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We’re super-excited to welcome to our humble Vents Magazine pages Nigerian-American singer and songwriter Gozie Ukaga; thanks for taking time to talk with our ever-inquisitive readers today, Gozie! Before we get too far down the proverbial Q&A rabbit hole, how is 2025 treating you and yours?
2025 has been an interesting year for me; a year of growth and re-focusing on my well-being. I’ve been grateful, and very fortunate to spend a lot of time with my parents, siblings and some extended family as well. It can be very grounding for me to step away from creating to live and experience time with the family I grew up with.
Major congratulations on your absolutely stunning new album Color which is lighting up record charts across the ever-loving globe even as we speak! Can you talk about what inspired this breathtaking new LP release?
I was inspired by the need to tell the rest of a story I started with SHADE EP in 2019. There was a moment when I was working on ‘Grudge’ in 2020 that I knew I was going to make a sequel. I’m glad to have had the opportunity to go the extra mile on the anniversary and deliver it in the way I did after the short film for ‘Interstate Ninety Four’ came out and my video was part of a pair of local film festivals.
You handled the producing and mix-engineering duties on Color yourself; congrats again! What do you feel the pros are to serving as your own producer versus outsourcing the task to someone else
I think it can be helpful when setting the mood and dialogue for what I want to say. It helps with nuance when you control the Equalizer (EQ) or Compression on your vocal or can make certain decisions on background vox with delays, and reverb. But it also can be helpful when you have to make space for yourself on a track such as ‘Elipsis; where I stripped back the original track that I produced with the folks who helped produced my 2019 single ‘Off & On”. At some points I just had the baseline going with a topline vocal melody. In the case of ‘Colorado’ I added some soft synths and pitched the guitar up or down in places, a bit to taste, just to help guide the song and I found myself being more additive than reductive. You learn every day as a musician, but particularly as a mix engineer I learned a lot on this record.
We’re absolutely gobsmacked by the showstopper of a track “Prism” which stands proudly among nine other out-of-this-world tunes on the new Color LP! What’s the story behind this amazing piece of music?
I have to give credit to Sebastian Rydel (Sebastian Omori) who I also worked with on ‘Hue’ as well as ‘Told You’. ‘from Shade EP’ (at that time he went by THURSDYNGHT). Sebastian wrote his hook/chorus to a beat idea I sent him and then handled the majority of the drum programming on ‘Prism’ as well. I was able to add the bridge section and produce sort of another true electronic track due to my focus on the melody, chords and overall sample arrangement. I run a lot of songs past Sebastian, so I am super glad we were able to get another record together. I actually originally met him through my younger sister who went to high school with one another but he’s been a great friend and collaborator.
How is the Color album similar to some of your past music? How is it different?
I grew more mature as an engineer and songwriter. I think I take more care in how I’m presenting myself to my audience and learned more about what suits my taste beyond the melancholy pallets of my previous work.
What does your touring/performing dance card look like in the coming weeks and months?
I had an event scheduled this summer with Minneapolis Institute of Art that was canceled but I hope to work with them in the coming year, otherwise I’m pretty available and may do some DIY shows if the opportunity presents itself.
As we noted at the tip-top, you’re Nigerian-American and your current stomping grounds are out of the Minneapolis-Saint Paul, MN area. How do these seemingly disparate roots inform you as both an artist and as a person?
I think it’s humbling for me. A lot of the music I heard growing up was Igbo Gospel, Reggae. My parents came to the United States in their twenties so they also were fans of popular music and were familiar with Michael Jackson, Dolly Parton, etc. so I felt very well rounded as a listener. Afrobeats emergence as a genre with artists like Wizkid, and Rema as well as the Alte sub-genre with artists like Odunsi, Santi also was very great for the country of Nigeria over the last decade. I used to go to my friend Rich Garvey’s studio, a Liberian-American artist, in Minneapolis at the time, and he’d play a lot of artists that were breaking or having a big moment during sessions.
Which music artists have inspired you over the years?
I’ve been inspired by many artists by their music but to highlight a few, I’d say Tems, Majid Jordan and Frank Ocean.
As a singer and songwriter, which generally tends to come first for you during the creative process – The lyrics or the music? Or is it all a bit more freeform than all of that?
It does help me to start with melody; when I write, the initial tones/production can tend to inform what I feel or say. It can definitely be freeform as well but that’s my “default session” approach.
Any final thoughts you might like to share with fans and readers alike regarding your latest masterpiece Color?
I would also encourage anyone who liked these projects to check out my mixtapes available for free on SoundCloud or Audiomack titled ‘Overtime Goz’ & ‘Overdrive Goz’ – I had a lot of fun creating those as well. Thank you for the opportunity to chat, Vents Magazine!
