JZyNO has completed it. As the most popular Afrobeats song to date from Liberia, his song Butta My Bread has received over 160 million downloads and streaming across all platforms.
JZyNO records most of his music in Ghana, where the song, which features Ghanaian artist Lasmid, was recorded.
“The process of Butta My Bread was crazy. We didn’t see it coming, that was not the song we had in mind to record when we were about to go to the studio, but Lasmid and I just came up with that song,” he tells me.
“I was in a hurry to travel to Liberia so I’m like: ‘Bro, this is it – the song is great, that’s it.’
“I knew the song was a big song in myself, but not that it was going to blow the world, I didn’t see that coming.”
JZyNO put a lot of effort into this achievement. He first relocated to Ghana in order to finance his football studies.
However, once it failed as a career, he started hanging out at recording studios and hanging out with street pals who were into rap.
“I started having interest because they all used to hail me, like: ‘Bro you’re dope, you’re special.’
“So I was like: ‘Since they’re giving me the courage, let me pay attention to this music thing and start learning about it’.”
He began using a computer and tiny headphones to record tunes. He returned to Liberia in 2018 after beginning to get recognition, and in 2019 he released his first hit song, Kpan Kpan Me.
“During coronavirus time there were not many artists that dropped projects, so I think there was space – some holes – that made my song blow in Liberia,” he says modestly.
Later, JZyNO returned to Ghana after concluding that the Liberian music scene lacked the framework required to sustain him for the next stage of his career.
“It’s been tough out here in Ghana,” he says.
“I’ve had dreams about him five different times already. He gave me the microphone to freestyle at his concert – imagine he was in my city when he did that in my dream!
“So God uses him through dreams to make me what I am right now. That’s funny, but it’s real for me, Kendrick Lamar is a prophet to me.”
