Teemirror does not pretend he can walk into a booth, catch a random vibe and leave with a hit. On Conversations With Kenni, hosted by Kehinde Ajose, the Afrofusion singer said his method is slower than the industry likes to admit. He has to feel the sound first. If he does not, whatever comes out of his mouth will not make sense. That rule, he added, has taken him from public toilets to traffic and all the way to a border conversation that is now becoming a love song.
Ajose wanted to know whether that process means he cannot freestyle. Could a producer drop a keyboard loop and expect him to answer on the spot, or does he have to go home and write? Teemirror borrowed a line from a friend and then explained the work behind it.
“About freestyling, just like one of my friends used to say, my style is not free. But then if I choose to deliver a spontaneous sound on a particular beat, on a particular keyboard or any other thing, I have to immerse myself in that sound first. If not, whatever I will say, whatever I will sing might not make sense. So I have to feel it. I have to be in the mood. I have to be in that song in that sound before I can deliver something good.”
Ajose pushed further. Plenty of popular records, he said, were born as studio freestyles. He cited artists like Timaya, who have described walking into a session, catching a vibe and letting the song arrive. Teemirror did not dismiss that path.
“It works for them and just like you said, ‘the vibe came.’ If they don’t be in the sound, they will not get the inspiration.”
Then he pulled the romance out of the process and replaced it with the places inspiration has actually found him.
“Funny enough, sometimes inspiration is found in different funny places. I’ve received songs in the toilet. I’ve received song in traffic.”
One of those road songs is finished and waiting. He would not give a date, only a warning that it is coming soon and that it does not sound like the hustle-and-hope lane that made his name. Prince Temiloluwa Bayode, the Unilorin campus voice behind records such as Tanke Sir and Daily 2K, has spent years writing about grind and prayer. A listener once threw that back in his face.
“Somebody even insulted me and said I don’t know anything other than person that suffer and struggle. So I said okay, since my fans are looking for something new I’m going to give them something about love. So this one I’m dropping is about love.”
The spark was not a studio couch. It was a long-distance bus.
“I was in a public transport traveling from Lagos to Kaduna.”
On that Lagos-to-Kaduna trip, the sound arrived. He took it to the studio and built a record he now calls one of his favourites, a step away from the struggle anthems people expect from him. Another love idea came on a longer haul. He set out for Ivory Coast by road, passing through Cotonou and Benin, and met a woman at the border.
“I have baby from Benin Republic. That one came from when I went to Benin Republic. Now I didn’t even go to Benin Republic exactly. That wasn’t my final bus stop. I went to Ivory Coast by road. So the journey was from here to Kotonu. From Kotonu to Benin, to Ivory Coast. So that journey made me get the inspiration. I met a lady that was very fine at the border and were having conversations and all that.”
The least glamorous origin story is the one he tells with a straight face.
“The weirdest place I’ve gotten inspiration is the toilet. I mean, when stuff was going down and it was smelling so bad and I was getting inspiration. That’s the weirdest place. Most of the time I go to the toilet with my mobile phone. So I just carry my phone go to recorder and then I hum the song or whatever I received through that place and then when I get to the studio I flesh and build it up and it becomes a beautiful song.”