Can you describe in three words what Chiddy Bang is all about, and where did the name Chiddy Bang come from?
Electro, sampling and loud. I say loud because our live show experience is all about the reinvention of the basement party jam.
The name Chiddy Bang originates from my own name Chidera, which is a Nigerian name. My nickname for pretty much my whole life has been Chiddy and the whole Chiddy Bang thing just felt natural really.
Chiddy Bang have created their own style of music, I’d say its like electronica meets hip hop with elements of indie thrown in. What and who were your inspirations for this unlikely combination of genres?
Well with the indie style, I owe credit to Noah, he’s always chopping up obscure indie samples. I’m from a hip hop background and really don’t know a lot about indie music. Even with the track ‘Opposite of Adults’ which samples an MGMT track, I hadn’t even heard of MGMT until Noah showed me it. My influences personally are the Hip Hop greats like Kanye West, Jay-Z, Lauryn Hill; and Noah’s inspired by people like Joe Strummer to even J.Dilla so we’ve got really broad and varied influences.
What are Chiddy Bang’s plans for the future?
Well our album is going to be released on August 24th. We’re doing lots of festivals in the UK, like Glastonbury, Reading festival, Leeds festival and O2 Wireless. We’re also doing a 20-date tour across the UK in May.
Your fanbase here in the UK is huge, and your music seemed to blow up here before America, was this planned or did it kind of happen by accident?
It was kind of by accident, like we had no expectations at first. Parlophone wanted us to do a single deal, and we thought we’d just sell a couple of records. But then we did really well, ‘Opposite of Adults’ got to number 8 on the iTunes charts, and number 12 on the UK charts and so our label has set us up for the world!
Your next single is ‘Truth’ which is due for release here on May 17th, can you tell me a little bit about the song?
Haha its very dope! It’s quite a salvational song. We were just at a turning point in our lives where we were contemplating dropping out of college, worrying about all the risks and whether we’d actually make it – it was quite difficult. ‘Truth’ represents what we were going through, and as the sample says “better things are coming”.
Who are your favourite artists at the moment, and who would you most like to collaborate with?
In the USA, my favourite artist has gotta be Kanye West. In the UK, I’d say its between Tinie Tempah and La Roux, we sampled both of them on our ‘Air Swelly’ mixtape.
Both of your mixtapes have names centered around the word “Swelly”, could you educate me on what it means?
Swelly is a word I made up myself, and it’s like a substitute for words like dope/cool/fly. The “Swelly Express” EP is all about our journeys on the bus, back and forth to NYC for our major label meetings. “Air Swell” was written on the flight back to the States after getting signed in the UK and was to say thank you to our UK fans for all their support.
You describe your lyrics as autobiographical, and your EP ‘Swelly Express’ described your journey to New York meeting major labels and your initial rise to fame. What sort of stories can we expect from your album?
In a nutshell, our new album is going to be all about our life at the moment. The positives and negatives of rising to fame at such a fast pace, as we have. There’s going to be a lot of indie and electro samples too!
Finally, what can your UK fans expect from your shows for your nationwide tour in May?
Crazy energy! We’ve got live instrumentals with Noah (Xaphoon) on drums and a DJ. I like to freestyle at live shows, not the kinda freestyling where it’s all written beforehand, but I actually like to ask the audience what they want me to rap about and then I perform it. Our shows are quite spontaneous, we like to match the energy and atmosphere of our earlier basement shows: intimate shows with college kids just drunk and having fun!
Tara Jane Seton, May 2010
