Samuel Edward Fakunle, who performs as Blizz, names two things when he is asked about his greatest achievement. The first is the number of songs he has made. The second, which he treats as equally important, is “teaching other people how to produce and become better musicians.” Blizz is a Nigerian Afrobeat singer, songwriter and producer based in the United Kingdom, and he has been active in the music industry for nine years. He is not signed to a label, and he produced most of his catalogue himself.
He is open about what that cost him. Looking back at the hardest period of his career, he says he did “everything to properly become mainstream” but “didn’t have the right team and information.” The gap was never talent or effort. It was guidance, and guidance is the thing he now tries to give away.
Today he trains a small group of young producers and has invested in them, giving them the opportunities and direction he did not have when he was younger. He learnt to produce, mix and master during his National Youth Service Corps year, and an artist who can finish a record alone can release when the song is ready, not when someone else is.
Nobody in his family was in music, and he describes his start as “just a personal ambition.” In secondary school he made songs under the name E. Young, and later he met Blaisebeatz, who produced a couple of songs for him. He started with a personal ambition and no one in the family to ask. He is now the person other young producers can ask, and for an independent artist, that may be the more lasting result.
