Photography by Akadrestudio | Words by Nicolas-Tyrell ScottCultural exchange is a long-established practice that drives nuance and understanding globally. Consider the Windrush generation in England, through the soundsystem culture of the late-’70s and 1980s, their influence on genres such as jungle and garage, and later, grime music. In a globally charged, hyper-locally inspired 2025, driven by technological advancements and a rapid second stage of social media, everyone has access to one another, and the evolution of scenes and sounds occurs in real time. From drills migration across Chicago, London, New York, and now wider Europe and West Africa, even looping back to New York through ‘sexy drill’, to a contemporary class of artists from the Caribbean and West Africa talking to one another — see Moliy’s “Shake It To The Max” remix — uniting the world of dancehall and afrobeats regions are talking to one another, 25/8, on demand, our fingers are firmly fixed across each other's plates, yearning for hyper-connected realities. In this context, contemporary musicians are fearless. A collaboration between a South African and Thai act isn’t as shocking as it would’ve been 10-15 years ago — see the Tyla-assisted LISA release “When I’m With You”. A global cohort of genre-blurring musicians has emerged, ready to challenge pre-existing archetypes. For BXKS, BNYX, and Odumodublvck, each contorts BPM’s and experiences, creating blended musical backdrops in the process (more on this later). Odumodublvck firmly attributes his modus praxis to the environment he grew up in. He’d frequent the infamously busy roads of Nigeria’s largest city, the Lagosian way of life — constant hustle, on-the-go, and making it happen. “Lagos is just like London and New York,” he says quietly. “It sharpens your mind without you even realising.” Fronting this year's Air Max 90 campaign, the three acts, like the shoe, are locally global, with a footprint in Luton, Pennsylvania, and Nigeria as much as the world — call it (g)local.“We’re all confident, we’re all bold,” BXKS says of the trio, who, across a two-day shoot at Black Island studios in West London, put the finishing touches on the campaign's music videos. BXKS adds, “It’s natural when you’ve got people who are good at what they do.” Together, they do move as naturals in one another’s orbit on set. BKXS politely interrupts to ensure BNYX’s Nandos order is right, BXKS and Odumodublvck snapping out of their ambivert personalities into the larger-than-life-sized stars that their global profiles would indicate — pouts, smiles, grills, and poses to show for it. Outside of the Patta and Nike custom attire, or the gleam of their mouth jewellery, are thirsty creators, eager to float atop the industry's ever-changing surface.BNYXProducer BNYX grew up surrounded by God, the choir, and his father's gospel career. “I would play keys and the bass with my little brother,” he begins calmly. “My father would play piano or the guitar, and he would sing at church too.” In his purview, was a lineage of talent who would come from both his Philadelphia church and surrounding churches across the city, succeeding in the gospel and R&B. “A lot of the people who played for acts like John Legend and Mario growing up would have come from the Philadelphia church scenes.” The likes of Dave Tozer, behind early Legend material, as well as Musiq Souchild, help to corroborate BNYX’s claims. Born Benjamin Saint Fort, BNYX, would have little access to the internet and television due to lifestyle and religious influence. Radio served as a passage into the secular world and cultural migration through music. “I gravitated towards pop and rock,” he says eagerly, intentional about the cluster of artists leaving his lips. Leaning back into his leather black sofa, he lists The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Third Eye Blind, Sting, and Seal. “My father would also play the late ‘70s and ‘90s, smooth jazz, and we’d listen to gospel,” he adds, weaving together a mosaic of layered perspectives. “Doo-da-doo-da-doo-doo,” he croons, a series of tightly rhythmic clicks helping to manifest a Soul Train-informed production. As a cloud-rap, R&B, and hip-hop producer, BNYX slithers far away from his childhood references. His career includes Nicki Minaj and Travis Scott credits, an instrumental part of Drake’s For The Dogs, he produced “Slime You Out” and “Rich Baby Daddy”, the first and third singles released from the album. The impetus of his relationship with hip-hop lies months after his high school graduation. “I remember the first song I downloaded was 2 Chainz and Kanye West’s ‘Birthday Song’,” he laughs. A$AP Ferg’s Trap Lord would mark the first hip-hop album download.BNYX’s father, Felix Saint Fort, arrived in America as a Haitian touring singer, and developed local notoriety as a gospel singer, which led to the erection of a home studio to craft new music. He never left, laying roots in the area. Placing Benjamin in music theory programs from eight to 16, the producer navigated the difficulty of learning classical music, helping his father produce by night and on weekends. It was his junior year of high school, aged 16, that BNYX found a spare studio key at home, sneaking in and staying in the studio till late to create his own productions. Purchasing a second-hand MacBook in his sophomore year, his half-brother challenged him to start creating hip-hop beats. BNYX responded to the challenge by gaining a better understanding of the genre. It was only after dropping out of his product design degree that BNYX decided to formally explore music. Balancing the medium whilst working at a phone company, he sourced motivation from the stories he’d hear across YouTube interviews with Pharrell or Max Martin. “My manager would let me have my laptop on the sales floor,” he laughs wistfully. Leveraging social media “clout” — a word he now winces at — he remixed popular songs like RaeSremmurd’s “Swang”. “I wanted to remix pop songs,” BNYX reveals. “However, I wanted to stick to that challenge my brother had put on me.” Soon, juggernaut producer Charlie Heat found BNYX, the pair first working together on Ty Dolla $ign’s “South Beach”, it was his first major label credit and, more importantly, proof of viable career as a music producer. Developing his craft further, BNYX’s profile began to soar during the pandemic. “Bigger artists had more time to work,” he shares eagerly. He moved to LA in 2020, and scored a recording session with Cardi B, BNYX then faced a personal milestone through his partner's surprise pregnancy. Shifting management, BNYX rebooted, finally able to live off his crafts in the studio, migrating back to Philadelphia to fulfill his father and now husband duties. As much as the past informs BNYX, so does the present. Through a mutual friend, and music enthusiast Dylan, he was able to share 100 beats with the British rapper Lancey Foux, who instantly wanted to work with the producer. “We stayed together for three days just cooking up songs,” BNYX recalls. One of their early productions speaks to BNYX’s attributes. A minimal trance beat pulses across the song's bassline, engulfing the ear into submission, the distortion of “Low It” feeling as dystopian as it is thrilling, a psychedelic imbued reality.BNYX’s work with Lancey led him to a slew of commercial successes in his work with Yeat. Finding out about the rapper through Discord, the pair DM’d, Yeat commending BNYX’s releases with the Foux. Flying to LA shortly after, the pair spent several days together establishing a dynamic. “Yeat just pulled up, brought out a mic, and a laptop, and began requesting a beat. I remember thinking ‘man this guy is different’,” he recalls. Scoring multiple credits across Yeat’s debut album Up 2 Më. “Stayëd The Same”, the duo has continued to collaborate as their respective careers bloom. “I’ll always respect Yeat’s ethic,” BNYX concludes.At 30, BNYX is maturing, leaning further into his Haitian ancestry and the Black diaspora at large; he’s not bound by the new-age hip-hop — and by association, trap — parameters to which he entered the industry. The kompa, highlife, and trap-infused “Where You Been”, serves as a bold example of this — the tricontinental primed number instantly fearless, biting into the soul, marking it with groove, sass, and hypnosis, urging the body into movement. It also features rapper Len, a talent who will inevitably grace the pinnacle of British music in the years to come. “Man, I love the UK, I remember seeing that Darkchild came over here in his early career, and just worked with a bunch of UK cats,” BNYX begins. “I’m inspired when I’m over here, I want to continue moving forward with that.”BXKSBXKS never looked at London as a mecca or destination. Born and raised in Luton, by way of her grandmother's Windrush migration, the multifaceted artist was content with the suburban lifestyle she grew up with. “The only reason I stepped out of Luton was to go to house parties in South London,” she shares. Blaming ‘small town syndrome’, BXKS’ belief is that “if you make it out of Luton, you’re really special”. Dominating as a professional runner, BXKS attended a college dedicated to athletics in Hertfordshire, training alongside athletes gearing up for the Olympics. It was here, towards the latter half of her adolescence, that she made a decision to abandon the sport entirely. “I was coming not first, not second, but fourth. I think I was falling out of love with it. No one wants to be fourth best.” BXKS is unapologetic, and almost nonchalant in her exchanges, but not without intention, which helps to ignite the perfect equilibrium of poise. “I wasn’t winning, I wasn’t inspired.” BXKS’ induction to music pre-dates her running career. She grew up engulfed by gospel choirs and church, attending COGIC, one of the most prestigious Pentecostal institutions. “I’ve always known I’ve had a voice,” BXKS affirms. However, post-athletics, she would find herself freestyling during car rides with friends. When urged to pursue the craft by a friend, she grew enamoured with rap. “I thought, ‘why not? This is something new I could get into for fun’.” Atop one of her first freestyles on LinkUpTV’s infamous ‘Next Up?’, BXKS states that she spits grime but it isn't her purpose — Skepta cosigned the post across social media, an act she’s still grateful for. Addressing the 2018 freestyle, she notes that she sees grime as “the UK starter pack of how to rap”. However, a quick peek at her discography and an electric range of musical references catch the ear — an ambiently pensive “Guestlist” in stark contrast to the percussion driven electronic, alt-rap, and dance infused “Wagheshi” — the glue, is BXKS’ quiet confidence that still manages to bind itself gracefully, and in intuitive fashion. “I am confident, but I hate those people who take up rooms, who have to always assert their confidence,” she admits. She’s always had self-belief, and a will that allows her to know herself in any room that she steps into. “You can’t compare anyone to me,” she continues. “I’m doing my own thing.” BXKS taught herself to rap alone, studiously combing through hundreds of hours of Risky Roadz, Daily Duppy and Fire In The Booth recordings on YouTube. “At the time, AJ Tracey and Novelist were doing their thing, and Skepta was having a re-birth” she says. Curious about the technicalities that allowed each figure to thrive, garner a community, and maintain an overarching dominance, led her to the conclusion that “They all have immaculate cadence, and it’s taken them so far.”As she progresses, BXKS' music orbits an authentic brand of realism, the rapper reflexive of her persona and life outside of the booth. Take her latest single “Flashing Lights”. She’s cognisant of the new era that she sits within, even confident that she “might go clear”. The new era, or way of consuming music that she alludes to, is the class of British musicians doing things on their own terms. Due to the hyperlocal consumer, Gen-Z, Alpha, Beta and late Millennials, music doesn’t exist in a clearly defined mainstream and underground; both worlds converge now — a mainstream act like Dave cognisant and cosigning the likes of emergent British rappers like Fimiguero, and YT. The latter graced the top two of the UK’s Hip-hop and R&B Albums Chart. It’s a generational turnkey with unconventional rules, a climate that allows the likes of BXKS to chart her own course. “Guestlist”, another of her singles, also blurs local borders, ushering in the midas touch of new-age Nigerian-Dublin renegade Travy. “We’re all doing our own thing, and I’m glad our generation can move the needle again when it comes to regions,” BXKS admits. The dominance of London, and London-centric rappers still engulfs the British rap scene, but as generations go on, the regional diversity continues to weave itself into the future of the genre. London still dominates the British rap scene, but with each generation, regional voices are carving out more space in the genre’s future. Today, a Central Cee can sit alongside an Aitch, just as easily as a BXKS, Travy, M1llionz, or Jaykae — reflecting both the rise of local talent and the appetite for regional sounds in an increasingly globalised music landscape.Ultimately, BXKS doesn't look too far in her rear view; however, a carnivorous glare paints itself across her face as we reach the end of our exchange. “I don’t look at competition too much,” she starts. “My job is to get them out the way,” she laughs playfully, through the glare of her grill. “My only concern is to thrive on my own terms.”OdumodublvckFor Odumodublvck, adaptability was a trait embedded into his way of being since birth. Navigating the hustle-infused streets of Lagos as an infant, he’s able to embrace the chaos of any city with ease. “Lagos was easy to me,” he laughs. At seven, his family moved across the country to Nigeria’s capital city of Abuja, where Odumodublvck grew acclimated to a slower way of life by comparison. “Moving to Abuja gave me an edge, it’s slower, kind of like Texas, I was able to use my initiative, will, and sense of go to move faster there.” As a child, Odumodublvck was part of his school's choirs. “I grew up just enjoying music as a fan. I never wanted to become an artist or dreamed of being on stage,” he reveals. Throughout his adolescence, Odumodublvck’s ear was tuned to the globe, his musical intake composed of British influences. At the apex, sat Skepta, whose Blacklisted proved seminal to the artist. “Listen, ‘Same Shit Different Day’ that song went so crazy,” he shares. Odumodublvck’s passion for music eventually led him to manage his close friend, Ogunna, during his early twenties. “He dropped out of college and wanted to pursue music. I feel like it made sense to jump into management,” he rationalises. It’s there that he gained insight into studios, video shoots, and every other logistical and administrative role across music, what it took to build an artist and deliver music to the world. Ogunna eventually urged Odumodublvck to record a song of his own in 2017, sensing he had the artistic touch.Dubbed “Ikemefuna”, Odumodublvck found the creative aspect of music making invigorating. “I knew I had it,” he says, the deep bass in his tone confirming his self-belief in real time. “I was like ‘woah this song is sounding so nice.” Taken back to choir and the impact of melodies — a technical skill he’s carried across his career to date — Odumodublvck had found his true calling. Overcoming obstacles and living beyond demons and circumstances, the song speaks to a reality in which the rapper addresses authentic struggles that surround him. “It’s about making it out of a jungle, that reality in front of you,” he says adamantly. Odumodublvck has labelled his music Okporoko, translating from ‘stock fish’ in Igbo. In his eyes, it’s an ingredient that’s not sweet; it’s harder to consume on its own, but everyone needs it in their food, particularly in Nigeria, where it forms the foundation of multiple dishes. “It’s bittersweet, it’s healthy, it’s needed, but it’s not necessarily tasty.” Laughing, he mirrors this with his crucial ruminations on life. Soon, releases like “Ex Gutter Man” and “Potor Potor” caught the eye of NATIVE Records and Def Jam, the labels signing officially in 2022, through Teezee, NATIVE Records’ co-president.At 32, Odumodublvck supersedes any expectation of what a Nigerian, or West African, is ‘expected’ to make, especially in 2025. THE MACHINE IS COMING, his latest mixtape, and album prequel, is a symposium of rock, afro-piano, soul, afrobeats, drill, and hip-hop, the pulse of an anthemic rapper-singer mesmerising a new generation of music listeners. The pulse, zest, and quirk of a “Ballon D Or” or “Toy Girl”, feels foreign to the menace and foreboding that orbits “Go Report”, all however, arrive with an overwhelming authority, the sound of a new reign. “The machine represents John the Baptist,” Odumodublvck shares. “It’s like a prequel to the album, the album is the industry machine which represents Jesus.” Still a believer in God, these analogies help him make sense of his worldview. A “Legolas”, the project's introduction, even utilising teachings of Jesus across Odumodublvck’s sentiments.Like his embrace of Skepta and UK rap, Odumodublvck is sensitive to British culture at large. As an avid Arsenal fan, it’s fitting that his 2023 single, “Declan Rice,” spawned success outside of Nigeria, cracking the Billboard Afrobeats charts' top 30. Teezee was instrumental in getting the song to Declan Rice before its March 2023 release at the BRITs that year. “Teezee is a G, he’s more than a boss for that,” Odumodublvck says adamantly. “He supports me in other ways than a regular manager.” As Declan Rice was presenting that night, Teezee shared the prospective single after the festivities had ended. The midfielder liked it so much that he regularly shared it on social media upon its release. An ode to the player's power, and Odumodublvck exuding that strength himself towards any opposition, the song is a case-study in globalisation in action, its intersection with cultural production outside of home borders, it’s a contemporary cross-pollination of ideas that represents how modern consumption can happen anywhere, at any time.Like his music, Odumodublvck doesn’t operate in fear. Both his self-belief and faith drive his confidence in navigating every interaction and obstacle. “The authenticity that runs through my veins is what allows me to operate like this,” he says when asked what his legacy is. “You know, you never hear an Odu song where I'm trying to sound like an American rapper. I make hip-hop nice, and I want people to know. I want people to say that Odu was original.” The wait is over. ODUMODUBLVCK lands in Amsterdam for his debut Dutch live show at Skatecafe on Sunday, 16 November. The Abuja-bred disruptor shapeshifts between grime voltage and Afrobeat swing, forging Okporoko Rhythms, the sound that crowned him the voice of Nigerian drill.Fresh off his fifth album INDUSTRY MACHINE, ODU shows no signs of slowing down. The project, featuring heavyweights like Wizkid, Davido, Modenine and Skepta, cements his status as one of the most dynamic voices out of Africa, genre-blurring, truth-telling and impossible to pin down.The face of the recent Patta x Nike Air Max 90 campaign reinforces the bridges he has been building by finally delivering a live show for his Netherlands-based community. From the viral charge of “Declan Rice” to the chameleonic palette of EZIOKWU (The Truth), ODU’s pen stays sharp and his presence stays heavy. Expect highlife-laced hooks, drill grit and unflinching charisma. “Music for everybody: father, mother, son, daughter,” as he says.For this special night, Patta, Melkweg and Skatecafé join forces to make ODU’s first time in Amsterdam a reality. Tickets are available now. Limited capacity. Come early. Leave changed. Don’t miss out! The doors open at 18:00 o'clock. For this special night we’ve invited The Jollof Club to take over the kitchen. Serving up their signature smoked Jollof Rice with Fried plantain and Suya chicken or Suya Beet (v). Come early and enjoy some jollof with us.
