Kohsea: The Unstoppable Rise of Nigeria’s Newest R&B Sensation
“A Conversation with Nigeria’s Rising R&B Sensation”
Mbadugha Pearl Kosisochukwu, popularly known by her stage name “Kohsea,” is a Nigerian female R&B/Afrobeats artist.
It was a hot Sunday afternoon, the weekend after Kohsea returned from her trip to Port Harcourt for her dad’s burial, back to Lagos.
The conversation started vibrantly. Kohsea was open and in high spirits, although she began by saying she was in a dark place and needed self-recovery. “I’m an independent female artist who hasn’t exactly gotten her big break, and right now, it’s testing my patience, my faith… This is just that moment when you know you cannot give up. I know there’s potential here, I have something to give to the world, but I must find the best way to deliver it.”
Kohsea talked about her branding, how she is trying to figure out her brand, and how to properly position it. She seemed conflicted, and we had a chat about it. Despite her struggles, Kohsea is hard to miss. She carries herself with such power that the Gen-Zs would say, “She is who she is.” From the way she speaks to her lifestyle, artistic style, and overall energy and aura, you can’t afford to miss Kohsea in a room. I first encountered her at Hitsound’s Guinness World Record attempt, and I would say it would be difficult to tell her apart from an A-list celebrity. She’s an artist one could say was born to do music.
So far in my conversation with Kohsea, one thing was evident: her hunger for growth. “I have shown people a phase of Kohsea, and I feel my listeners and supporters are looking forward to the next thing Kohsea is going to do,” she said. “As an artist, you can’t keep giving rice and stew every time you’re serving; you need to switch things up,” she explained. She mentioned she is open to working with more people—producers and all—to broaden her exposure and get inspired.
She recounted how she’d put herself under pressure and was finding it difficult to get inspired enough to make music. “I was in the studio, and for three days we were finding it difficult to make music, and it got us under so much pressure because we wanted it to work.” This pushed her to try and relax; she’s gone out and tried to de-stress, and so far, it has helped her feel lighter.
Kohsea talked about her current vision: “The phase I’m in right now as Kohsea, my music and brand, I just want to give the world better; I want to deliver the best of what I can create.”
Kohsea is known for her lyrics about heartbreak and love. She wears the persona of a “baddie,” and in this interview, I asked her to explain it all. She said, “You know how you look for what you don’t have. Growing up as a young girl, I can’t say I’ve experienced what true love is from the opposite sex—only in the movies. I live in a delulu world.” Kohsea explained how she is a lover girl at heart and has a lot of love to give despite being hurt. She explained the lyrics of her song “Need You,” expressing how she is ready for love and speaking to a boy she likes, asking him to make things work between them. “I’m tired of the bare minimum. The bare minimum never gets you the best experience of love.” She explained that this was also what inspired “Deep Freezer,” written after her breakup. She addressed the part of her being a “baddie” as just her style and how she likes to dress.
She went on to say that in her future songs, she’d be bringing something fresh and vibrant, something new. “I’m trying to bring the spice in the ice. No more sad Kohsea that sings heartbreak songs. I want to focus now,” she jested.
Kohsea talked about how she found her sound: “I listened to a lot of white artists while growing up, so this influenced my style a lot. I did a lot of competitions, and I was in the choir. For the longest time, I didn’t know what genre I was singing, and it was people who pointed out that my style seemed foreign. This helped me not put myself in a box because I was just singing on the beats for the longest time.”
We also discussed her fanbase, called “Planet K,” and how she wants to put out a body of work to properly explain her vision.
Kohsea explained how important music is to her. She moved to Lagos from Port Harcourt after university to chase her music career. This was after sneaking around to make music back in Port Harcourt, where she mentioned going as far as blocking her family from her socials, considering that she was sent to medical school. Coming out to say she wanted to do music was not going to go well. Fast forward to her moving to Lagos: she got her family on a call and told them about her plans to pursue her career as an artist. This was in 2022. She said the price she had to pay was her parents telling her that if she chose that path for herself, she couldn’t call home for anything, and she stuck to it. “If disobeying my parents is not enough reason for me, then I don’t know how important music is to me,” she added. She talked about the expectation placed on the girl child to stay with her parents until she gets married, and how she had to break out of the norm.
Kohsea talked about when she realized she wanted to do music. She was in her final year at the university, and she had the option of chasing her dream of doing music or going abroad for her master’s, which might have been the end of her dream. Going abroad to study costs a lot of money, so it would have been difficult to explain to her family that their resources had gone to waste. That was when she made the decision she made. She seemed content when she said, “Do you know what’s up, Andrea??? They see me now. I was at my dad’s burial, and I was told to sing. I was in shock, but it was all so wholesome because I fought for this, and now they all want it to happen as well. I’m in my ‘not giving up’ phase.”
Kohsea explained the jump between studying a medical course and chasing her career as an artist: “It felt impossible. Dropping out felt like a better option, but I had to discipline myself.” She mentioned that at some point, she was in conversation with a top stakeholder in the industry, and while it felt like an alignment, she wasn’t ready because she was held back by fear. “I had to conquer fear and self-doubt.” She talked about the opportunities she’d gotten to perform on stage when Omah Lay was in Port Harcourt. Dandizzy had also given her a spotlight on his stage. She talked about how she got the opportunity to perform in places she didn’t expect and how it all felt like an alignment. She mentioned that there were a lot of signs, and it took a while before she was bold enough to embrace them.
Kohsea described her happy place as being within herself.
We took a walk back through her background and how it influences her as a person and her lyrics. She said that while she grew up with tough love and had misunderstood it at the time, it made her yearn to be loved by the opposite gender. But as she grew, she started to understand the approach and realize it wasn’t because she wasn’t loved—it was just their way of expressing their emotions. “I’m trying to walk away from my trauma and bad habits I picked up while growing up. I want to come out of it and bask in true love.” She jested about how PH (Port Harcourt) pidgin is, and when she has to speak it: “PH pidgin comes with authority.” She teased that she has a song that brings out her spirit as a PH babe!
We talked about male domination in the Nigerian music industry and the struggles. She pointed out that women used to be so afraid. It used to seem like the industry didn’t support women, but it was more from a place of fear, and the ones who dared, got backlash. She mentioned names of ladies in the industry who have dared to do things their way, and she expressed her respect for them. “There’s space in the industry for women.” She recounted what someone had told her. For Kohsea, her only struggle is getting investments.
Kohsea used to organize singing competitions back in secondary school. She attended an all-girls school and was quite extroverted. “I used to get called to sing at the parties of my classmates, and I’d get paid with their provisions or dinner that night” So apparently, music had started paying me before I knew I could make money off music,” she jested.
She talked about how she started organizing talent shows with other girls who knew how to sing when she was in SS3. “Funny enough, I never won any of these competitions despite being an organizer because there were so many other talented girls. I believe this was one of the things that shaped me.”
Kohsea mentioned she’d worked at a club after moving to Lagos, where she worked as a bottle girl. It was her way of making ends meet and funding her music.
Kohsea has been putting music out officially since 2020. She recounted how she almost signed a messy deal with an independent artist that would have cost her a lot, but she was saved by an Entertainment lawyer, Akinyemi Law who was fighting against bad deals in Nigeria. She described him as God-sent.
Kohsea had so much positive energy and Insightful Information to share. She is a powerhouse of knowledge and she knows who she is.
Kohsea said she plans to release two more singles before the end of the year.
Kohsea talked about the high charges by producers which forced her to learn how to record herself.
Kohsea said a milestone for her is to achieve 100k streams on her song before the end of the year. “It seems achievable and I’m working towards it.” “I also want to work with A and B list artists and also to be on the Ijoya playlist” She mentioned that she wants to build a strong team with people who genuinely have her back.
Kohsea said the most fulfilling part of her doing music is having something to offer and having a way to impact the lives of other people. “I like the fact that music is shaping me into the woman I’ve always wanted to become.”
“I want to chase my dreams. I am talented”
Kohsea encourages every woman to fight for what they want. “Music found me and changed my mindset, it saved my life.”
As we came to the end of our conversation, Kohsea sang a line from her favorite line from her favorite song ‘Free Mind’ “This is the peace that you cannot buy…..” to her it brings the feeling of elevating and being light weighted.
She shouted to A&R Duty to close our chat for being the real deal.
Written by Andrea Andy – 28 Aug 2024