Meet Agada Prince, popularly known as Yo-X Giddem, the extraordinary Lagos-based music producer behind some of your favourite viral hits. In this 49th interview with Dom Alonge, he shares the creative process behind some of his top songs this year and more exciting exclusives.
What does music mean to you personally?
Music is just a way to express your feelings and at the same time, it is also a medium to pass information. That’s how I understand music. When I want to pass information, I do music. When I want to feel some kind of way, I do music. Music is part of me.
Tell us about how your tag “Yo X” came about.
I recorded that tag myself, in 2018. That was the era of Rexxy. His tag was sweet, and I was looking for a tag for myself. I didn’t even have a producer name when I made that tag. I was like, what if I am extraordinary, people can just start saying ‘you’re extra’ ‘you’re this’ ‘you’re that’. Yo X just came out, we recorded it and boom!!!
Scintillating. How long have you been doing music? And when did you discover you were destined to be a sound engineering guru?
Right from when I was little, I have been into music. There was this man from my church who used to tell my parents that I should play in the church because of my talent. My parents eventually gave in, and they allowed me to go to church to play the piano. Without any tutoring, I was able to play the piano in church. It was like a miracle. Since then, I have been doing music till COVID.
The type of music I was doing then was not music production. It was just normal live playing and church gigs, until COVID came and changed the whole world. It changed me, too. During that period, I was stuck in the house – no gigs, no show, no church because churches were on lockdown too. That was the motivation for me. That was when I decided to get a system and transfer everything I was doing on my instruments to my computer and become a producer.
What song would you describe as your breakout song? What song do you think made everyone start searching for Yo X?
That would be my first song – Machala, because there was no way you would want to talk about that song without talking about the beat when it dropped then. That was the only song with my tag then. Funny how the song became number one on apple music, in the country.
You’ve worked with some of the biggest talents that Afrobeats has ever witnessed and produced viral tracks that didn’t even have popular acts. Can you tell us your top 2 encounters with some of these acts?
Every moment that you try to make new music with different people is a different vibe. If you start making musisc with Artist A, when Artist B comes, it’s a new vibe totally. I loved my sessions with Rema, Shallipopi. Having a session with Jhus made me know that I had properly blown.
Let’s talk about your synergy with Rema; You produced two songs that went number 1 – Hehehe & Benin Boys. Can you give us a description of how these crazy tunes were birthed? What is it like working with Rema in the studio?
Working with Rema is not so difficult. He is a very good artist. He is someone that is precise, he knows what he wants and he does not like to compromise it. When we linked up, he said he needed dark sounds with heavy drums, because he had heard my sounds and he knows I love to play the drums. We were just in the studio. He went out to pick up something and when he came back, I was already making Benin Boys- just the drums. Shallipopi was present during this session.
When he (Rema) came inside, he loved the beat and he was ready to record on the spot. That was how we started. From listening to the beat, he already got the direction, and he recorded it. After recording, I went back to my studio for the post-production.
When I came back to his studio to play it for him, he was like “No, i want that raw version”, he insisted on the first version. To me, that was like my demo work because I will never go to a session and just drop what we just did at once, especially if it seems skeletial to me, it won’t make me comfortable.
I will have to go back home, do some post-production, listen to it, and do some fill-ups on the beat, but this experience was just different. He enjoyed what we started with, so I went back to the original version of Benin Boys. Only for me to come to the studio to find out that he had already finished up the lyrics of the song.
Rema is a very hard-working person. He is precise. He is really the Prince of Afrobeats.
Same thing with Hehehe. Hehehe was not supposed to be a track. He sent me a sample, only the string instrument, and he told me to build on it. I went home, did my thing; then I came back to his studio. At that point, we were wrapping up Benin Boys.
When we were done, I showed him what I had been able to create with the sample he sent. He listened to it, and he loved it. That day, he recorded just a single line: Monday morning talking about me while I was making money. Finish. He didn’t even add the laughing part. Crazy! The next session I came, he said he was trying something out on the beat, because he loved it.
The last session I came for, before the album, he had already recorded the song. He played it for everybody, and they were dumbfounded. I couldn’t understand what Rema did on that song because I was blown away.
He is one of the most precise artists I have ever worked with, and I appreciate him.
You’ve produced a lot of songs for the Pluto President. Can you describe a studio session with him? And so far, which is your favorite Shallipoppi-produced track by X?
We have plenty of hit songs, but I think I love High Tension because it has a sample of Bella Ciao from Money Heist. I loved making that beat. The funny thing is, we didn’t make that beat together. I made the beat, and I left, and he got the idea of the beat, then he sang on it. That’s why I love it. Every artist has their own sound in them. As a producer, we try to create a beat and fuse it with the artist, but working with Shallipopi is like reading his mind. Great connection.
Do you have any new exciting features coming up to exclusively tip us here at 49th? Either locally or internationally.
Expect another Shallipopi album.
What do you want to be your legacy in this music industry?
I admire what Don Jazzy is doing in the game. He has created a good legacy, and I will like to continue from where he stops.
With your experience so far in the industry, what would you say is your most valuable lesson learnt?
Life na give and take. That’s what I’ve learnt.
Your sound is heavily influenced by Afrobeats. Do you ever see yourself branching out and producing music from other genres, like rap and R&B?
I love my space for now. I won’t be changing for anything.
Kindly give us your top 5 songs produced by X in no particular order
This year by Niyi and Berry Tiger. Benin Boys. Hehehe. ASAP. For Daddy by Mayorkun
Any last words to your fans out there?
Just keep doing what you are doing, and God will see you through.
