ is a reinvention of me,” Jidenna explained.
The “Little Bit More” hitmaker, who was literally looking for more during the Covid-19 pandemic, started making this album. Around the same time he met a woman and fell in love.
“I found her on a beach in LA and once we met, it was a wrap. My brother told me, ‘You fall in love three times and that's it. So make sure the third time's a charm’. And this is my third time.
“She helped me finish the album. I started the album with a certain intention, but I came out on the other side.”
“Me, You and God” comes four years after his last release and consists of 13 tracks. It is produced by Roman GianArthur, who worked with Jidenna before on “Classic Man” and also features on the release.
Jidenna regards GianArthur as one of the “greatest artists and producers in the world“.
"I started my professional career with him. Once when Roman went to Prince's house with Janelle Monáe, Nate Wonder and Chuck Lightning (music producer), Roman starts playing guitar because Prince always made the musicians jam with him.
“And Prince literally said to Nate and Janelle, ‘Roman is one of the best guitarists I've ever heard’. He's an amazing composer. But I've been making music with him from jump. He’s on every album and produced on the last album as well.”
Knowing the risk of putting out something sonically different than his previous two albums - “The Chief” and “85 to Africa” - Jidenna still regards his upcoming work as something “amazing” and hopes his fans appreciate it.
"I'm hard on myself, but I know this project is fantastic … We'll see how people receive it. Every artist's dream is to be received. We all want to be appreciated.
“I always want to show different sides of myself. Some artists sell the same side, and that's it. I've always been the type of person to switch my hair every album, switch the outfits. It's always a change because I think it's my father in me, to be honest.
“My name Jidenna, Jide means to ‘embrace’. Enna means ‘father’. My dad was very much an inventor, but he was just a rebel, always.”
Aside from reinventing himself, sonically, he is also very much trying to do things differently in his personal life, too.
He and his partner are navigating the grey space between monogamy and polyamory.
“We both came from non-monogamous situations, now it’s just us. We in a foundation-building stage. That's all I care about. People think polyamory is automatically open off rip. People be trying to add on too quick.
“We may not open up ever. I reserve that right. Or it may be in 10 years, or it may be in a year,” he said.
Jidenna also discussed being a role model for unconventional masculinity and touched on how his new album encompasses all of these topics.
"I believe that part of my legacy is to show specifically cis heterosexual men that there are other ways to be a man. There are other ways to be masculine. And those other ways are not all new. They're ancient.
“Look at other pictures or history books of how men presented themselves. It's not like we are the first generation to have fluid gender people. We're not the first generation to have men wearing skirts at the Met Gala.
“Actually, skirts are all over the world. The pants, the trousers most of us wear as men was a small sector of society. Most people had the long tunics, even all the way up to Scotland.
“I just want to share with people, especially young boys out there, that there's different ways to be different archetypes that you could follow to be a ‘man’.”