Pheelz Good

Pheelz Good

In 2021, when Pheelz released his debut EP, Hear Me Out, the acclaimed producer was attempting to navigate the well-trodden path from behind the boards to being a star in his own right. In the years that followed, Pheelz (born Phillip Moses) worked his way to the top of the Afropop genre thanks to an unbeatable mix of addictive lyrics, breezy instrumentals and an infectious zest for life that’s as gratifying as it is inimitable. “It felt like a movie—and it still feels like a movie,” Pheelz tells Apple Music of his breakout. “It just feels good to have a great time, go around the world and perform, make more music and experience more things in life. I get to see the good and bad in everything as well, and it’s all part of my experience. It’s a blessing I don’t take for granted at all.” Pheelz’s 2023 EP Pheelz Good is a practice in recognising the utility of emotions and staying present through the range of them. Running through influences from fuji, street-pop, R&B and pop, Pheelz takes a nostalgic look at his dreams and reflects on how they’ve come true while paying homage to his journey. “What this project has shown me is that it is OK to feel all these emotions, and that my feelings are valid,” Pheelz says. “It’s a project for the lover, for the bad guy on the streets trying to freshen up and look fly, and also for the reserved introvert that wants to chill and listen to good music at the club. It caters to everybody and every single emotion, because I feel like people have felt these emotions one way or the other over the years. I think people will see a little bit of themselves in the songs and vibe with it.” With blockbuster appearances from Davido and BNXN fka Buju on “Electricity” and “Finesse” respectively, Pheelz crafts a project that deftly balances moments of pure star power with others grounded in humanity and camaraderie, as he does on “Ewele”. Read on as Pheelz talks us through Pheelz Good, track by track. “Ballin” “It’s crazy because I actually had ‘Ballin’ before the Hear Me Out EP was recorded and produced, and that was before the lockdown. It’s a song that feels like one of those prophetic tracks for me because, when I recorded ‘Ballin’, I wasn’t balling. I was just trying to check out my situation at that time, and manifest better times through sounds and vibrations. It’s a song for the unbelievers and people that don’t really see what I see in myself, as well as those people that are forcing me to be otherwise. I’m telling them, ‘I have this under control and I’m going to ball on you when the time is right.’ I also produced the song.” “Stand by You” “‘Stand by You’ was produced and written by me as well. With ‘Stand by You’, I felt like I had people in my life that I needed to appreciate with the lyrics. All through my life, I’ve been a product of people standing by me and looking out for me. So one time, I had an epiphany that I needed to write a song that explains that to myself and something that people can use to appreciate their loved ones, and stand by them as well. It’s a song that speaks about undying love. It’s not limited to romantic love; it’s about love in its true essence. So I’m saying, ‘I know you’ve got me, but I’ve got you as well and I’m going to stand by you regardless of what we go through. So whatever we go through, you’ve got me.’” “Pheelz Like Summer” “It was produced by Miichkel and me, he’s the same producer who produced ‘Finesse’. I feel like ‘Pheelz Like Summer’ is Part B for ‘Stand by You’. I felt like I wasn’t done talking about love yet, and being a lover boy on the EP. [This] is that butterfly-in-my-belly type of song where you are just head over heels for a girl, and she breaks down all your walls. When she’s around, it just feels like summer and everything is bright, beautiful and great.” “Electricity” [Pheelz & Davido] “That’s a golden vibe for sure and the craziest thing is, we recorded ‘Electricity’ in 2021. We finished the whole song in 2021, and it was supposed to be the first single out in 2022 but then ‘Finesse’ happened, and I had to pause and wait for it to run its course. But shout out to Davido. I wrote this song in a very dark place, and I was searching for light, and I was just going through a dark experience in my life. That’s why there’s a line there that says, ‘I see darkness around me but I know I’m the light’ and another says, ‘Life is not that deep/It’s all about the energy.’ Those were the lines that I was thinking about when I was down and in the dark, and just low on energy and vibrations. It’s a deep, sad song, but it is happy at the same time so it balances out.” “Finesse” [Pheelz & BNXN fka Buju] “‘Finesse’ was produced by Miichkel and I. It is about getting into that headspace of being a baller and just wanting to finesse things. Like I was explaining, it’s one of the emotions on the EP. It’s just being a bad guy, wanting to go to the club, pop bottles and have a good time with a folake [girl] for the night. ‘Finesse’ is just highlighting that lifestyle and that mood. I had recorded the song and finished it, so I posted a snippet of it that day and, by the next day, it was a hit all over social media. Two days later, BNXN fka Buju hit me up in the DMs and he was like, ‘Yo, is this just a TikTok sound or is it an actual song recorded?’ I told him that it was my record and asked if he wanted to jump on it, he was like, ‘Hell yeah. Let’s link up.’ So, I took out my first verse and made the second verse the first verse and put BNXN on the second verse. That’s how ‘Finesse’ happened.” “Pablo Escobar” “‘Pablo Escobar’ was produced by me as well. It was inspired by my dad. He has this gift of dreams and seeing visions, and throughout my life, he has seen a couple of visions about my life, but there’s one that always stands out for me. It’s the one where he said that other people are riding on horses, donkeys, lions and other types of animals but he sees me on an elephant. He says that means two things—the first, that it might take me longer to get where I need to get, because I’m taking one giant step after the other. It also means that whenever I get to where I need to be, the world shakes. There’s a line in the song that says, ‘These are the signs foretold by my papa/Say when the elephant steps in, it’s over/Pablo Escobar.’ The whole song came from those three lines, then I just built the song around them, and the beat around the music.” “Emi Laye Mi” “It’s a song about self-respect, self-appreciation and self-love. It’s basically just about knowing your worth. It talks about how people are often going to try to talk down on who you are and what you’re about but you having to be assured about your identity and your journey. People will be able to relate to it, because sometimes life puts you in a place where situations are not ideal, or what you want them to be. But you just need to be brave and secure in who you are. It’s also one of my favourite songs on the project and I’m really proud of it.” “Ewele” “‘Ewele’ is a sneaky song. As an artist, there are some people that inspire you to create some kind of art. I feel like there are certain people in my life who I wouldn’t want to mention, who inspired ‘Ewele’. There are experiences in my life as well that inspire ‘Ewele’. I just felt the need to put it all into a song. Back when I used to live in Bariga, it was slang that we used to say [for] ‘my guy’. The whole hook just says that whatever discussion I’m going to have with my guy is going to be based on the street level. The song describes my experience of being inspired by the street and remembering where I’m coming from.”

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