Edwin Madu, popularly known as Dwin, The Stoic, is many things to different people. For some, he’s the literary genius behind several riveting works of fiction and the former Editor-in-Chief of Zikoko magazine. Others remember him as an unforgettable voice they discovered on TikTok, from Risevest theme song or Disney+ original film, Madu. You’ll also meet a vibrant group of people who found his music on Spotify radio or through a friend’s recommendation. Dwin, The Stoic, undoubtedly wears the cape of a multi-disciplinary artist, and it shines brightly through his music.
While Dwin’s musical identity started blooming when his debut album, Heavy Hearts, was released in 2018, his burning desire to tell stories began way before that. Following his application to the Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie-led Farafina Trust workshop in 2015, Dwin was majorly known as a writer. This experience led him to have several literary publications and kickstart a career in writing. He also maintained a 9-to-5 job as Zikoko magazine’s Editor-in-Chief, signalling his foray into tech and media. In December 2022, Dwin decided to bid farewell to this life and fully focus on his passion for music. While this wasn’t an easy decision for him, it was a needed step towards fulfilling his purpose and creating his label, St. Claire Records.
Since then, Dwin has gone on to make his debut album, Heavy Hearts, which includes memorable songs such as “Happy Song” and “Go With Me.” He’s also championed prominent projects such as “Love Lane” and “Streets.” While “Love Lane” metamorphosed into a four-city tour supported by Fitila Candles, “Streets” became a global hit, boasting over one million streams on Spotify and two million across Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube Music. Dwin’s uniqueness, peculiarity and ability to explore different genres have put him in a league of his own, for listeners at home and abroad. His sophomore album, Master Of Ballads released on the 11th of October, 2024, further reaffirms Dwin, The Stoic’s undeniable artistry.
In this interview with Modaculture, the musical genius speaks about his recent album, his artistic journey and what he hopes to champion with his music.
To set the ball rolling, let’s begin with a light-hearted question: What was the last song you listened to on your latest album, and why?
Okay. That’ll be Please Say Something. Technically, it’ll be I Go Nowhere because the music video just dropped. I wrote the story, and I also directed it. We worked with a bunch of our creative friends on this one, so I’m very excited about it.
What inspired the title of your latest project, Master Of Ballads and the whole album in general?
In 2019, I did an interview with a friend, Emmanuel Esomnofu and he titled it as “Meet Dwin The Stoic, The Emerging Master of Ballads,” and I liked the way it sounded. In my head, I always knew that I was writing ballads. But I started to look at the way I wrote music a bit differently, in terms of me doing many genres and questioning myself, “What style am I writing in?”
And so when the time came to do a project that was essentially a reintroduction to my artistry, the title felt right.
Technically, I haven’t put out a solo album since 2018. I wasn’t very certain I would be an artist when I just entered the music scene. But now, I’m an artist who has founded a record label and is very much trying to do something new in the industry.
Dwin, The Stoic, Modaculture 2024
It felt like the project had to say many things. On one hand, the title comes across like a brag of sorts, saying that I’m the master of ballads. But then, the project is also the story of this fictional character called the master of ballads who is telling the story of his love, his muse, and just across the album where we’re entertained and learning many things about their lives.
Speaking of this album and speaking of fiction, can you tell me more about that side of you?
My music identity kicked in around 2018 when Heavy Hearts was dropping. Before that, after attending Chimamanda’s writing workshop in 2015, I was primarily known as a writer. Writing was the thing I did for work as well. So up until then, I went back to work in tech for a bit. But even before leaving my last job to focus on starting the label, I was at Zikoko, where I was editor-in-chief. So yes, I’ve always been a writer.
As a multi-disciplinary creative, are there any other parts of your art you fused into this project? Which one of them would you say found its way into this album?
I would say it’s the recognition of how all art forms lend themselves to each other. I’ve been lucky with how my team has come together. Because I’m working with people who are equally creative, all these parts I’m trying to infuse into my music are made easy. On the music side, I have Rafi, who has been making music for a while. For fashion, I have Rotimi. With Timmy, we’re building St. Claire together, creating a very strong community.
You can hear all the things I like in the ways I make songs. I like to pick from everywhere. Music is an interesting art form that permeates everywhere, from literature to art and fashion. You can find ways to marry everything in music. It also goes back to our tagline at St. Claire: we want to make the soundtrack of your lives. What that means is that our music meets you in different places.
Dwin, The Stoic, Modaculture 2024
How would you describe the thought process behind the making of Master Of Ballads?
So it was definitely gradual. It was a thing that did not happen at once. Master Of Ballads was intended to be a bunch of singles, specifically, ballads, dropped at different intervals throughout the year. This way, people didn’t feel like they hadn’t heard from me: fans were gathering, we were doing more shows, there was a ton of music, but there wasn’t a fully formed body of work. But as an artiste, having an album is like an author having a novel. It’s like a point you’re marking in your artistic life, but it is also to give your fans a project that says this is the artiste I am supporting and this is what he does.
Yes, I had Love Lane, which is a lovely body of work, but I wanted something bigger. And so as we were working on the songs, it started to become clear that this project would not be complete if it were not a multi-genre project. So we’re now finding new sounds, trying new things and with that, comes exploration. For instance, a song like Time Is Money came from a well-received freestyle that happened in a show last December that I believed should be on the album. Hard Education also came from a beat Rafi made this year and sent to me.
To be honest, the album-making process wasn’t one that was fully formed at the beginning. It happened on the go. Master Of Ballads was first a collection of songs, then it was an EP and then a concept album where the story ties together.
I found that a lot of the songwriting in this album was done by you. Was this intentional and if yes, why?
I think it’s mostly because I’ve just written a ton of songs. I consider myself first and foremost a songwriter and Heavy Heart was going to be a resume of my songwriting. I was hoping that I would just get hired by existing artistes and they would ask me for music. But along the way, with the album coming out, people seemed to gravitate towards what I was putting out, and so I became an artist in some way. But I would say that with songwriting, there’s just a ton of songs. Honestly, that’s the simplest answer.
I’m glad we’ve consistently dropped music across the last three years. There was a ton more when we were choosing the songs for the album, and it’s mostly from songs I already have. However, there were some songs on the album that felt like we needed someone on them. For example, for “To You,” immediately after I got the guitar, I knew I wanted to have Ogranya on it That’s why I like albums. It gives me a chance to work with people, whether featuring artistes or partnering with producers.
Dwin, The Stoic, Modaculture 2024
What has the virality of “Streets” shown you? And has it influenced any of your decisions regarding your music?
I would say that we learned that you can build your viral moment in some way. We always knew we had good music. We understood the conversation around the peculiarity of our music and knew that maybe the mainstream would not latch on to it. But then, we had a song like “Streets” and then we landed the Disney+ placement. So while the Tuface shout-out boosted that viral moment, it was a build-up of so many other events.
We knew the Disney+ announcement was coming out, the viral video was dropped a couple of days before the announcement, and we just kept posting more videos of people enjoying the music in our shows. That made people see what my fans had been experiencing. We then used that momentum to push out other amazing content and that gave birth to the viral moment that enlarged our community. This allowed us to then do a four-city tour that has now attracted more fans who were ready for the album. Now, those fans have the album and they’re going to tell more people.
This viral moment helped us witness artist development in real-time and taught us that there isn’t just one route to going mainstream. We also learnt that artists should have more than one thing people can enjoy or attribute them to from a viral moment.
Since you left your role as Zikoko’s editor, how was it fully transitioning into music?
If you asked me this last year, I’d have told you I miss paid employment a bit. I mean, I think every entrepreneur misses paid employment. But with the music and what we’ve been building at St Claire so far, I’ve been immersed in so many things.
We are very serious about building one of Africa’s strongest music labels. And we are taking all the things we know to be the right way to do things. But this now for me personally, also feels like my purpose. It feels like this is what I’m supposed to be doing. So there’s not much to miss. I learned what I needed to while working in media as well.
I’m able to do what I’m doing now with what I learned when I worked in tech. A lot of things I did while working in corporate are helping with the business and what I’m building now.
It’s not the easiest because I mean we are in this country. Record labels like ours and all the other ones that are coming up are part of what gets us to be strong. The more we have labels that are out looking for like just the betterment of artists and not the stories we normally hear, the better.
We at St Claire Records are trying to create a company that is also doing something for the Nigerian soundscape. Nigerians have always been people that made and enjoyed different kinds of music and now more than ever, it’s important that we use the fuel of Afrobeats going global to make it easy for different types of music artistes. And so with us, we’re trying to make it so that we can have a big folk star from Nigeria as opposed to just having Afrobeat stars.
What would you say are the differences between Master Of Ballads and your debut album, Heavy Hearts?
Heavy Hearts was meant as a repertoire in a sense, and Master Of Ballads feels like my transition into an artist. The music you’re listening to in Master Of Ballads is from an artist who is more certain and is telling you a story from a place of mastery. This is someone who has put out an album because this is his art.
So yes, you’ve been seeing this artist. He’s been doing good music for a while. But this is a statement essentially saying that this is the kind of music I would want to be mainstream. This is how I want to reintroduce myself saying, this is who I am with a full body of work.
What are your sincerest hopes for this album? What do you hope people feel when they listen to this project?
My expectations were always along the lines of what anyone should feel when they encounter good art. I know that I set out to be goofy with many things. I know that some of those things would be things that I even haven’t even personally experienced. But I also believe that’s the beauty of a good story. You get pulled into it and then you believe that this is your world now. That’s what Master Of Ballads aims to give.
From the intro to the last song, I think the best part of the album is how universal the stories are. There are moments that some might find themselves in and others might not and that’s okay. For example, with a song like “Beside Me,” listeners can relate to the fact that most people who have been in love have fought and experienced silent moments that don’t feel good with their partners. What’s massive here is how you’re being pulled into a different world and still, these are people who are like you and expressing feelings you’re familiar with.
I want people to feel happy, to feel alive, to feel all the things. That’s what Master Of Ballads exists for, to escape in an interesting way. You live your life for a bit and just dive into these two people’s tumultuous relationship and then you come out afterwards but in between good music and great lyrics. And you’re reminded that you can go back to this song as a source of joy.
So I’m going to throw out some songs in Master of Ballads and you’re going to give me just one word to describe them. Let’s begin with “Beside Me.”
Fight
What about “Steady”?
Love
“GKW”?
Longing
“To You” featuring Ogranya?
Pain but not bad.
“Hard Education” (ft Ruka Of Ignis Brothers)?
Pain, bad.
And to end this, “Please Say Something”?
Loss, fresh loss.
