Sunkanmi Kings: The Songwriter And A&R Helping Shape Nigeria’s New Generation Of Artists

In Nigeria’s ever-evolving music industry, where talent alone is rarely enough to guarantee longevity, creatives working behind the scenes continue to play a defining role in shaping the culture. Among the emerging names steadily building influence across songwriting, talent development, production, and A&R is Oluwasegun Olabode, professionally known as Sunkanmi Kings.

From growing up in the streets of Ikotun, Lagos, to working alongside artists such as Bella Shmurda, Shoday, and Fola, Sunkanmi Kings has gradually carved a reputation as a creative force deeply invested in authenticity, artist development, and the long-term growth of African music.

Currently serving as a Creative Director under Canny Consults, the songwriter and A&R speaks candidly about his journey through the industry, the realities of discovering and managing talent, the importance of structure in music business, and why he believes Afrobeats is only just beginning its global story.

In this interview, he reflects on the lessons, struggles, and vision shaping both his career and the future of African music.

Who is Sunkanmi Kings, and how would you describe what you do to someone encountering your work for the first time?  

Sunkanmi Kings is Oluwasegun olasunkanmi Olabode. I operate at the intersection of three disciplines that most people treat as separate careers, songwriting, A&R, and creative development. As a songwriter, I craft the narrative and melodic architecture that gives an artist’s sound its identity. As an A&R, I’m the person in the room asking whether a record is truly ready, whether it reflects the artist’s vision with enough precision to cut through and as a creative director under Dangbana Republic , I oversee the longer arc: how an artist builds a body of work that holds together not just across one song, but across a career.

What makes my position distinct is that these three disciplines inform each other constantly. A songwriter who understands A&R thinks differently about song construction. A creative director who can actually write knows what’s missing from a record versus what’s just imperfect. I’ve built that integration deliberately over nearly a decade in the industry, and it shapes how I approach every project I take on.

You grew up in Ikotun, Lagos. How did that environment shape your creative instincts, and what did it take to move from choir boy to industry professional?

Ikotun is not a place that forgives passivity. You learn very early that if something is going to happen for you, it starts with you, nobody is coming to hand it over, you know how e de go for ends na, as we say, no food for lazy man, so go survive there  you must find your talent anywhere he hide o . Growing up as the last of three children in that environment gave me a particular relationship with self-reliance that I’ve carried into every professional room I’ve entered.

The church was where it started. Singing in the choir from a young age and composing pieces for Sunday services was my first real creative education, it taught me about structure, about how music moves people, about the responsibility of performance before an audience but it also taught me about craft. Writing a song that a congregation would receive required thinking about lyrics, about melody, about emotional resonance. I didn’t know at the time that I was developing skills I’d spend the next decade refining professionally, but looking back, those early sessions were formative in a way that nothing else quite replicated.

The transition from that to the industry was not instantaneous. I graduated from university of Abeokuta and spent time understanding how professional music actually works; the business side, the session culture, the gatekeeping. I started as a background vocalist and my brother was a rapper, I would help him write some lyrics down and he would rap them and win rap challenges back then  ,That gave me proximity to productions and artists at a level where I could study the craft without the pressure of being the principal. That period was invaluable. It meant that by the time I stepped into A&R and creative direction, I already understood what made a record work from the inside out.

I don sabi everything about dropping songs even before I enter music professionally,I just dey beg God for that one chance 

You’ve been working professionally in music since 2017. Looking at that body of work now, how has your creative approach evolved and what do you consider your most significant artistic development?

The most significant shift has been from instinct to architecture. In 2017, I was operating largely on feel, good ear, strong instincts, but not yet the structural understanding of why certain creative decisions work consistently. Over nearly half a decade, I’ve developed what I’d describe as a creative framework: a way of diagnosing what an artist needs, identifying where a record is falling short, and building solutions that are specific to that artist’s voice rather than generic fixes, having worked closely with Wizkid on some projects. “insert studio photo with wiz manager”

The other major development is patience. Early on, I wanted every record to be exceptional immediately. Now I understand that building an artist is actually building them, not just scoring a viral moment, like it requires time, consistency, and a willingness to make records that develop the audience’s relationship with the artist even when they’re not the biggest records of the moment. That longer view has made me significantly more effective as both an A&R and a creative director, and it shows in the quality of the projects I’m currently involved in.

Your work spans songwriting, production, A&R, and talent development. That’s an unusually broad range of expertise. How did you come to occupy all of those roles, and how do they speak to each other in practice?

None of it was planned. It evolved out of necessity and love in equal measure. I started with songwriting because that was the most direct expression of what I felt about music and i could share with my brother who would then rap the songs and i had the ear for it lol but with time it grew to other arts wanting me to put a pen their sound. Production came next not because I set out to be a producer, but because I needed to understand the sonic context my lyrics would live in. In Nigeria, especially at the level I was entering, you either adapt and expand your capabilities, or you stay limited to what someone else decides to give you.

A&R followed from being in enough sessions to develop a strong critical ear, knowing not just what sounded good, but what was right for a particular artist at a particular moment in their development and creative direction emerged from working closely enough with artists to see that the biggest gap in most developing careers isn’t talent, it’s strategic coherence. Most promising artists have strong moments but inconsistent identity. Building that consistency is creative direction.

In practice, these roles are inseparable. When I’m writing for an artist, I’m already thinking like an A&R, is this the right record for where they are in their career? When I’m directing a project, I’m drawing on my songwriting instincts to identify what’s missing emotionally from a body of work. The integration is the value. It’s what I bring to a project that a specialist in any single one of those disciplines cannot.

Walk us through your creative process when developing an artist. How do you define a sound, and how do you maintain artistic integrity across a full body of work?

The starting point is always identity, not sound. Sound is a consequence of identity, not the other way around. So the first thing I do with any artist I’m developing is ask: what is the singular truth this person carries? What’s the lived experience, the worldview, the emotional register that no one else in this genre is speaking from in quite the same way?

Once I have that, the creative decisions become more constrained in a productive sense. The sonic palette, the lyrical themes, the featured artists, the sequencing of releases all of these get filtered through the identity question. Does this choice serve who this artist actually is, or is it chasing something external?

Where songwriting comes in is in translating that identity into specific, memorable moments. The best records I’ve worked on feel simultaneously personal to the artist and universal to the listener that tension is where the craft lives. Getting the lyric to sit in exactly the right place on the groove, where it feels inevitable rather than placed, is the work. It takes multiple iterations, genuine collaboration with the artist, and a willingness to discard what’s almost right in pursuit of what’s exactly right.

Maintaining integrity across a full body of work requires discipline. The temptation when an artist gets their first real momentum is to chase whatever trend is moving in that moment. My job as a creative director is to hold the longer vision and ensure that every release builds on the one before it, rather than fragmenting the artist’s identity in pursuit of short-term numbers.

You’ve been working with Bella Shmurda, Fola, and Shoday, each a distinct voice in contemporary Nigerian music. What did those collaborations produce, and what do they reveal about your approach to working with established and emerging artists?

Working with Bella Shmurda was a masterclass in understanding what it means to be prepared at every level. Bella operates with a consistency and professionalism that doesn’t leave room for half-finished ideas. Being in that creative environment meant we show up to every session with a unique point of view not just presence. The records we worked on together required real sharpness, and that experience permanently raised my standard for what “ready” means in a professional context.

Fola brought a different lesson, the value of precision and patience in the creative process. the approach to making his records for me is painstaking in the best sense ,as everyone knows,Fola is the ladies man. Nothing is approved until it’s exactly right, and that attention to detail produces work that holds up over time in ways that quicker, looser processes don’t. Working with Fola sharpened my ear for the difference between a record that sounds good and a record that is good.

Shoday represents the current edge of what I’m building. The upcoming ep Breakfast, is the fullest expression of the creative development work I’ve been doing, it’s a project where identity, sound, and commercial ambition are genuinely integrated rather than in tension. What Shoday’s development has shown me is that when an artist has both the hunger and the trust to be guided through a rigorous creative process, the results are exceptional. Breakfast is going to demonstrate that.

Across all three, the common thread is professionalism, understanding that talent is the entry ticket, not the qualification. The qualification is consistency, humility, and the willingness to keep working until the record is what it needs to be. Everyone must chop the breakfast last last ,baba e no easy o but if the food never done, we go still de cook am.

How do you navigate the challenge of working in an industry that has historically undervalued the contribution of songwriters, A&Rs, and creative directors, particularly those working behind the scenes in Afrobeats/Afro fusion?

It’s one of the defining structural problems of our industry, and it hasn’t been solved yet. The culture in afrobeats/afro fusion, especially at the emerging level, has often treated songwriting and A&R as informal contributions rather than professional ones things that happen in the session and aren’t necessarily documented or compensated properly.

My approach has always been to professionalise the relationship from the start. Every collaboration needs clear documentation, split sheets agreed before the session ends, publishing information registered before release, credits clearly attributed. It sounds transactional, but it’s actually about respect for your work, and for the artist’s work. When the business is clean, the creative relationship is stronger because there’s no unresolved tension sitting underneath it.

The broader shift I’ve seen in the last few years is encouraging. As afrobeats has gone genuinely global, not just influential, but commercially dominant in multiple territories the infrastructure around it is starting to catch up. International publishing deals, sync licensing, proper distribution agreements, these are conversations happening in Lagos now that weren’t happening when I started in 2017. And as that infrastructure grows, the people who built their practice on proper documentation and professional standards are the ones positioned to benefit. That’s been my consistent approach, and I’ve seen it pay off in the quality and durability of the relationships I’ve built in the industry.

What does it take to identify genuine talent in the current landscape, and what separates an artist who will have a career from one who will have a moment?

The talent is almost never the differentiator; there’s more talent in Lagos, Abuja, Enugu and Port Harcourt than the industry can currently absorb. What separates a career from a moment is hunger, coachability, and consistency  and the greatest of those is coachability.

Hunger matters because this industry demands a level of sustained commitment that comfortable people simply won’t maintain through the difficult periods. Every artist hits a point where the momentum stalls, the records aren’t connecting the way they did, and the question becomes whether they have enough internal drive to keep producing at the level required. Hungry artists do. Comfortable artists don’t but coachability is what makes talent developable. I’ve worked with gifted people who couldn’t take direction, couldn’t hear what wasn’t working in their own records, couldn’t trust a creative process that took longer than they expected, you no say everybody wan blow immediately but no be everybody fit put in the work wey to blow require. That rigidity is a ceiling. The artists who build lasting careers are the ones who can hold confidence in their own identity while remaining genuinely open to being challenged and refined.

When I assess emerging talent, I’m watching for those qualities as much as the music itself. The music tells me what’s possible. The person tells me whether that potential can actually be realised.

You operate within Dangbana Republic as a creative director. How important is structured professional infrastructure to the kind of creative work you do, and what does that structure make possible?

It’s essential, particularly at this stage of the industry’s development. The romantic image of the music industry, brilliant, chaotic, running on pure instinct produces moments, but it rarely produces sustainable careers make I  no call name but you know say many people dun end up as one hit arts. Structure is what converts talent into legacy.

Operating within Dangbana Republic gives the creative work a professional framework: proper agreements, clear role definitions, accountable processes. It means the artists I develop aren’t just getting creative input they’re getting career architecture and it means my contributions are properly documented and credited, which matters both for the integrity of the work and for building a professional track record that can be substantiated.

Labels and structured systems aren’t the only path in today’s industry, but the most enduring careers even the independent ones have professional discipline at their core. The artists who break independently and sustain it are the ones who built structure alongside their sound, not separately from it e de rare make person just de lucky without grind.

African music is at an inflection point globally. How do you understand your own role in that shift, and what does the next decade look like for the genre?

What’s happening with Afrobeats right now is genuinely historic. Not just in terms of streaming numbers or festival headliners though those matter but in terms of the genre’s penetration into the cultural mainstream of markets that previously treated African music as peripheral. That shift is permanent. The audience has been built, the infrastructure is catching up, and the next phase is about consolidation: building the publishing systems, the sync pipelines, the international A&R networks that will ensure African artists own their position in the global music economy rather than just supplying the sound for others to profit from.

My role in that shift is as one of the people building artists who can hold their ground in that environment artists with strong identities, professional infrastructure, and creative bodies of work that translate across markets without losing their specificity. The A&R and creative direction work I do is, in that sense, infrastructure work for the genre. Every artist who comes out of this process with a coherent sound and a professional foundation is another data point in the argument that African music is not a trend but a permanent force.

The next decade belongs to the artists and their collaborators who are building properly right now. I intend to be counted among them.

Afrobeats has gone from a sound the Western industry observed from a distance to one it’s actively chasing collaborations with UK drill artists, placements on American pop records, festival headline slots. What does that shift mean for someone doing the work you do behind the scenes?

It means the work just got significantly more consequential. When Afrobeats was still being treated as a niche something the diaspora supported and the mainstream occasionally dipped into the infrastructure around it could afford to be informal. Now that the genre is driving real commercial numbers in the UK, the US, and Canada, and artists are being pulled into rooms with major label A&Rs, drill producers, and global pop acts, the absence of proper infrastructure starts to cost people. Songs get placed without proper splits. Artists sign deals without understanding what they’re giving away. Creative contributors get edged out of records they built because nothing was documented properly.

That’s where I sit. The collaborations happening right now between Afrobeats artists and UK drill, the cross-pollination of those two sounds  are producing some of the most interesting music coming out of Britain and Nigeria simultaneously but behind every one of those records is a web of creative decisions, A&R calls, and songwriting contributions that mostly go unacknowledged. My job is to be the person who makes sure that doesn’t happen to the artists I work with that when the moment comes, and it’s coming faster than people realise, they own their position in it rather than just appearing in it.

The penetration is real and it’s accelerating. What I’m building is the behind-the-scenes infrastructure that ensures African creative professionals benefit from that penetration on their own terms.