After 6 Months Without A Song Or A Verse, Lemuel Knight Came Back With A Broken Piece

After 6 Months Without A Song Or A Verse, Lemuel Knight Came Back With A Broken Piece - Paul McPetros

Dressed up in a red T-shirt and a grey short with a cheap footwear that looked like sneakers, I arrived at Lemuel Knight's residence located at Angwa Ngas, Yelwa, Bauchi State, few minutes after 6pm on Wednesday, June 7th, 2019 to conduct an interview with him. The interview happened on a pavement outside his house surrounded by ambience of sounds and bright lights from moving vehicles and noises from passerbys heading home after their day jobs.

I started off the interview telling Lemuel Knight my unpopular opinion about his music. Prior to the release of the realest song he has ever written (Broken Piece) as he acclaimed, I have always been critical of his music. I detest his delivery and songwriting. I believe he often recycle his lines which he said could be true or not. But now I'm a believer of his music. Thanks to the Broken Piece song.

Lemuel Knight also know as The Street Legend is a Hip Hop artiste; Founder and President of Next2Mic a sort of indie record label established in 2015 with a personal manager and two PR guys. Lemuel Knight grew up listening to Nas. He referred to Nas as his Second Father. He studied Nas' music and as a result of that, he's a better person. Nas is also his Teacher.

Lemuel Knight is a Catholic. He goes to Church but not on Sundays. He prefers to go to Church on weekdays in the early hours of the morning after he is up from sleep to pray and participate in the Mass. He stated his reason for boycotting Sundays to the ceremonies that crowd the day and the absence of the serenity he craves for when he prays to God.

In the Hive (Bauchi State), Lemuel Knight has the number when it comes to discographies. He has five mixtapes to his name: Listen Close; Message 4 Tha Madness; BeeHive Salad, Sumtin Lil' Extra and The Last Tape. The Last Tape was should to be his last body of work but Lemuel Knight is currently working on the sixth one he titled "SIX". When asked why all his projects are mixtapes, he said he is not yet ready to make an album because there is a lot that goes into making one and he wants to take his time and just trust the process.

Looking at Lemuel Knight you can tell there is more to him than just making mixtapes. He's an entrepreneur taking after the steps of Popular Hip Hop Icons like Jay Z, P. Diddy, Nas etc. When I see Lemuel Knight, I see Nipsey Hussle.

"We as young people should start owning businesses and not go around begging people", Lemuel Knight commented. Lemuel Knight has an enterprise called Lendo Store in the business of selling merchandises like Urban T-shirts, face caps, tickets for events etc. The store has an e-commerce website where customers can made orders online. The store is yet to be officially open. Along side the store, Lemuel Knight has another franchise, Lendo Skills Acquisition Center. The center would be a place of learning where young people can acquire skills that would keep them of the streets. This is Lemuel Knight giving back to the society. He is one of the active Hip Hop artiste in Bauchi State that is business inclined. He attributed his flair for business to the knowledge he received from his Tertiary Education. Lemuel Knight is an Higher National Diploma in Business Adminstration from Federal Polytechnic Bauchi.

Broken Piece is the song of the moment. The song is defining Lemuel Knight and ushering him into a phase where he can be called a lyricist. The song is well written and performed. Lemuel Knight said the song was birthed after a misunderstanding he had with his partner (girlfriend) and he was torn apart.

"Immediately after the whole thing, I started writing bars. I just wrote like 40 bars straight up", he said. He went on to add that he fell in love with the process of writing the song cause it placed him back on track. And he has recorded more songs for his mixtape. In other words, his girlfriend inspired the song and ignited his creative juice. The song was released with her consent. The song is the first brick to the building up of the Six Mixtape scheduled to be release somewhere into the year. The release of the song was done strategically through email. Lemuel Knight asked his fans who cared to have the song to send in their email addresses and he would mail them the song. And he did mailed to over a thousand fans. He said he chose this strategic because he wanted to feel connected to his fans rather than referring them to links.

Lemuel Knight acknowledged the hustle of the finest graffiti artist in Northern Nigeria on the song, "god like Jesse Josh painting a scene" he rapped. Jesse Josh is a Hip Hop artist taking the art of graffiti to another level. Lemuel Knight regards him as a brother and a god at what he does.

We love the new Lemuel Knight. He's back with some creativity and fire shut up in his bones. And he's probably thinking of taking off his dreadlocks. Soon. The people of Bauchi State and citizens of Pop Culture across borders should anticipate the emergence of Lendo Podcast too.

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Paul McPetros is a music journalist and a music business wannabe executive. His mantra is, to share knowledge and provide solutions. You can contact him on Facebook; Instagram; Twitter @paulmcpetros