Lil Kesh recently gave away a black hat at the end of his interview on the Juice.
Lil Kesh on the Juice
His intention was for a lucky fan to have it, so at first I thought, what a ridiculous gift to give to someone. But on second thought, if it is the same hat that the YBNL rapper is seen sporting on the cover of his debut album Young and Getting It (YAGI), then it’s a very thoughtful gift and I hope whoever wins it cherishes it as such.
That said, in doing the YAGI project, Kesh didn’t have to wear too many professional hats besides being a recording artiste, he had ample support from 13 other people in putting the album together. Let’s now take a look at who those 13 people are.
YBNL Family
The album was largely an in-house affair, there were only 3 producers that worked on the project and 2 of them are under the YBNL umbrella. Young Jonn and Pheelz , the Wicked Producer and Mr. Producer respectively, produced songs on YAGI by themselves but they also worked on “Is it Because I Love You” and “Yaya Yoyo” together. Little wonder the sound of the album seems very deliberate.
Pheelz and Young Jonn (L-R)
Kesh’s Oga at the Top Olamide is on the album of course, and his label mate Adekunle Gold is too. Olamide is only on here as a featured guest, interestingly the album has no credited executive producer, while Adekunle has two roles – as a featured performer on “Life of a Star” and to provide art direction for the project. Viktoh and Chinko are also featured as well, their contributions cannot go unnoticed.
YBNL Friends
The only producer on the album that isn’t with YBNL is the talented Shizzi, he produced the song that Davido was featured on, so no surprises there. Phyno’s closeness to Olamide has now manifested into Olamide’s protege getting a coveted feature from the Beast from the East. Actually, this isn’t their first collaboration, the two worked together on Ladi last year.
Emily Nkanga and H Code (L-R)
Emily Nkanga has done a lot of photography work with Olamide and YBNL in recent times, including taking the snaps for the YAGI project. The image of the young MC in an oversize silk shirt, with 4 or more top buttons loosened to expose 2 gold baby angels dangling on his chest, is subtle but memorable. Kesh strikes a thoughtful but relaxed pose and non-nonchalantly turns his back to a darkened city, as black and yellow contrast perfectly. Kudos to Adekunle, Emily and Kesh’s stylist for the imagery, but YBNL has had the very best album covers in the business for a while now. A big shout out to H Code for some of his previous photography and art work with the team. RIP.
Speaking of covers, Lil Kesh covers Lil Kesh on “Cause Trouble”. There are two versions of the record, one that features Wale and one that features YCEE. The one I personally like more features YCEE, I hope those two work again on YCEE’s new EP coming out soon.
The album sleeve was printed by Peter Folorunsho.
*Most people forget that an album is a project and a lot more people work on a project than just the recording artist. This series tries to give credit where credit is due*