Ogechi (Ogechi Nnedinma Ofodu), the promising poet and now head-turning hip-hop artist has just released her second single of the year featuring Coley Xavier; On Gawd.
If the title of the track didn’t give it away immediately, On Gawd is an upbeat, bouncing hip-hop banger pulled straight from the West Coast. More specifically, Atlanta-Kansas City, where Ogechi was born and continues to live and make music. Ogechi started releasing music when she was just 19 years old with the release of Blvck + Womvn | Body Pg. 1 in 2017, a politically and socially conscious hard-hitting rap track. Now, it appears Ogechi is letting herself have a bit more fun on On Gawd, with talk of ‘booties’ and ‘body odies’ a-plenty.
As soon as you press play you’re faced with an up-front piano chord beat, claps, snappy hi-hats, bouncy bass and Ogechi going off in both the left and right channels. These first 10 seconds gear you up for what you’re about to hear for the next 3 minutes; non-stop colourful, playful vocal chops layered on top of each other everywhere, leaving you with no space to breathe. You’ve entered the party and you ain’t leaving ‘til it’s over. Both Ogechi and Coley Xavier smoothly deliver the chorus, with Xavier being the main standout within the pairing. He sounds so effortlessly cool and chilled out, bringing enough of a presence without stealing Ogechi’s limelight. She does eventually get it, of course, as she slyly raps the first verse, serving plenty of flair and flash. However, there is one thing that manages to outshine Ogechi, and it’s herself! The incessant amount of ad-libs and zany vocals that fly around the track serve as a bit of a distraction to the lyrics like they’re fighting amongst themselves to be the centre of attention when Ogechi is more than capable of carrying the verse by herself. Just to be clear, I’m not hating on ad-libs. I love artists such as Migos and Travis Scott who have plenty of memorable ad-libs and essentially built a career off of them. However, when they’re so distracting that I can’t entirely focus on the rapping, that’s when I feel they need toning down just a tad.
By the time the second chorus finishes, Ogechi orders these tremendous chants of “on gawd, on gawd, on gawd” which I have to admit is pretty fun and hard not to join in with. My criticisms of the first verse being overly chaotic don’t show up as much in the second as I can keep up with the rapping a lot more the second time around. The layered vocals serve as an advantage like Ogechi is hyping herself up rather than trying to get in front. The line “only alcoholic ‘cos we drink to our accomplishments” is much more exciting and engaging with 2 voices delivering the same line, even if it does slightly nab from Drake’s lyric “drinking every night because we drink to my accomplishments” from his song Headlines. A final chorus and a round of chants of “on gawd” wrap things up, with Ogechi quietly spurting off into her own crazy version of the chorus by herself, giggling right to the end.
It’s clear to see how much fun Ogechi is having on this track, and it’s such an infectious amount of joy and hyper-activeness that it’s difficult not to feel it yourself. The best way I can describe On Gawd is like someone giving you a bag of sweets and eating them all at once. A sugary sweet mouthful to indulge in.