CHIKA’s new EP digs deep and is a great display of self exploration through art
American Nigerian Rapper CHIKA’s new EP “WISH YOU WERE (T)HERE” is a vulnerable exploration of self. When CHIKA first burst onto the rap scene, she was a breath of fresh air — a dark-skinned, plus-size woman radiating confidence and lyrical prowess. Her debut EP, “Industry Games”, earned her a Grammy nomination in 2021 for Best New Artist. Since then, life has shifted. CHIKA is no longer aiming to impress; instead, she seeks to capture humanity and self-expression, creating music that resonates with those who need real and vulnerable stories to carry on.
In this exclusive interview, CHIKA opens up about this transformative chapter. She reflects on a two-year hiatus from the public eye, coping with the death of her father, and pouring her heart onto every track.
How did stepping away from just making music for a while influence the stories on the new EP?
The inspiration behind “Wish You were (T)here” is really kind of wrapped up in the time I took away from music. A lot has happened in between my last project, which was two years ago with “Samson”. When I picked up the pen again and got back into writing, all the things that were at the forefront of my mind subconsciously and presently, they just ended up pouring into the project. In a way, it wrote itself. I didn’t know what I wanted to make exactly, but everything I wanted to say just flowed out of me.
What are some of the themes and ideas you explore on the EP?
For the most part, the EP is wrapped up in nostalgia. I’ve felt a strong desire to explore all the stories behind the things that have meant the most to me in my past. I ended up accidentally speaking about my present and future as well by discussing the places that I wish people had been. That is mainly the experiences that I’ve had without eyes on me. Taking a step away from the public has allowed me to review my own life and experience new things. My dad ended up passing away last year after he finally got to see my first show in my hometown.
After that, I went really quiet, and I started having to deal with grief. At that time, I also learned about being on the spectrum and having that kind of realisation after a parent passes away or right as they’re passing away is a lot. There are a lot of questions I wanted to ask him, but instead I just put those into the songs.
For a song like “Stimming” and “Withdrawal” that were about coping terribly with the loss of my dad. There are themes of the project that are really introspective but also retrospective in terms of coming to the realisation of a lot of the things that I was experiencing in the past two years. I was present for them, but I haven’t really opened up and talked about it.
As I return to music, the title reflects a wish that people could witness the growth and changes, because I’m a completely different person now. But I’m doing that by reflecting on everything that I’ve been through.
I am sorry to hear about your father’s passing. That must have been tough. Did you spend some time in Nigeria after your father’s passing, and did that experience have any effect on you?
I actually didn’t get to go to Nigeria following my father’s passing, and that affected me. I wasn’t able to for health reasons. I remember talking to my therapist about that and explaining how that was bothering me. A lot of things have happened to me. The trauma I’ve experienced is what was standing between me and being able to go home and see his final resting place. I still hope to be able to do that very soon. That experience definitely influenced the music, because my connection to my dad wasn’t built on music, but it was certainly supported by it. He was my biggest fan. He really was.
I used to come home for visits, and I’d be in my room upstairs, and I would just hear music blasting, and I would open my door, and he’d be playing my music, which is hilarious. I’d be like, “All right, Dad. I get it. You love me, and you want me to know that you listen.” In making the new music, even though he’s no longer here physically, I know that he’s hearing it and that he’d be proud.
When I went home for my high school reunion, they actually gave me a day in my city. To know my dad had worked most of his adult life in that city around the people who were now honouring him — by virtue of our last name — when they honoured me, they honoured him too. All of those things tie into the music and how I’m honouring him as well.
What is your favourite song from the EP?
It changes daily, really, but I think that I always come back to “Float” because “Float” is one of those songs that wrote itself. Honestly, it tells me something new every single time I listen to it. It just makes you feel like you’re back home, or at least talking to someone from home. I call it my love letter to hometowns everywhere, and so when I need to be in my feelings, “Float” is the one I tend to turn on the most.
How did you approach writing a song that sits so closely between grief and hope?
If I remember correctly, when we were making “Float”, I ducked out of the studio to take a minute to myself. I was thinking and responding to questions that were popping into my head. From there, I think it was just all a stream of consciousness. I didn’t have a set theme or decision on where I was really coming from. I knew the vibe and the feeling, but I didn’t have anything specific I wanted to talk about. It became a stream of consciousness, and all the reflections you hear on it — the names I drop and the places I’m at, those are the things that were literally popping in my head as I put pen to paper.
Those are the underlying questions and the underlying emotion behind everything I had already said in the first verse. It actually took me a lot longer to write the second verse. Not in terms of the total time it took to write, but from verse one, I waited so long after writing verse one to write verse two because transporting yourself back there is a matter of being in the right state of mind and place to be able to even reflect. I didn’t just want to write a verse that felt like, okay, “Here you go”. I wanted to have another moment to just sit back and reflect on life and how the people that we meet and run into and the experiences we have can lead us to new and better things. Things that end up being monumental in our lives.
How would you describe your artistic evolution? What feels different about this new project?
In terms of my evolution, I feel less pressure to be understood or accepted by people who may not get me. In taking two years away from being in the public eye, you find solace in anonymity and not being perceived as much. Not being perceived under a microscope and under such scrutiny. With that freedom, I’ve been able to talk more to my inner child and to myself. That’s the person who has been singing, writing, rapping, and making music all along — it’s that little girl.
For the years that I spent at the forefront, I think she got a little bit suffocated and stifled because it was about competition and who’s doing this and who’s selling this and what rap girly is at the forefront. But this was never my goal or my intention when I started this journey as an artist. I think the artistic evolution is really just going to appear to be a new freedom, a more relaxed art style. While also talking about and expressing the things that have always been important to me, rather than trying to please somebody with a hit.
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Do you feel like there were any creative risks or sonic experiments on “WISH YOU WERE (T)HERE” that pushed you out of your comfort zone?
Not really risks, but with a song like “Friend”, it’s borderline a-capella. We have a few strings underneath just for a razzle-dazzle factor. But that song is a love letter to myself, and it sounds more like a love letter to someone else. In those moments of vulnerability when I’m like, “I love what I’ve done, and I love what I’ve written”, I just hope that it is received by the right ears as the gift that I hope it to be. Those are the real risks that I took.
The risks are in the subject matter and in the placement of these songs and how we compiled the project because we really went in there and said, let’s throw paint and see what our hearts are saying. The real risk is just kind of reintroducing myself and exposing all of my flaws, some of my weaknesses.
Was there anyone you were listening to who influenced your new music, or just you personally?
I’ve just been kind of tapping back into the music that I listened to in high school, which is really funny. The project is nostalgic, framed not around high school specifically, but around the past ten years of my life — I graduated high school in 2015. I was pulling up music that used to make me so excited and really happy because that was the height of my creation in terms of when it was just revving up and when I was like, “Okay, I’m leaving high school, and I want a career.” My head was always in a computer, and my mouth was always near Mike at all times. I was just listening to my old mixtapes. I was listening to “More About Nothing” by Wale.
Funny enough, I was listening to Lionel Richie. I was also listening to random musicals and whatever I caught on the radio. Recently, I’d say one of my biggest inspirations has been Kendrick Lamar. Last year, I listened to “Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers” so much because I felt like “Samson” was Mr. Morale’s little brother. And so I ended up listening to a lot of that and then transporting myself back into earlier Kendrick and remembering the people that used to inspire me.
Now that I’ve completed the project and had some time, I’m just listening to the random things that pop out and reminding myself to be inspired again.
How do you balance vulnerability and confidence in your music, especially when you’re sharing parts of your healing process?
I think that those two things go hand in hand. With vulnerability, you have to be confident to be vulnerable. You can’t be unconfident and vulnerable — that’s not what this was. Nobody forced me to go into that studio. I was just like, “Okay, there are things to make.” I feel like, in a way, artists free themselves of the burden of being alive all the time by just being able to have the catharsis of saying the difficult stuff out loud. We’re tasked with the responsibility to take care of other things in our personal life with friends, and family. But those things can sometimes be harder than just writing a song and humming a melody that comes immediately to you.
Vulnerability ends up being the biggest because a lot of people don’t really find themselves with outlets to be able to express themselves as freely and openly.
What do you hope listeners feel after hearing “WISH YOU WERE (T)HERE” from start to finish?
I hope they feel reflected in the media and represented, even if it’s just bits and pieces here and there. Sometimes a full song may not resonate with somebody, but a line will. And that line is the difference between feeling seen and feeling like nobody in this world could ever have the same experiences. My only hope when I make music is that it lands upon the ears that it needs to, that it gives those people exactly what they need to get in that moment.
I hope that, in terms of replay value, as the years go on and as I continue to create, this piece of art also connects to the others. We’re all making things that we think are independent of each other, but it ties into this beautiful tapestry that explains the human experience that we’re all sharing right now. I just hope that it’s a part of the zeitgeist for a minute and that it can provide us all with an outlet and an avenue to be ourselves fully and embrace the things that we are often uncomfortable with.
