Soji Otuyelu performs for WITF Music on April 15, 2024 (Jeremy Long - WITF)
WITF Music: Soji Otuyelu
Nigeria, music, soccer and love.
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Joe Ulrich
Listen to the radio feature:
Joe Ulrich: Tell me about your upbringing. Were you encouraged to do these kinds of things?
Soji Otuyelu: One of the blessings that, I don’t know if my parents intended for this, all the kids would be taken to piano lessons. So we would sit and just make up songs on the piano and try to recreate songs we had heard and put a spin on them. And I didn’t even realize all of that would mean something now. And with my kids, they have designated time for practicing songs, but also come up with a song. They love that so much more than playing chords and going through scales. And I just think it’s awesome. I wasn’t really encouraged to do it. I was bored a lot. And because of that, you just get to be creative with your time.
When my kids ask, Daddy, why are you making us play a guitar? I tell them, because this might save your life the way it saved my life. This was something I clung to in the hardest parts of my life. And the most joyous parts .
Joe Ulrich: When you don’t offer those things, some kids don’t get the opportunity to discover something about themselves or get turned on to a possible career path.
Soji Otuyelu: For me, I actually still think it’s strange to be paid as an artist. That sounds bad, but I haven’t felt uncomfortable saying I’m a musician sometimes because I get paid for my hobby. Now it has value to someone, so, great. I’m willing to do that. But I think the real driver for someone who’s into art is that you use it to find out so much about yourself and to connect with people.
At one point I left my job, this is 15 years ago. I took a year playing music and then it became my job and I was like man, this is terrible. I hate trying to book gigs. The part I fell in love with wasn’t fun anymore. And then it became fun when I said, it’s not a job. I really just love creating. I want to connect with people and I think that is the real benefit.
Joe Ulrich: “Fell In Love In York”. Is that a true story?
Soji Otuyelu: That is the truest story. Yes. I moved to York 2011 or so. And York represented a new beginning for me. I needed to figure out the kind of person that I wanted to be.
I had a choice to move to Texas where my sisters are, move back to Massachusetts where I went to college, or just move somewhere random. And I picked York. I thought that was a place where I would be surrounded with the unfamiliar and get to really know myself and really work on my skills. Sometimes when you’re around people who are familiar with you feel caged, [you] want to transform.
And I met my wife within that year. If I would have met her before then, I would not have recognized some of the things I did when I met her. And that song, “Fell in Love in York”, is really about falling in love with me and meeting the kind of person that made it okay to love myself.
When my kids ask, Daddy, why are you making us play a guitar? I tell them, because this might save your life the way it saved my life.
Joe Ulrich: Did you struggle at all moving to a completely new place where you didn’t know anybody?
Soji Otuyelu: This is the blessing of being a musician, is that music is a universal language. Most of the people I’ve met in my adult life was through music. If I get my guitar out and I’m singing, and I have no qualms about telling you the deepest, darkest things that I’m going through or I’ve been through, as long as I have a guitar in my hand. And people connect with that. And that’s how friendships form.
Joe Ulrich: In another Instagram post that I saw you said something about the unlikeliness of a Nigerian marrying a country girl. Is she a country music fan?
Soji Otuyelu: She is all about country. You get in her car and the radio is turned to the country music station and most times she’s singing along. Sometimes I go, oh, what’s this song? She’s [like] oh, yeah, I don’t really know it. And this is the appeal for me for country music is it’s the genre of music when you want to be vulnerable. I know there’s all kinds of country now, but it’s a real vulnerable genre that I’m like, yeah, I like that.
Joe Ulrich: Did I hear correctly in that song that is how you met? You were playing music?
Soji Otuyelu: Yes. I can’t believe I’ll admit this. I also play soccer. I’m a soccer coach. That’s my passion. When I first met her, we were playing in the same coed league. Now, the way I come off on the soccer field is not nice. And I think what happened was she saw me in the soccer field and didn’t like that version of me, just like most 95 percent of the people I’ve ever met on the soccer field. And then she saw me playing music somewhere else and was like, wait, this can’t be the same person.
That’s one of the things about music for me [is] that it centers me. I actually just need music for self therapy. I need music to communicate, to help understand myself better, understand where I’ve been.
Joe Ulrich: How old were you when you moved to the United States?
Soji Otuyelu: I was fourteen.
Joe Ulrich: But you were in Nigeria long enough that you do have memories.
Soji Otuyelu: I’m very Nigerian. It’s the one place in the world where I feel just like anybody else.
When I get to Nigeria, I don’t realize I’ve been holding my breath. I’m just home. And I think some of the programming that was built into me when I was a kid, they restart. It’s like someone started the engine and I’m like, Oh yeah, I know how to navigate conversations in a different way. Even talking now, I spoke English in Nigeria, but sometimes I’m searching for words that make more sense in Yoruba, that I can’t quite think of in English.
Joe Ulrich: What was it like to move here when you were a teenager?
Soji Otuyelu: As an immigrant, everybody’s telling you, Oh my God, it’s like you just won the lottery. So whether you are happy about it or not, you’re told you’re supposed to be happy about it. I’m so blessed that I did spend the time I did in Nigeria because it gave me the mindset of someone who shouldn’t take things for granted.
Joe Ulrich: What’s your favorite smartphone app?
Soji Otuyelu: It’s called InShot. And it’s a video editing tool right or picture editing tool. Verbal communication is not my strong suit so I show a lot. I use that a ton, and as a soccer coach, showing my kids.
Joe Ulrich: Do you have a favorite local restaurant in the area?
Soji Otuyelu: I’m not a foodie man. Anywhere with an IPA and a burger is my favorite restaurant. It makes things really easy when you go out.
Joe Ulrich: Any other favorite local businesses?
Soji Otuyelu: I should plug the Gift Horse in York. The Gift Horse is a brewery. They have a limited food menu but they have lots of cool beers, but they also support the arts. They have music like probably three nights of the week, four before four nights of the week, sometimes. I feel like they go out of their way to support it. The environment is one that really captures what York is.