Album cover for Cuppy’s debut solo album, “Original Copy.”
Nigerian-born and London-based Cuppy is a globe-hopping DJ, producer, philanthropist, and radio host. She got her start while interning at Roc Nation in 2015, and collaborated with some of Afrobeat’s biggest names including Wizkid, Tiwa Savage, and D’Banj on her House of Cuppy mixtapes. You can catch her Apple Music radio show, Africa Radio Now with Cuppy, every Sunday as she plays some of the best that afrobeats, amapiano, house, and hip-hop from the continent. Not one to sit around, Cuppy recently released her debut album, Original Copy.
The following interview has been lightly edited.
What influences you?
I’m heavily influenced by passion. Passion is something that drives every sense of my being. Every day I wake up with a purpose because my passion drives me. And it’s interesting that my passion isn’t one thing, my passion is constantly evolving. You know, if my passion was one thing then I wouldn’t be on a constant journey; I’m constantly trying to evolve. And it does feel sometimes like a wild goose chase where I’m trying to better myself. I’m always longing for more. I started off as a DJ, and I’m also an artist, and I’m looking for more and more ways to express myself. I’m a curator, you know, so it’s this exciting passion for living and I’m using each day to achieve something to conquer the world.
What are some of your current passions?
I’ve been really passionate about my continent, Africa. You know, Africa is such an important place for me. It’s who I am. It’s what I represent. Having my own show on Apple Music has been a huge opportunity to really grow and harness that passion and advocate for Africa. I advocate for Africa in everything, in culture, music, all films, everything. I love my continent and I am so proud of where it is, where it’s going. And also the fact that people are more aware of it. Now there’s so much the continent has to give.
What’s the most overrated?
I think dates. I think going out on dates, is that strange? Going out on dates, I find that very overrated. There’s so much uncertainty in the world right now. You could go on a great date and then you find out that you can never see each other again because of the pandemic. So you can go on a great date, or you can’t even go on a date at all. It’s basically the same thing now. I think everyone should stop overthinking and go ahead and shoot their shot and just figure it out. I love how I’m giving relationship advice, me, a very single person. But I just think dating during a pandemic is super overrated. Just go for it.
Six months, a year, or six years from now, whenever we get on the other side of the pandemic, do you think dating will go back to what it was like pre-COVID?
I have a theory that this pandemic has changed forever human life and interaction. I was telling my manager about all these stupid meetings I didn’t need to be at that I could have just solved with a Zoom call. All the trips I made that didn’t need to do. Thinking about dating from that perspective, I think dating is going to be a little be more efficient. I think that people are going to realize that actually it is possible to lose our freedom of movement. And we can move about again, we’re going to appreciate it more. I’m a DJ. I can’t believe I took for granted the fact that I get to perform in front of a crowd. The next time I’m able to do it again, I’m not going to want to get off of the decks. It makes you think: maybe I should have been a bit more open-minded, or I should have been a little bit more caring or loving. I sound like an angry person now [laughs].
Let’s do the flip: What’s the most underrated?
I think that right now actual film cameras are underrated, not phones, real film cameras. I got a camera because I was blogging and traveling the world. But during the pandemic, I’ve started capturing a lot of content on my camera of me being at home. You always think, “I’m going out, I’m going on holiday, and I’m going to grab my camera.” Not going anywhere and being home I started looking at some of the footage and it’s really interesting to see how I was coping creatively. A lot of people catch the content on their phone, I’m here for it! There is something special about being able to have a camera, though. I have a camera, but I like to get all these little disposable cameras where I can run the film. I just think it’s cool! I love cameras where you can’t even see what you just captured. It’s really, really cool.
Besides cameras, what are you most excited about right now?
My debut album, Original Copy. Oh my God, I can’t believe it. Literally, in all my years of being an artist, a DJ, and a producer, I’ve never thought I’d have an album. But it’s out and it will forever and ever be on record that I had an album! I worked so hard on it. It’s called Original Copy because I, myself, am a contradiction. I’m born in Nigeria, and in Nigeria, a young woman is not expected to be a DJ. I’m creating my own “Pink Print” and kicking down doors and just doing epic things. My album is called Original Copy because there is no copy of me. And I came across this quote: “We are all born an original, so don’t die a copy.” And so I’m on this crusade to just basically be me and have fun while doing it.
If being a DJ wasn’t something that was expected of you, what was expected of you?
I grew up in a very, very entrepreneurial environment. My dad pushed me and he always wanted me to be this amazing businesswoman, which I think I am, but obviously according to my own sense. I love the fact that I’ve been able to take my passion and turn it into my profession. When I talk about my environment, I’m talking about Nigeria, it’s a big country in Africa. We are not very great when it comes to gender equality, and a lot of women, don’t have access to education and they are raised to be secondary to men. And I’m this girl with pink hair, that’s in the music industry next to all these amazing male DJs. So for me, it’s all about working hard, and knowing that I don’t want people to know me as just a female DJ, I want to be known as a DJ in my own right.
Last question: What’s next for you?
I’m on an experimental path. I don’t know. That’s why I said my passion just completely influences me. Tomorrow I could wake up and say, I want to learn how to speak Arabic or, I’m going to wear black all week. I’m just a very passionate person; I know I’m a person of extremes. I know I want to have changed the rules so a young girl in my country can say, “If Cuppy can do it, I can do it.”
Bonus question: You talk a lot about having a global vision when it comes to your music and your career. What, exactly, do you mean by global vision?
My global vision is this dream I have of my culture being normalized. So it’s me being an African woman that has been able to live around the world, that talks the way I do, that believes what I do, that acts the way I do, and does what I do, and it is accepted everywhere. Global vision means people are not asking me why I’m doing what I’m doing, that they don’t ask me why I look the way I look, and they don’t ask me where I’m from. So it’s a global vision to essentially take Africa to the world, and taking the world to Africa.
How has your global vision been impacted by the global pandemic?
I think it’s been strengthened. Think about it: What if this thing never ends? And what if this is the new normal? The new normal is for you to be where you are, and for me to be where I am, and we can still connect and share energies and ideas. The pandemic is making us more aware of what’s going on around the world. I mean, look at the pandemic: the pandemic is a pandemic. Everyone is affected by it, we’re affected by how each country deals with it, and it spreads globally. So for the first time, there’s a joint responsibility around the world. In a weird way, it’s bringing us closer together. Even as we’ve been isolated as individuals, I feel like we’re closer to the world. For the first time, every day, I’m checking what’s going on in other countries. It’s a very strange time where we’re being pulled apart and being pushed together.
Finally, what do you think is the future of afrobeats?
When I got my show with Apple Music, Africa Now Radio with Cuppy, people were very excited for me. I’m 16 episodes into it right now and I think it’s great, but I also think that it’s about time that Apple has a show in Africa. We’re at a moment, collectively, where people are realizing that they need to be proactive and have tough conversations about culture, about race and systemic racism, thanks, in part, to a global Black Lives Matter movement. And people have to start to be really culturally away. And you can’t have any of these conversations without thinking about Africa. Africa has been undervalued and ignored for so long. So when people about Black Lives Matter, it’s necessary to think about Black lives in a global way, African and the African diaspora. Music, and Afrobeat, is the perfect entry point into these conversations. And I’m excited to be a part of it.
