Today we’d like to introduce you to Babatunde Akinboboye.
Babatunde, before we jump into specific questions about your work, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I guess the story starts in my sophomore year of high school. I was tricked into joining the choir before I even knew the school had a choir and I was freaking out because I didn’t know how to sing. Up to this point, the only music I was interested in was hip hop. Only hip hop. No R&B, no jazz, only hip hop. I ended up falling in love with choral music before the end of the first rehearsal. I knew immediately that I wanted to do this for a living so I kept trying to sing in better choirs and taking voice lessons. One day, a voice teacher suggested that I consider singing opera instead of choral music. I was like, “Nope! Opera is boring and weird,” but he convinced me to try a few different singing techniques and operatic sounds started coming out of my face! It felt kind of like discovering a superpower back then and I wanted to keep getting better. The same teacher suggested that I do compete in a local classical singing competition and I won! That kind of let me know that I might be able to do this. I decided to go to Cal State Northridge to study vocal performance. I got into the program and they immediately cast me in the program’s next opera production. This was my very first time having to learn a full opera role and it was very challenging for me. Necessity being the mother of invention, I figured out that if I set some of the opera to a hip hop beat in my head it’s a lot easier for me to learn. It’s kind of became my secret weapon for the rest of college and the early part of my career.
Sometimes I’d have to learn some very tricky music but I could usually find a relationship to a hip-hop verse, or beat, or flow that I could use to make it easier for me. I needed it less as my career progressed but, in my head, the relationship between opera and hip hop remained. I always hoped that someone would one-day combine opera and hip hop, but I never saw it happen successfully. I’d often get out of a long opera rehearsal and listen to Kendrick Lamar or Lil Wayne on the drive home as loud as I can to cleanse the palate. The problem is that I’d still have opera songs stuck in my head so I’d just end up singing them to the beat of the hip hop song playing in my car. One day, I decided to record one of these solo car performances for my Facebook friends. I sang Largo al Factotum from The Barber of Seville over the beat from Kendrick Lamar’s “Humble” and posted it on Facebook because I thought some of my friends outside of the opera world might find it entertaining. It ended up going viral and I suddenly was getting calls from Time, radio stations, and tv shows. I also now had thousands of new “fans” asking for more. I made another video shortly after to see if it was just a fluke, but it was well received. The phrase “Hip Hopera” kept showing up and people started calling me the Hip Hopera Guy so I owned it.
I also realized that I wasn’t the only one that liked the idea of Hip Hopera music and I had already been doing it in my car for years. I crowdfunded and EP of three songs that I called “Della Citta” (Italian for ‘Of the city’) that I released a few months later along with a music video for the single “Largo (Figaro).” It was getting tens of thousands of streams and tons of love online with almost no hate. I realized that there’s a missing link here. I almost felt obligated to make more of this music so I started a company, made some merch and started working on putting out music regularly. The current pandemic has slowed those plans a little, but hipper hopera is coming.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Ha! Nope! But most of those struggles were internal. Being a black opera singer already came with a heightened level of imposter syndrome for me. Transitioning to the popular music industry just compounded it. Add on the fact that I’m a weird kind of perfectionist, so the necessary mistakes that come with learning felt like signs that I should “stay in my lane.” I also just got overwhelmed enough to almost quit before I got started. Putting on an opera is very different from getting an album recorded. Learning a brand new industry was difficult enough, but there’s also a tidal wave of advice, suggestions, cautionary tales, “you shoulda”s and so on.
Please tell us about your work.
My name is Babatunde Akinboboye and I’m the Hip Hopera Guy. I make operatic hip hop music and content juxtaposing classical and hip hop music and culture. I’m pretty sure I’m the only opera singer doing what I’m doing successfully.
So, what’s next? Any big plans?
I’ve got some new music coming out very soon. I’ve been figuring out my sound and what I want this music to really be. I think I’ve figured it out and I can’t wait to share it! It’s going to be dope!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://hiphoperaworld.com/
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/babatunde_hiphopera/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/babatundehiphopera/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/tundehiphopera
- Other: https://youtube.com/bobbysangs
Image Credit:
Valerie Durant
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