Nigerian-Kiwi hip-hop artist, rapper and producer Mazbou Q has teamed up with New York rapper and poet Regi Angelou to deliver the attitude-filled, genre-bending new single ‘Bruised Soles’, out today. The track, crossing into both the worlds of rap and heavy rock, climaxes with a roaring guitar solo by Auckland based singer and guitarist Jarni Blair.
Mazbou Q said he dove deep into his roots as a hard-rock vocalist and musician on the song, which he envisioned as a soundtrack to a dystopian action film. “I wanted the track to have loads of grit and attitude, so I had to pull from my past as a rock musician to capture it. Imagine something like Mad Max crossed with Bad Boys” says Mazbou Q.
Regi Angelou says Bruised Soles allowed her to return to the true hip hop writing style she was raised on. “I had never conceptualized a sound like Bruised Soles, but as soon as I heard it I fell into a flow that felt natural and exciting. This is one of those songs that completely blows the confines of genre away. It’s just good music”
The match up between the Auckland, NZ based former software engineer and the educator activist from Queens, NY was a collaboration that despite being unlikely, was extremely fitting. According to Mazbou Q, it had also been brewing for some time. “We’d been connected on IG for a while beforehand and for ages talked about jumping on a track together. Despite our different backgrounds, we bonded over activism and our mutual love for old school Hiphop.” he explains. “We’re both a bit older as artists in the industry with prior professional careers. I thought it would be cool to collab on a song about our journeys.”
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Formerly known as ‘Unchained XL’, Hugh Ozumba launched into 2020 revealing the new moniker ‘Mazbou Q’, dropping two singles before the release of his third body of work AFROTERNITY earlier this month. All three singles off the EP ‘To The Gates’,‘Blacklight’ and ‘Bad Energy’ featured on NZ’s top hip-hop and R&B station Mai FM, and were also added to bFM playlists. Combined, these tracks and their videos have received tens of thousands of streams across multiple platforms.
Regi Angelou, after having earned two Master’s degrees and gaining experience in the education sector, turned her focus to Hiphop and exploded onto the scene with the release of ‘More Free’. Videos from EP tracks ‘And What’, ‘Pretty Brown’, ‘Supa Stupid Hard’ and ‘Up’ each have accumulated thousands of views as the New York artist continues to make waves in the city’s live music circuit.
“Bruised Soles is ultimately about it never being too late to achieve what you want to achieve. Despite feeling like the ‘soles’ of our feet have been ‘bruised’ from walking this journey for what feels like so long, we’re each still pushing as hard as ever to reach lofty goals. And nothing is going to stop us”