“Me being here is insane!” says Lifesize Teddy with a grin, gesturing out of the ninth-floor window of her hotel room in North Greenwich. It’s a cold November day in London, and the River Thames looks typically murky and brown, but the 23-year-old Nigerian rapper, poet and songwriter isn’t bothered by that — she’s amazed that music has taken her to the UK capital.
In August, Lifesize Teddy became the latest talent to sign for Nigerian mega label Mavin Records. Founded by pioneering producer and executive Don Jazzy, Mavin has played a key role in the rise of global stars such as Rema, Ayra Starr and Magixx. For Teddy (born Banigo Apiafi Treasure), graduating from an extensive development programme dubbed the ‘Mavin Academy’ over summer proved she could follow in those musicians’ footsteps.
Supporting Grammy-nominated vocalist Starr on her current European tour, Teddy has been delivering her vibrant, Afrobeats-centered sound to energised fans. She’s just dropped ‘Unbeliever’, a shimmering, swaying two-minute call to the unconverted peppered with bars like “My victory has been written in the fineprint”. The sunny, uplifting lead single of her new EP ‘POISN’ reflects a mental shift since the self-titled debut EP she released in August, a moodier five-track project that featured beguiling breakout single ‘Hypnotic’.
NME caught up with Lifesize Teddy to discuss alter-egos, positive affirmations, honing her skills through text rap battles, and what it means to sign with Mavin Records.
NME: In your music, you often talk about fulfilling prophecies regarding your future. How has this shaped your life?
“Everything I say does actually happen. It could take a while, but it really does happen. I set my mind to things, I say things and I’m a big fan of positive affirmations. I always speak life and growth and light into whatever I get involved in. In my family, we do corporate, that’s the route, so when I started making music everyone just thought it was just a phase I was going to grow out of, but I knew it wasn’t.
“I told my mum that I was gonna be performing in London, I was really saying shit! Like, go take a nap, you need to sleep this off, you’re dreaming too much! But I’m here right now, I’m living in my prophecies!”
How did that mindset inform your new single ‘Unbeliever’?
“‘Unbeliever’ is just reaffirming my position in my affirmations, and basically addressing the people that haven’t tapped in yet, or the people that don’t understand yet, because take it from me, they’re going to! And it’s never too late to get it. ”
You hail from Port-Harcourt, in Rivers State, Nigeria. How would you describe the city and your experiences growing up there?
“It’s a small city, and it feels like home to me. Lagos is fast, Port-Harcourt is slow and calm. It’s very hip-hop-centric, it’s very rappety-rap, it’s really just calm and breezy and cool. People say that Port-Harcourt is the only metropolitan city in Nigeria… there are so many cultures and languages, and one thing that brought myself and all my friends together was music, and rap, artists like Kendrick Lamar and J. Cole.”
When you were younger, you used to do rap battles over text. How did those work?
“I used to be a really smart kid that never cared about lectures, so I used to always find other things to preoccupy my mind. I stumbled across text battling on Facebook in 2012, 2013, and signed up. I was just going back and forth with strangers on the internet, adults, and I had no idea who they were, but I was just dissing them. That’s really how I started to rap, they didn’t even know it was a kid behind the phone.
“I grew out of that phase pretty quickly because I realised I didn’t enjoy battling. It has helped me now to create my music and be fast with it, but going back and forth with other people wasn’t enjoyable. I like telling my story through music, I don’t want to tell somebody else’s story, or tell that person about themselves. So making music about my story and my growth and connecting with people like me makes more sense and more impact.”
On ‘Air’, you sing “I’ve got many women underneath this skin”; how does that multi-faceted nature play out in your everyday life?
“I’m still exploring those women. There’s a lot of them inside of me. There’s the girl that loves to rap, the girl that loves to sing, the girl that just wants to fly, there’s another girl that likes coffee and runs, and I want to give all of them life. I have alter-egos as well. Poison Baby is the alter-ego that is shining through right now, having her moment. She’s the girl that has been fierce and defiant through everything, because sometimes I get tired, but Poison says ‘No, let’s go.’ You know how Beyonce had Sasha Fierce? Yeah, she’s that girl.”
How long have you been in that frame of mind?
“Three years. On the new EP ‘POISN’, the message is consistent with the first project, it’s just now it’s been three months in the industry, and I feel unbreakable, I feel so much better than I did the first day I got unveiled. It’s been three months and I’m in London! I can do anything, I really feel like Superman!
“If you listen to ‘Unbeliever’, you hear that she has faced quite a lot of battles, she lost her mum and she is still fighting through it. Dealing with grief is really, really hard. I try to separate my mind — if you don’t, it can be a well that you fall into and never come out of. Making music and creativity is my safe space.”
How did the relationship with Mavin Records come about?
“I’m a big fan of Ladipoe, and I’d been telling him that I was a big fan, messaging him on Instagram, and finally he saw a freestyle on my profile, and reached out to me to open for him in Lagos. It was amazing, and that was where Mavin’s execs first saw me. Everybody was like “Who’s that tiny girl onstage?” So they had eyes on me from then.
“Fast forward to 2020, everywhere was locked down, in Lagos I didn’t have a studio, I wasn’t stable yet, so I reached out to Rima [Tahini, Mavin A&R Director] and asked if I could use the studio, and she said I could. I hear chat about there being an academy, and asked if I could join, and they let me! Then, there was a developmental period of three years.”
“I can do anything, I really feel like Superman!”
What were lessons did you take away from that period in your life?
“I learned to make better music, because making music, just like any other skill, is something that gets better with time, and with so much work. I had open access to every studio I could use, so I was a kid in a candy store! I had access to producers, A&Rs… and I learned how to speak for interviews, because I used to be really shy — the developmental period teaches you to step into your persona as a star.”
Can you tell me about your interactions with legendary Mavin Records CEO Don Jazzy?
“He’s such an amazing human being. For someone of his status in Nigeria, he could be anything he wants to be, but he’s so cool, so calm, so collected. He doesn’t have to yan much, he doesn’t have to say much, you can just learn stuff from him, from everything that’s in the fine print. I’m blessed to be here, because if there was any label I was going to sign for, it had to be Mavin. Mavin is the biggest record label in Africa. I grew up watching Don Jazzy on TV, literally taking over Nigeria! Fast forward and I’m signed to him, that is sick!”
How does it make you feel watching the success of fellow Nigerian artists like Ayra Starr, Tems, and Burna Boy?
“I am so pumped. I think the music scene is the only thing keeping Nigeria together right now. It’s growing exponentially, everyone is shining, Ayra just got nominated for a Grammy! When Burna Boy and Wiz first got nominated in 2021, I wrote a tweet about how ‘they don’t know it yet but they just opened amazing doors for me’. These people have opened up the floodgates and people are just waiting for me, and I’m so excited about that.
“I’m so grateful that people already see the work and understand the music. The numbers are wonderful, but when you can personally connect with people, that’s so thrilling. I can’t even imagine what God has in store for me.”
Lifesize Teddy’s ‘POISN’ EP is out now via Mavin Records