Blaqbonez is not interested in modesty. The Nigerian rapper has declared himself superior to anyone in any creative field, revealed that he is directing a video for Ice Spice, and accused unnamed rivals of gaming the Apple Music charts. He also confirmed that a new project, The Maker Must Shine, arrives next month.
The confidence surfaced when he was asked whether he considered himself a better video director than a peer his work has been compared with. He did not hedge. “I don’t think anybody’s better than me at anything,” he said.
He framed it as a matter of creative instinct rather than arrogance. “I believe that I’m one of the most creative human beings and if I put my mind to it, I’ll be the best at any field that involves creativity,” he explained, before settling the question plainly: “the answer is definitely yes.”
That self-belief now extends behind the camera on a bigger stage. Blaqbonez revealed he is directing a video for Ice Spice and promised it would turn heads. “It’s about to be crazy,” he said. “You guys will see that this guy is not playing at all.”
The Ice Spice connection runs through his current release. His song named after the American rapper has been climbing, and Blaqbonez said it sits at number eight on Spotify and number seven on Nigeria’s Shazam chart.
Despite the title, he insisted the record is not a tribute. The song is not even really about Ice Spice,” he said, describing it instead as a celebration of “the big boys outside” enjoying life alongside the women around them.
Apple Music, however, tells a different story, and he believes he knows why. Blaqbonez said he is top 10 on every platform except Apple, which he described as the service whose chart rankings get the most attention when artists announce their milestones. “People are farming on that platform. I’m not going to lie,” he said.
He challenged listeners to check for themselves, urging them to look at positions 10 through 20 on the chart and ask whether they recognise the songs. “My song is meant to be top 10 there, but there are too many farmers,” he added.
The rapper presented himself as someone who tracks the data closely. “I check my numbers,” he said, noting that he keeps screenshots of what happens across the industry, including songs that sit near the top one day and plummet far down the chart shortly after, which he attributed to the money behind them running out. His own position, he stressed, was earned “on a legit basis.”
For Blaqbonez, the real proof is on the road. He said he had just performed in Ghana and had another show lined up the following day.
“I’m booked and busy,” he said, arguing that artists who inflate their numbers without a real audience will not get bookings and are only fooling themselves while wasting their money.
Looking ahead to collaborations, he named Rema as one of his favourite artists in the history of Nigerian music and expressed his desire to work with him.
The headline news, though, is The Maker Must Shine. Blaqbonez said the title grew out of a lyric that took on deeper meaning after the song’s release. “It’s more than a line. It’s an affirmation,” he said.
He tied the project to what he described as a difficult year in the industry. “I don’t know if people are scared of me,” he said, adding that others had tried to stop his rise. “
People have tried things to stop me from getting to where I am,” he continued. “They’ve done everything they want to do. But a maker must shine.”
