Meet 1/3 of the rap trio based in London DRB Lasgidi’s Teezee on the track, 23-year-old Nigerian born rapper who is making waves with his team Boj on the microphone and Fresh L & already has the likes of Don Jazzy, WizKid, Ajebutter 22 and ShowDemCamp rhyming their praises.
Growing up I took an interest in music at a really young age, taking piano lessons. I didn’t know much about rap then so I started off with Backstreet Boys and the Spice Girls because that was what was popping off in 95’. Eventually, I delved into R&B, soul & rap because my father used to listen to a lot of soul music and a lot of rap.
In University a lot of people used to refer to me as “The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air” because I was funny and coming from Nigeria and living in London, the name just stuck because I was sort of the “Fresh Prince”. I also wanted a thematic and gimmicky approach for the tape so on the tape you realize it’s a storyline from the beginning to end, like the Fresh Prince story.
On the video for “High Roller”, the idea came from Boj, Fresh & I. We wanted nothing overly dramatic, something really simple that was basically Project X themed but with as much limited drugs and nude scenes as possible. We even had to edit out a couple of scenes….
Michael Jackson, Bob Marley, Fela Kuti and Sade Adu are definitely my top three idols. Rap-wise, I would say Jay Z, Nas, Drake and J. Cole.
I think what DRB and I brought was a fresh air of music with content if you could say that. We don’t focus our music on just partying, girls and the fast life. Its more about the realness of how our lives are, the struggle and how we don’t give up despite the ups and downs. We just try to keep the music conceptual as possible.
The future for DRB is hopefully a label down the line. As three individual artists coming back every now again to do collaborations and trying to change the level of Nigerian music to expand the scope of the music to not just one genre.
Cut Corners featuring Soul Superstar Bez is out now!
For more on what’s new with TeeZee, follow him on Twitter: @TeezeeDRB